Captured by : Jazz Band - Narayan Pissurlenkar
Pics: Narayan Pissurlenkar
Gypsy jazz music is hard to ignore, states Buland Shukla, the co-founding member of The Banjara Quartet. “You can't just sit there eating your pizza or sipping on a beer while listening to it. It demands participation from the audience,” he says.
And he couldn't be more right. As the four members of the band- Rachel Koyama on vocals, Mariusz Dziundzio on double bass, Buland Shukla and Satya Nunes on guitars start off on a peppy French tune as they rehearse for their upcoming concert at Alliance Francaise, you can't help but want to grab a partner and get on the dance floor and sing along with Rachel despite not knowing a single word of what she is singing. It is the kind of music that makes you want to dance away your troubles and instantly put you in a cheerful mood. And the music aalso has a very interesting history which Shukla is only to happy to share.
“ Gypsy jazz is the music of the Sinto Gypsies from the region of France, Netherland and Belgium. It was developed by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Django had an unfortunate accident and burnt a few of his fingers in a fire leaving him with only two functiional fingers. So he started playing the guitar to keep his fingers going and developed this whole new style of music which was inspired by classical, jazz and gypsy folk music of that time i.e. in the 30's. There are no percussion instruments traditonally in this kind of music. The guitar provides the perscussions,” he states. Howver despite it's liveliness, the music has just recently begun to pick up, but even this is hugely concentrated in Europe and hardly known of in India as yet. “ The gypies used to be looked down upon and their music wasn't given much attention. However when the next generation of guitarists picked it up and began playing contemporary tunes in that style, people began recognising this new sound, even so it took time to develop,” says Shukla.
The music instruments for this genre of music is also hard to find. “The guitars are the main difference in this style of music. Django used a guitar that was developed by Maccaferri and there are only 30-40 original ones around the world. As there is no amplification for this and it is a communal form of music, the guitars have to be really loud and this guitar does that. The mechanism of the instrument is different too. There are no fixed bridges, the style of playing is different for instance you don't rest your hand on the guitar, the strings are different and much more softer. Also the picks are hard to find. They are thicker than usual “ 3-5 mm thick as compared to the 0.2 to 0.3 mm we use in normal guitars,” says Shukla, who got into this genre of music about 12-13 years ago. “It's a very daunting style of music and you are always hesitant to take that step to move towards this style. It was only after I met a few gypsy guitarists who helped me out and convinced me about it that I got into this genre. Even then it took me 1- 2 years to get comfortable with the style,” he admits.
The Banjara Quartet was something that he came up with his pal Robert Kres from Austria about three years ago. While the band consists of four core members , they have collaborated with many other musicians for their shows. “The thing about Goa is that it is a perfect place to meet a lot of musicians here as there are a lot of people passing by this state,” says the Ahmedabad born Shukla, who found Dziundzio through a common friend while on the beach. Dziundzio, who is originally from Poland, is a member of Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai since 2011. Nunes who hails from Ribandar has been with the band for just two months as has Koyama who is a vocalist from Mumbai.
“ Although I have been singing for awhile with other bands too I had never tried my hand at gypsy jazz. I wanted to give it a shot because I always liked the sound of it. I found it a very beautiful genre so I wanted to see if it would work out and so far I have been having fun exploring my vocal range,” says Koyama.
In fact the addition of vocals to the band is something new. “We are constantly developing out skills and recently we started playing around with some contemporary songs and Hindi songs. Now after three years, we have started to understand what this music is all about and that we can interprete it in our own way,” says Shukla. And despite the great response to their music, the fact that this genre is still in its budding stage can also be attributed to it's struggle with exposure, believes Dziundzio.” Many people find it easier to just hire Dj's who will play any genre of music for three hours rather than hiring a live act as it takes more effort. And this is a problem everywhere and it is a pity,” he says.
With the music having it's origin in France, the band decided to try out playing in front of French people and thus the Alliance Francaise concert came about. “Because this music is from France, a lot of songs are French and we thought that it would be a nice challenge to do this in front of group of people who are learning french. It is also nostalgic for them because to find a group of people here who do gypy jazz is almost impossible still,” says Shukla.
