Any journey starts with a single step. The journey tofinding out where the roots of jazz in India lay, started with a curiouscomment. For Susheel Kurien, it was a pertinent and significant push to anadventure that last more than four years and culminated in a documentary film.Kurien is the director of ‘Finding Carlton “ Uncovering the story of jazz inIndia’.
Susheel was working in New York while learning jazz guitarfrom Jack Wilkins, a jazz great. “He once let me improvise and play a fewsolos. After I finished, he said, ‘You’re swinging!’, which was a greatcompliment. He then wondered how I got so good, considering that we didn’treally have jazz in India. That got me thinking,” says Susheel, going back theincident that happened in 2007.
That was when the journey started. Susheel began to searchfor information online, looking for jazz musicians, guitar players inparticular, who would have been around over 50 years ago. That’s when he heardof Carlton Kitto. He called Carlton in Kolkata and began to correspond withhim, getting more information, filling in gaps in his research, speaking tojazz fans, including those who were responsible for the Jazz Yatras in Mumbai.
Four years later, in 2012, after meeting and talking tomusicians, the film was finally done. But not without overcoming the obstacles that often come with a projectlike this. “Money was a big handicap. The funding required for something likethis is immense. So I put up a trailer online and slowly people started to showinterest in helping out with this project,” Susheel explains. Out of the 110people from all parts of the world that helped the film out financially, 80were from India, and one, from Goa. Vicente Costa from Curtorim. “I came acrossthis project and I really shared Susheel’s vision. It also gave me a chance tobe a part of something big, involving music and film.” Since India’s jazzhistory has Goan links, with artists like Mickky Correa and Leslie Godinho,amongst others, it was only right that ‘Finding Carlton’ had one Goan associateproducer.
The film takes you through jazz in India, seen through theeyes of Carlton Kitto, Louis Banks, Ruben Rebeiro and others, as they talk ofjamming with the Duke (Ellington), finding Sonny Rollins in an ashram outsideMumbai and how Kolkata, once a huge centre for jazz, lost out on entertainmentdue to communism.
