Naresh Fernandes

The man who was untired of repetitions
The bandleader Mickey Correa, the last link to an incredibly rich part of Bombay’s musical history, passed away on September 22, 2011, at the age of 98. This picture was probably shot around 1939, when Correa was hired to lead an orchestra at the Taj in Bombay. He stayed there until 1961. Over the decades, his band was a nursery for fresh talent. The musicians who emerged from his ensemble included the pianist Lucilla Pacheco, the saxophonists Johnny Baptist, Norman Mobsby and George Pacheco, and the trumpet players Chic Chocolate and Frank Fernand.
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Naresh Fernandes
Gilberto Gil at Azad Maidan, 2004
Gilberto Gil greeted the news that he’d been appointed Brazil’s country’s culture minister in 2003 with a line that could have come from one of his densely allusive songs. The superstar told one interviewer: “I've gone from being the stone thrower to [being] the glass.”
Naresh Fernandes
An Easter sermon
In 2013, I started exchanging mail with Terrence Davin, a retired pastor from British Columbia, in Canada, who spent his youth making music in north India. He tracked me down after I appeared on a radio programme in Australia. Here, this Easter weekend, is the wonderfully detailed story he sent me then:
Naresh Fernandes
The gentleman with the saxophone
One of the biggest mysteries about Hecke Kingdom, who cut a distinctive figure on the Bombay jazz stage in the 1950s and ’60s with his enormous baritone saxophone, was how exactly he pronounced his name. Was the “e” supposed to be silent? As it turns out, you could call him whatever you liked. Though his family didn’t pronounce the “e”, his fans often did. But whether they called him “Heck” or “Heckey”, as concert brochures routinely spelled his name, most people knew one thing about him: that he was a very talented musician.
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Naresh Fernandes
Toni Pinto's Summertime in Toronto
In mid-2011, along with the bills and magazines in my mailbox, I discovered that someone had posted me the first real letter I’d received in about a decade. It was from Canada and bore a stamp featuring a polar bear. It turned out to have been from Toni Pinto, who led a band at the Ambassador Hotel on Churchgate Street (now Veer Nariman Road) for 16 years, starting in 1958. Pinto wanted to know when Taj Mahal Foxtrot would be on the shelves and took the opportunity to enclose a clipping about himself. The pianist has divided his time between Bombay and Canada for several years and recently took part in that country’s largest talent contest for people older than 65. He beat out all the other contestants. He won the Senior Star Trophy and a spot on a TV programme.
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Naresh Fernandes
Music grows where Maurice goes, 1969
In the Bandra of my youth, there weren’t many vehicles around, and the few that did happen to rumble by to interrupt our games of street hockey were almost uniformly Fiats or Ambassadors. It’s no wonder, then, that the Bajaj Matador van parked in St Peter’s Colony always got a second glance from pedestrians on Pali Hill Road. Everyone knew the owner. If you didn’t, a sign on the side of the van made his identity clear: amidst a cascade of musical notes was the declaration, “Music grows where Maurice goes.”
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Naresh Fernandes
Rudy rides again, 1963
This photo, featuring Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn shaking hands with the great tenor saxophone player Rudy Cotton in Delhi in 1963, was sent to me by Percy Khatow, the Indian musician’s son. As regular readers of this site know, Rudy Cotton was born Cawas Khatau and descended from a long line of producers of Parsi drama. I had the pleasure of speaking to Percy Khatow briefly when I visited the UK in 2012. Though he has a condition that makes it difficult for him to conduct long conversations, Percy called to ask if I’d received the photos and brochures he’d taken the trouble to email me.Sadly, Percy’s sister, Zenia, had passed away just three weeks before I spoke to him. Despite the recent loss, Zenia’s husband, Tony Parr, was generous with his time and sent me a long message about the family. Rudy Cotton married Nargiz Nanabhai Balaporia in 1938. “They had two children, my late wife Zena and Percy,” Tony wrote. Zena was born in Rangoon in 1939, and Percy was born in Bombay in 1946.
Naresh Fernandes
A wild, weird, pathetic wail, 1890
Their singing is like “a sound, good kick, something which can be felt and not described”. That’s what The Times of India suggested after hearing the Fisk Jubilee Singers perform in Bombay on January 8, 1890.
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Naresh Fernandes
The man with the golden guitar
In April, after lying in the vaults for nearly four decades, Amancio D'Silva's album Sapna finally made its way into the world. Accompanied by sitarist Clem Alford, tabla player Jahlib Millar and saxophonist/flautist Lyn Dobson, D'Silva "construct[s] a deeply evocative set transcending the realm of both jazz and Indian music", says the label behind the release.You can listen to the tracks and buy them on Bandcamp.
Naresh Fernandes
Swinging in Bombay, 1948
One day in the late 1940s, musicians Hal and Henry Green asked Bombay businessman JJ Davar if he’d lend them his extensive collection of swing discs so that they could start a jazz record listening club. After tossing the idea around for a while, they decided that it would be a better idea to set up an organisation to perform live music instead.
Naresh Fernandes
On Two, Two, Two-Two, some blasts from India's trumpet past – and present
Today, 2/2/22, lends itself to a brassy pun. Since it's too, too, too-too, Ron Gordon, a retired school teacher in California, has suggested that it be celebrated as Trumpet Day.
Naresh Fernandes
'Making people happy': Badal Roy and his tabla funk
On January 18, Badal Roy's niece, Piali Roy, announced that the pioneering tabla player had passed away. Here's a piece I wrote about him in 1998.
Naresh Fernandes
Swinging rhythms from Italy, Calcutta 1933
This note is from 2011, when I started publishing outtakes from my book, Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age:
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Naresh Fernandes
A woman in a man's world
One evening in 2007, as I wrapped up a presentation at an art festival in Panjim on the role Goan jazz musicians had played in bringing swing to the Hindi film industry in the 1950s, a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes. “You played a track with my mummy on it,” she said.
Naresh Fernandes
Arthur Gracias and his Indo-jazz journey: Part 2
The search is eternal and the journey is everlasting.
Naresh Fernandes
The musical journey of Indo-jazz guitarist Arthur Gracias: Part 1
“Early mornings, I could hear the church bells ringing, azaan from the mosque and chants from the Hindu temples.”
Naresh Fernandes
Finally, a photo of Mena Silas, the man who wrote 'Taj Mahal – A Foxtrot'
In December 2020, just over nine years after I first wrote about my attempt to dig out information about Mena Silas, the Bombay musician who had composed Taj Mahal: A Foxtrot in 1936, I received an email message from Jean Samuel in England.
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Naresh Fernandes
A Waltz for Georgette and a tale of the Elephant Boy, 1937
In 2011, I posted a note about Mena Silas, the now-forgotten Baghdadi Jewish composer who wrote Taj Mahal, the foxtrot after which my book is named. A month later, a woman named Patricia Kaden who lives in Cremona, Italy, was sorting through the papers of her mother, Georgia, and came upon a small note indicating that Mena Silas had written a tune for her titled Waltz for Georgette. Patricia did an internet search for Silas and found me.
Naresh Fernandes
Searching for Mena Silas, the man who wrote 'Taj Mahal: A Foxtrot', 1936
My book, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, takes its name from the tune below recorded in April 1936 by Crickett Smith and his Symphonians, the gents in that photo. They had been booked by the management of Taj Mahal hotel in Apollo Bunder to perform there for the 1936 summer season.
Naresh Fernandes
The girl with the yellow shoes, 1954
In the 1950s, the Anglo-Indian crooner Pamela McCarthy was among the most striking figures on the Bombay bandstand. She was always dressed in a stunning ball gown. Her swinging voice kept dancers on their floor to the very end of the set. And then, of course, there was her wheelchair.
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Naresh Fernandes

Naresh Fernandes

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The man who was untired of repetitions

Naresh Fernandes

Gilberto Gil at Azad Maidan, 2004

Naresh Fernandes

An Easter sermon

Naresh Fernandes

The gentleman with the saxophone

Naresh Fernandes

Toni Pinto's Summertime in Toronto

Naresh Fernandes

Music grows where Maurice goes, 1969

Naresh Fernandes

Rudy rides again, 1963

Naresh Fernandes

A wild, weird, pathetic wail, 1890

Naresh Fernandes

The man with the golden guitar

Naresh Fernandes

Swinging in Bombay, 1948

Naresh Fernandes

On Two, Two, Two-Two, some blasts from India's trumpet past – and present

Naresh Fernandes

'Making people happy': Badal Roy and his tabla funk

Naresh Fernandes

Swinging rhythms from Italy, Calcutta 1933

Naresh Fernandes

A woman in a man's world

Naresh Fernandes

Arthur Gracias and his Indo-jazz journey: Part 2

Naresh Fernandes

The musical journey of Indo-jazz guitarist Arthur Gracias: Part 1

Naresh Fernandes

Finally, a photo of Mena Silas, the man who wrote 'Taj Mahal – A Foxtrot'

Naresh Fernandes

A Waltz for Georgette and a tale of the Elephant Boy, 1937

Naresh Fernandes

Searching for Mena Silas, the man who wrote 'Taj Mahal: A Foxtrot', 1936

Naresh Fernandes

The girl with the yellow shoes, 1954

Naresh Fernandes