Toni Pinto's Summertime in Toronto

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 06:08:31 +0000

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.