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Bombay of the 60's
By arZanJuly 2nd, 2008 @ 7:36 PM City Life
I came across a great article (do not know the online source). It speaks about
what
Bombay was in the 1960's. A lot of what is written I have heard about from my
parents and grandparents. Bombay then was a less chaotic city than it is today.
Bombay & The Swinging Sixties
by STANLEY PINTO,
An old Bombay boy and night club pianist, describes the rocking times that the
city
was witness to in the 1960s.
A man called Chris Perry died in Mumbai a few weeks ago. The news didn't send
even
the tiniest ripple out onto the turgid waters of this restless megalopolis. In
its
headlong rush into tomorrow, Mumbai has become a city uncaring of the
yesterdays
from which its today is cast; constantly moulting, constantly and unconcernedly
shedding memories of times past.
Chris Perry is one such forgotten memory of the great jazz age of Mumbai that
once
was Bombay. Alongside Hecke KingdomIndia's entertainment world in the 60s, 70s
and
80s. I discovered this exciting world as a 16-year-old in 1959 when I ran into
Dorothy Jones on Colaba Causeway. Dorothy was the pianist who accompanied all
comers
on the late great impressario Hamid Sayani's Ovaltine Amateur Hour over Radio
Ceylon, the FM radio of its time. Teetering on impossible stiletto heels, her
red
hair crowned by a magnificent tres chic turban, she enveloped me in a
deliciously
bosomy hug. Hello luv, how lovely to see you, do you still sing, how is your
piano
playing, you must come and see us at Berry's, come to the jam session next
Sunday
morning. And she was gone in a cloudburst of Channel No. 5.
Sunday morning couldn't come around soon enough. When it did, I ducked my
sainted
mother after church, dashed off to the nearby railway station, and ten minutes
later
there I was at Berry's little restaurant, just past the Tea Centre on
Churchgate
Street. The band was already swinging: Dorothy at the piano was the Marian
McPartland of Bombay's jazz. Her son Robin on drums, the elegant Percy
Borthwick on
bass and behind the largest dark glasses I'd ever seen, Dennis Rosario, a
magnificent guitarist in the Barney Kessel style. A reed of a man, Georgie
Rich, who
later became a good friend, was doing a Mel Torme on Sweet Georgia Brown.
The joint, to use Cab Calloway's signature phrase, was jumping, and in ten
minutes
it changed my take on life in the fast line. I'd discovered the magical,
mesmerising, unashamedly decadent and just slightly seedy world of life and
dark.
At the far end of Churchgate Street, just across from today's Jazz by the Bay
(which
didn't exist then) was the bistro Napoli. No live band but with Bombay's first
and
only juke box, very popular with the college set.
Almost next door was The Ambassador hotel, lair of Jack Voyantzis, it's Greek
owner,
a beautiful woman always on his arm, a giant Havana ever between his teeth. The
restaurant at the hotel was called The Other Room and India's most reputed jazz
agglomeration. The Tony Pinto Quartet, was in residence. Tony Pinto was a
short,
bald martinet of a man who drilled his band to perfection in polished, if
somewhat
pre-meditated, jazz arrangements. The quartet was fronted by Norman Mobsby on
tenor
saxophone, as aggressive as Coleman Hawkins, as gentle as Ben Webster.
The Other Room was where the well-heeled went to dinner. Every night was black
tie
night, and you were Social Register if Jack knew your first name and your wife
well
enough to kiss her gently on the mouth. The wives seldom resisted, I might add.
Fifty yards down was Bombelli's, Swiss Freddi's eponymous restaurant.
Advertising
men gathered in its al fresco forecourt each evening, sipping the only genuine
(or
so Freddie said) cappuccinos in town, made from a shiny, hissing coffee
machine. A
trio played at nights. It was all very Continental.
Right next door, over a fence so low you conveniently held conversations and
exchanged criossants for pakodas across it, was Berry's. As Indian as it's
neighbour
wasn't. The Tandoori Butter Chicken to die for. And the Dorothy Jones Quartet
with
Marguerite at the mike, as the advertising said. A few years later, after
Dorothy
and all of her band had emigrated to the UK, I led my own trio there.
Across Berry's was the original Gaylord restaurant. The band was led by Ken
Cumine,
India's only jazz violinist, replete with soft suits of pure cashmere, a shiny
white
violin and radiant daughter Sweet Lorraine at the microphone.
Around the corner, just across from the Eros cinema, was the Astoria hotel with
its
famous Venice restaurant. Famous because this was the jazz musicians' jazz
hideout.
For years, the diminutive trumpeter Chris Perry led his quintet there. There
was the
incomparable Felix Torcato on piano; years later he moved to Calcutta, first
leading
a wonderful quarter and later a big band at the Oberoi Grand, with his
spectacular
wife Diane as partner and singer.
On tenor saxophone with Chris was his brother Paul, a happy laughing buddha of
a
man. And out in front was Molly, a singer in the Sarah Vaughn mould, one of the
best
we've ever seen in the country.
Some years later, the Astoria opened a second restaurant. They called it
Skyline and
it opened with a young alto saxophonist who was continued over the next three
decades to dominate the Indian jazz scene. The man was Braz Gonsalves and what
a
heart-stopping quartet it was. Xavier Fernandes, the most cerebral pianist of
his
time, Leslie Godinho, the 'dada' of the Hindi film percussionists on drums and.
dashed if I can recall the bassist. I think perhaps it was Dinshaw 'Balsi'
Balsara,
advertising art director and clothes horse who later went on to become one of
Asia's
most successful commercial photographers in Hong Kong.
When Chris Perry moved on to Calcutta, Braz shifted to the Venice. The quartet
grew
into a quintet with the addition of a tenor saxophonist. Leslie made way for
Wency,
the most dynamic young drummer of his era, and BombayAcross the road at the
Ritz
hotel was The Little Hut. Neville Thomas, one of the most dashing men around
town,
led a group called Three Guys and a Doll. The luscious Shirley Myers was the
doll.
(Thirty years later I met Shirley one evening at Jazz at the Bay and she's
still a
doll!) Later, when Molly returned from Calcutta to marry her piano player
sweetheart
Mervyn, they took over at The Little Hut for many years.
>From that spot, it was a brisk walk past Flora Fountain, where, plumb opposite
Akbarally's, were Bistro and Volga, the two most popular haunts of the younger
set.
Seby Dias held court at Bistro, with my school friend Johnny at the piano and a
hugely talented young lady called Ursula at the mike. She was the daughter of
one of
India's only baritone sax man, a grandfatherly man, gentle and wise. In
delightful
contrast, the trio that backed him was more mischief than a tribe of monkeys.
Richie
Marquis on piano, Percy on bass and Maxie on drums. But what an unbelievable
prolific trio it was. There probably hasn't been another like it since.
Off the beaten track at Kala Ghoda, around the corner from Khyber restaurant,
suddenly, from nowhere, a restaurant called La Bella opened in 1961. And it
opened
with a British sextet called the Margaret Mason band, with Margie Mason herself
on
an enthralling instrument we had never seen before: the vibraharp. As college
kids,
we s wiftly became habitues of the 11.00 a.m. coffee session. All it took was
75p
for the Espresso, not to mention the continuous acts of petty larceny to find
that
princely sum six days a week.
And finally, across from the Yacht Club at Dhanraj Mahal, there was the Alibaba
where now stands a Chinese restaurant. George Fernandes on piano, Cassie on
bass and
Louis Armstrong vocals. Wilfred on drums.
In time, riding the crest of the jazz juggernaut, these niteries were joined by
clubs at the Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi, the Nataraj on Marine Drive, the
Shalimar
at Kemp's Corner, the 2Sundowner at the Sun'n'Sand, and restaurants like the
Blue
Nile at New Marine Lines, the Talk of the Town on Marine Drive and the second
Bombelli's at Worli.
With them came new young stars. Iqbal Singh, the turbaned Navy ensign doing his
frantic Elvis Presly thing. Bonnie Remedios, India's Fats Domino. Sunder the
Gay
Caballero. Not quite jazz but what the hell.
And there was this callow, beardless fellow, barely out of short pants, who sat
in
on five minutes' notice for pianists all over town when they called in sick.
Tony
Pinto gave him lessons in jazz progressions so he'd stop inventing 'Chinese'
chords
of his own. Hecke Kingdom advised him to think long and hard about wanting to
make
this life a profession, not for someone who has a subscription to TIME magzine,
he'd
say, only half jokingly. And the cabaret girls were inordinately protective of
him
because he accompanied them on the piano impeccably, not asking for 'anything'
in
return. Then, when he inevitably did, they'd grown to like him enough to
gleefully
acquiesce.
Life was grand. Till one day it was gone. Suddenly, unexpectedly. Sadly. And
much,
much before it changed its name, Bombay metamorphosed into Mumbai.
We were left with a handful of memories. Now they too have faded. Sic transit
gloria?
http://mumbai.metblogs.com/2008/07/02/bombay-of-the-60s/
