WHY BLUE RHYTHM ?

In the 1950′s ,several young jazz fiends in Bombay started the first club and only jazz “magazine” in India. The magazine was called Blue Rhythmm.. From what I hear, it was a mimeographed broadsheet that included record reviews, observations on the genre, and even reviews of local musicians. It would be great to see a copy of this on this site !

Yusuf Curmally, Coover Guzder, Niranjan Jhaveri,Soli Sorabjee,Jahangir Dalal, Praful Mehta Farrokh Mehta, were the founders of this passion fuelled mission. Here is what Farrokh has to say about the club:

“……is how the jazz club idea took root in the late 40′s and 50′s in Bombay. There were Sunday afternoon jam sessions in a building (warehouse?) on what is now P D’mello Road. Rusi Captain (fabulous and ahead of his time) on the piano, Rusi Sethna on the clarinet, Dhun Nasikwala (drums). The “visitors” included Noman Mobsby (divine tenor sax) and even Rudy Cotton on a couple of occasions. The audience? A handful of jazz junkies.

Beyond this, there was life with Norman Mobsby with Dizzy Sal (piano) at the Ambassador Hotel, still standing close to the sea. We were broke enough to sit with one coffee for a full hour from6.30 to 7.30 before the moneyed dinner-clients came and we were then politely booted out. The coffee was passable and, for us then, expensive; the jazz — mostly in response to our passionate cries — was fabulous. And at Volga Restauarant (long converted into shops!) at Fountain, Sunday mornings were jam session time with Mickey Correa (clarinet), Hal Green (tenor sax) as “guests”.

The beauty of it was that we were all broke and could afford one or maybe two coffees. But we were a helluva audience, enthusing the musicians who otherwise were pestered with “dance requests” by the hoi polloi.

Aahh ! them were the days!!!!!!!”

Farrokh

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