They say the only way to learn jazz and blues is to live it. So when I expressed an interest in a story on the revival of jazz and blues, its “aficionados” agreed to cooperate, but only on the condition that as a “newbie”, I first experience a live evening.

These “aficionados” are a pretty inclusive club, always eager for new converts to join the fold. And so I headed to Haze Blues and Jazz Bar (frequented by Arundhati Roy and Soli Sorabjee) in Delhi to catch the Shillong-based blues band Soulmate unplugged in a two-hour performance.

Climbing the smoky stairs adorned with posters of geniuses like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Marvin Gaye, I felt as close to New Orleans as I could in New Delhi. The ambience here, much like the music, is smoky, sensual and smooth. After an edgy and mind-boggling performance by the band and some freewheeling chat with the regulars, not to mention the gyan on the music, I’m a “newbie” no more.

Jazz isn’t exactly the newest story as nightlife in the Capital and other cities throws up so much ‘new’ stuff—floating nightclubs, music-and-theme ambiences, lounge, rock groupies... Jazz and blues, as old as our grandfathers if not the hills, may seem like part of a been-there-done-that world. So, these days, when soothing lounge music is all the rage, what has jazz and blues—often thought of as elitist and the preserve of pretentious middle aged men—got to offer? It is rich, complex and sensual. Besides, as Louis Armstrong put it, “it is life”.

... contd.