Heartbeatgoa.memories -Bombay & The Swinging Sixties - by STANLEY PINTO

Bombay & The Swinging Sixtiesby STANLEY PINTO,An old Bombay boy and night club pianist, describes the rocking times that the citywas witness to in the 1960s.A man called Chris Perry died in Mumbai a few weeks ago. The news didn't send eventhe tiniest ripple out onto the turgid waters of this restless megalopolis. In itsheadlong rush into tomorrow, Mumbai has become a city uncaring of the yesterdaysfrom which its today is cast; constantly moulting, constantly and unconcernedlyshedding memories of times past.Chris Perry is one such forgotten memory of the great jazz age of Mumbai that oncewas Bombay. Alongside Hecke KingdomIndia's entertainment world in the 60s, 70s and80s. I discovered this exciting world as a 16-year-old in 1959 when I ran intoDorothy Jones on Colaba Causeway. Dorothy was the pianist who accompanied all comerson the late great impressario Hamid Sayani's Ovaltine Amateur Hour over RadioCeylon, the FM radio of its time. Teetering on impossible stiletto heels, her redhair crowned by a magnificent tres chic turban, she enveloped me in a deliciouslybosomy hug. Hello luv, how lovely to see you, do you still sing, how is your pianoplaying, you must come and see us at Berry's, come to the jam session next Sundaymorning. 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 saintedmother after church, dashed off to the nearby railway station, and ten minutes laterthere I was at Berry's little restaurant, just past the Tea Centre on ChurchgateStreet. The band was already swinging: Dorothy at the piano was the MarianMcPartland of Bombay's jazz. Her son Robin on drums, the elegant Percy Borthwick onbass and behind the largest dark glasses I'd ever seen, Dennis Rosario, amagnificent guitarist in the Barney Kessel style. A reed of a man, Georgie Rich, wholater 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 minutesit 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 (whichdidn't exist then) was the bistro Napoli. No live band but with Bombay's first andonly 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. Therestaurant at the hotel was called The Other Room and India's most reputed jazzagglomeration. 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 somewhatpre-meditated, jazz arrangements. The quartet was fronted by Norman Mobsby on tenorsaxophone, 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 tienight, and you were Social Register if Jack knew your first name and your wife wellenough 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. Advertisingmen gathered in its al fresco forecourt each evening, sipping the only genuine (orso Freddie said) cappuccinos in town, made from a shiny, hissing coffee machine. Atrio played at nights. It was all very Continental.Right next door, over a fence so low you conveniently held conversations andexchanged criossants for pakodas across it, was Berry's. As Indian as it's neighbourwasn't. The Tandoori Butter Chicken to die for. And the Dorothy Jones Quartet withMarguerite at the mike, as the advertising said. A few years later, after Dorothyand 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 whiteviolin and radiant daughter Sweet Lorraine at the microphone.Around the corner, just across from the Eros cinema, was the Astoria hotel with itsfamous Venice restaurant. Famous because this was the jazz musicians' jazz hideout.For years, the diminutive trumpeter Chris Perry led his quintet there. There was theincomparable Felix Torcato on piano; years later he moved to Calcutta, first leadinga wonderful quarter and later a big band at the Oberoi Grand, with his spectacularwife Diane as partner and singer.On tenor saxophone with Chris was his brother Paul, a happy laughing buddha of aman. And out in front was Molly, a singer in the Sarah Vaughn mould, one of the bestwe've ever seen in the country.Some years later, the Astoria opened a second restaurant. They called it Skyline andit opened with a young alto saxophonist who was continued over the next threedecades to dominate the Indian jazz scene. The man was Braz Gonsalves and what aheart-stopping quartet it was. Xavier Fernandes, the most cerebral pianist of histime, 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'smost successful commercial photographers in Hong Kong.When Chris Perry moved on to Calcutta, Braz shifted to the Venice. The quartet grewinto 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 Ritzhotel 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 adoll!) Later, when Molly returned from Calcutta to marry her piano player sweetheartMervyn, they took over at The Little Hut for many years.>From that spot, it was a brisk walk past Flora Fountain, where, plumb oppositeAkbarally'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 ahugely talented young lady called Ursula at the mike. She was the daughter of one ofIndia's only baritone sax man, a grandfatherly man, gentle and wise. In delightfulcontrast, the trio that backed him was more mischief than a tribe of monkeys. RichieMarquis on piano, Percy on bass and Maxie on drums. But what an unbelievableprolific 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 openedwith a British sextet called the Margaret Mason band, with Margie Mason herself onan 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 75pfor the Espresso, not to mention the continuous acts of petty larceny to find thatprincely sum six days a week.And finally, across from the Yacht Club at Dhanraj Mahal, there was the Alibabawhere now stands a Chinese restaurant. George Fernandes on piano, Cassie on bass andLouis Armstrong vocals. Wilfred on drums.In time, riding the crest of the jazz juggernaut, these niteries were joined byclubs at the Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi, the Nataraj on Marine Drive, the Shalimarat Kemp's Corner, the 2Sundowner at the Sun'n'Sand, and restaurants like the BlueNile at New Marine Lines, the Talk of the Town on Marine Drive and the secondBombelli's at Worli.With them came new young stars. Iqbal Singh, the turbaned Navy ensign doing hisfrantic Elvis Presly thing. Bonnie Remedios, India's Fats Domino. Sunder the GayCaballero. Not quite jazz but what the hell.And there was this callow, beardless fellow, barely out of short pants, who sat inon five minutes' notice for pianists all over town when they called in sick. TonyPinto gave him lessons in jazz progressions so he'd stop inventing 'Chinese' chordsof his own. Hecke Kingdom advised him to think long and hard about wanting to makethis life a profession, not for someone who has a subscription to TIME magzine, he'dsay, only half jokingly. And the cabaret girls were inordinately protective of himbecause he accompanied them on the piano impeccably, not asking for 'anything' inreturn. Then, when he inevitably did, they'd grown to like him enough to gleefullyacquiesce.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 transitgloria?