Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Scott Henderson, Diane Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater…long list of successful jazz musicians and closer home quite a few people too. Jazz as a musical style has long outgrown its label of old tired jokes, sarcasm and other notions from people, naysayers and sabotagers, about it not being a viable music in every which way. From personal experience and also creating a small but thriving jazz community in the city, we’ve realised it’s only a select few who can actually perform it. In Morocco, one of the speakers at International Jazz Day held in Tangiers recently said that though jazz is termed as America’s classical music, it’s being played at an exceptional level by jazz musicians all over the world. There are really young musicians in the city and seasoned ones who are amongst these stellar players. Many of them are now getting the cultural benefits of International travel, decent monetary prospects and many are investing in album productions, because when we perform live anywhere in the world, and being invited to jazz festivals and concerts audiences still ask for a physical copy of your music. This, we experienced recently at our concert in Bologna, Italy in May 2024. Phil Scarff from USA sold all his CDs after his concert at BIC with us in Jan this year. In this environment Zlb 23 at Leela, comes as a breath of fresh air by integrating jazz and fusion live music as part of it’s theme, five days a week and other outlets taking a cue. Jazz is always one step ahead, musically and performing it itself is it’s greatest reward, because it throws a challenge to musicians who want to raise the bar of music and the creative arts. It’s not canned or formatted. It requires patience, dedication, extensive listening and the ability to work as a group. We are rather proud of the young ones of the city who’ve taken to jazz like no man’s business. And when we bump into jazz musicians from around the world, we realise we are part of a lovely community that promotes peace, tolerance and goodwill because there are some things money can’t buy. For the rest there’s masterclasses. Looking forward to Café Jazz and followed by some great jazz concerts by International musicians from Germany and from other parts of the world to Bangalore. As Herbie Hancock said at this concert in Delhi after performing a slow, sobre piece ” this is also jazz”. Here’s to the mystique of jazz and it’s many fascinating facets. See you on Aug 23 at Cafe Jazz!