Jazz artiste Ipshita Roy tells S Bhaskaran that the genre is resurgent  

If jazz is your thing, then you know there’s not much in terms of  gigs this city can offer. Unlike Mumbai or Pune, jazz in Delhi may not be a phenomenon but there’s no dearth of new and amazing talent. 

At a recent festival, we chanced upon Ipshita Roy, who has been performing for the last seven years. She started out with the band Big Bang Blues and has now moved on to create a solo identity as “Mrs Ippi,”  specialising in traditional blues, soul and RnB. Her band, rechristened as Mrs Ippi Madhouse, features session musicians from Delhi.

Roy owns the stage with a rare energy and has a stupendous vocal range, quite capable of belting out favourites of Billie Holiday or Aretha Franklin. She is optimistic about the jazz scenario and believes that young bands and artistes are being appreciated for their serious pursuit of the genre. “Bollywood dominates our musical choices and tastes but the audience for jazz in India is growing. There is a resurgence of interest in  alternative musical genres and experiments. If you listen to some old Hindi film songs from the 50s and 60s, you would notice that quite a few composers were influenced by jazz and rock and roll and applied their influences in their compositions. In that sense, jazz has stayed with us,” she said.

Jazz was indeed popularised by many artists from Goa, then a Portuguese colony, during the decade between the 40s and 60s. These artistes found their haven in Mumbai which had an active jazz club circuit at the time. Subsequently Bollywood music acquired popular overtones and jazz disappeared for a long time.

Roy feels new-age music schools in the country are responsible for the renewed interest in jazz. “There are music schools in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore that are training students in serious music genres. Students are taken in by their sheer diversity and as the alternative music platform opens up further courtesy gigs and corporate endorsements, I see jazz going mainstream very soon,” she says.

Originally from Delhi, Roy now lives in Mumbai and tours the country with her band. Which is her favourite city as a performerIJ “As an artiste, any performance makes you happy, never mind the place. But since I am from Delhi, my heart lies in this city.”