Swinging Scores—How Jazz Shaped Bollywood’s Golden Age article @ All About Jazz (2025)

This piece—the first in a five-part series on the Indian jazz revival—focuses on the heavy imprint of jazz on Indian cinema, specifically Bollywood during its golden age between the 1940s and 1970s. It's a story about how a music born in New Orleans made its way to Bombay, and how, for a few wild and brilliant decades, it seeped into the sonic fabric of Hindi-language cinema, leaving behind echoes we can still hear today.

This article draws heavily from Naresh Fernandes's Taj Mahal Foxtrot, which is a definitive history of jazz in India. The book traces how swing, bebop, and big band music arrived in Bombay in the early 20th century, shaped the city's nightlife, and eventually found their way into the DNA of Bollywood film scores.

What Is Bollywood?

"Bollywood" is the informal name for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). It is one of the largest centers of film production in the world. A defining characteristic of Bollywood films is their use of music—nearly every film includes multiple musical tunes that are performed by the characters and move the story forward.

In contemporary Western cinema, songs are background cues or reserved for musicals; in Bollywood cinema, songs are essential to the storytelling structure. They capture a character's inner thoughts, express romantic longing, advance the plot, and provide comic relief. These songs are performed by playback singers—vocalists who record the songs in advance, which are then lip-synced by the actors on screen. Icons like Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, and Kishore Kumar became household names across generations.

During Bollywood's golden era (1940-60), these songs often incorporated elements of jazz—swing rhythms, brass sections, and blues-influenced melodies—particularly in urban, cabaret, or romantic contexts.

How Jazz Arrived in Bombay

Jazz didn't drift into India—it sailed in, horns blazing, and anchored itself in the heart of Bombay. As told in by Fernandes in Taj Mahal Foxtrot, Mumbai in 1930s and '40s, was a thriving port city and a massive cultural melting pot. The city's hotels and nightclubs became natural landing spots for Western music, especially jazz. One key figure was Leon Alexander Abbey , a violinist and bandleader who brought the first all-Black jazz band to Bombay''s Taj Mahal Hotel in 1935. This was the beginning of what Naresh Fernandes calls Bombay's "first jazz age."

American musicians like Teddy Weatherford, a legendary pianist settled in Bombay, playing in its most iconic clubs and mentoring Indian musicians. Jazz flourished in nightclubs like The Ritz, where Goan, Anglo-Indian, and European musicians played alongside American jazzmen. Many of these clubs were in South Bombay's Colaba district, close to the sea and full of cross-cultural energy.

These venues weren't just places of entertainment—collectively, they formed a hotbed of fusion. Jazz blended with Latin music, Portuguese fado, and even Indian folk traditions. It was sophisticated, urbane, and stylish—and soon, it began leaking into Bollywood.

The Goan Backbone & Jazz in Bollywood

As Bollywood's demand for recorded music grew, it turned to Goan musicians—a community trained in Western notation and harmony thanks to their Portuguese-colonial schooling and church choirs. These musicians were keen to learn, adaptable, creative, and technically skilled—the perfect studio workforce. Names like Anthony Gonsalves, Frank Fernand, Lucilla Pacheco, and Sebastian D'Souza became central to the Bollywood studio sound. Though seldom credited, they were the ones who translated melody lines into lush, swinging orchestral arrangements. Cabaret scenes, villain themes, and nightclub settings gave composers an excuse to tap into jazz—with saxophones, upright bass, muted trumpets, and shuffle grooves lending a smoky, Western edge to the otherwise Indian narrative world.

Arrangers & the Fusion Sound

The role of arrangers in Bollywood's golden age cannot be overstated.

Walking bass lines, clarinet flourishes, Latin percussion, and brass hits became tools of storytelling. Arrangers drew on everything from Duke Ellington and Count Basie to Bach and Portuguese dance forms, creating a fusion that was both global and uniquely Indian.

Songs like "Eena Meena Deeka" captured this playful energy—a blend of rock 'n' roll, swing, and cinematic flair.

Fade-Out & Flicker of Revival

By the late 1970s and into the '80s, Bollywood's sound began to shift. Disco, funk, and synthesized music took center stage, pushing orchestral jazz out of the mainstream. Jazz survived quietly in lounge bands, hotel gigs, and ad jingles—but it was no longer front and center in film scores.

In the 2000s, that changed. Musicians like Mikey McCleary began reimagining old Bollywood songs in a smoky, jazz lounge style under the moniker The Bartender. Mainstream composers like Shankar—Ehsaan—Loy also began incorporating jazz influences—most notably in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011). Offscreen, projects like Bollyjazz, led by Nikhil Mawkin, have revived vintage Bollywood songs with live jazz arrangements, bridging retro nostalgia with contemporary musicianship on stage.

In Conclusion

Bollywood's jazz age may have faded, but its influence lives on. From nightclubs and studios to modern reinterpretations, jazz helped shape the emotional language of Indian film music. In the next installment of this series, we'll step outside the screen and into the streets—exploring how jazz in India thrives today in festivals, live venues, and music education.