Finding Carlton - The Story of Jazz in India
Finding Carlton tells the unknown and mesmerizing story of a bygone age of jazz in India
Video: Finding Carlton - The Story of Jazz In India
Overview
Genre
Music, Cultural History, Docutainment, Foreign Worlds, and Human Interest
Synopsis
A maverick dedicated to pure jazz, particularly bebop, Carlton, 68, is an unsung cultural custodian who has nurtured hundreds of young musicians in the jazz idiom, and who still plays to half-empty Calcutta hotels. Where other jazz artists of his generation, including the celebrity "Louis Banks", quit post Independence Communist run Calcutta for prosperity in Bollywood, Carlton remained; devoting himself to his craft and to sustaining an ever-shrinking jazz community in a city hostile to all reminders of India’s colonial past. Verité scenes of Carlton’s isolated, impoverished, yet passionately dedicated existence, and through archival material and poignant encounters with other artists, it tells an untold story of cultural cross-pollination: born of pre-war African-American diaspora, American Army presence in Calcutta during the Second World War; and of US State Department sponsored jazz tours in India. The film also illuminates the influence of American jazz on Bollywood
Treatment
Show treatment
Stage
in production
Links
Credits
Susheel Kurien
... Co-Director /Producer
Veronique Doumbe
... Additional Direction
Sunil Shanbag
... Additional Direction
Chrysalis Film
... Line Producer
Avijit Mukul Kishore
... Director of Photography
Suresh Rajamani
... Sound Recording
Arunima Shankar
... Editor - Trailer
Susheel Kurien
... Producer/Director/Writer
Joanna Rabiger
... Story Consultant
Production Details
Prod. Co.
Half Diminished Productions
Country
United States
Production years
2009-2010
Locations
Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, Various US locations
Prod. Partners
Chrysalis Films, Mumbai
Distribution Details
Video: Finding Carlton - The Story of Jazz In India
Overview
Genre
Music, Cultural History, Docutainment, Foreign Worlds, and Human InterestSynopsis
A maverick dedicated to pure jazz, particularly bebop, Carlton, 68, is an unsung cultural custodian who has nurtured hundreds of young musicians in the jazz idiom, and who still plays to half-empty Calcutta hotels. Where other jazz artists of his generation, including the celebrity "Louis Banks", quit post Independence Communist run Calcutta for prosperity in Bollywood, Carlton remained; devoting himself to his craft and to sustaining an ever-shrinking jazz community in a city hostile to all reminders of India’s colonial past. Verité scenes of Carlton’s isolated, impoverished, yet passionately dedicated existence, and through archival material and poignant encounters with other artists, it tells an untold story of cultural cross-pollination: born of pre-war African-American diaspora, American Army presence in Calcutta during the Second World War; and of US State Department sponsored jazz tours in India. The film also illuminates the influence of American jazz on Bollywood