The Jazz Chronicles and Why I really need to write it

Talk to any Woody Allen fan and he will go on about how he is the most funny, witty and sarcastic director ever. Watch his films and you fall in love with the man. It starts somewhere back with Annie Hall for me and weaves it’s way as a multi layered cloth with films such as Manhattan (My personal favourite), Scoop, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris. While the skeptics may argue that these are some of Allen’s most prominent and mainstream films and do not truly project his art as a director I believe that for the purpose of this article the above mentioned films meet the needs.

To some the title of this article may seem misleading but that is not the case. For no one makes the case for Jazz like Woody Allen. A lover of this form of music himself he has his own jazz band. To those of you who do not know there is a much talked about film on the origin of Jazz and Blues Music that Allen would have liked to make. What comes of that script time will only tell. But considering that it is Allen whose going to be making it I think I would not be wrong in saying that it will be magical in more respects than one.

What Allen also did for me was that he introduced me to multiple forms of Jazz through his films. As a sixteen year old who was restricted to listening to Miles Davis and BB King I could not differentiate between Blues and Jazz. Nevertheless it was a magical time as I delved into some of Davis’s finest including my personal favorite Summertime. For those of you who haven’t heard it - it comes highly recommended.

As my journey into Jazz continued my romance with the films continued with a focus of my film watching time being devoted to Allen. A direct outcome of which was being introduced to newer bands or artists.

Yesterday I went to the Delhi Jazz Festival which was an experience in itself. The swarm of people that you see is tremendous. People from all walks of life bound together by their love for jazz.

For a while now I have been wanting to write about Jazz. I think that a book would suffice. A tentative title would probably be The Jazz Chronicles semi inspired from the earlier name of Seinfeld.

Till that happens keep shuffling.