Jazz lovers across Bombay are thrilled to celebrate their love for this most popular form of music with NCPA’s International Jazz Festival (23rd to 25th November, 2018). As mentioned in our last issue, the Latin band ‘Los Gatos, Ay Mamá’ will open (6:30pm) on the 23rd, followed by ‘Bungalow’ (at 8:00 pm).

The second day of the festival, Saturday, 24th November, 2018, will be opened by the ‘Jazz Samba Express’ (6:30 pm), a Brazilian band with one of Brazil’s finest percussionists, Robertinho Basto. He backs Jim Porto, the multi-talented head of the band, who plays the piano and sings in Portuguese, and will also, every so often, start playing the drums or the bass! You just can’t keep him from singing and dancing on the stage! Alongside hims is Francesco Lento, an Italian trumpet player who’s been playing in Rome. The brilliant Brazilians, pianist/vocalist Jim Porto and Robertinho Bastos on multiple percussions, Italians Francesco Lento on trumpet and Gianluca Liberatore on acoustic bass and Hungarian Aron Nyiro on drums, will celebrate the exotic rhythms and melodies from Brazil!

The second band for Saturday night is the ‘Ari Roland Quartet’ from New York at 8:00pm. Ari Roland who heads the band, is a bass player (upright) and reckoned as a Jazz encyclopedia. Instead of a piano, the quartet favors two saxophones – with Zaid Nasser on the Alto Sax and Chris Byers on the Tenor Sax. Byers has been one of the first call saxophone players in New York City. This quartet is bass, two saxophones and drums. This piano-less quartet is known to deliver exceptional music which will transport you to the jazz dives of Greenwich Village.