Calcutta-Nagar: Anglo-Indian composer John Mayer captures the city in 18 piano sketches

Ilaiyaraaja’s Western classical symphony Valiant recently had its grand premiere in India, with a performance in Chennai in May. It immediately made me think of another beautiful meeting point between Indian and Western music: Calcutta-Nagar, the piano suite by Indo-jazz pioneer John Mayer. It may not have the sweeping scale of Ilaiyaraaja’s symphony, but it carries a quieter magic of its own.

Mayer, the Anglo-Indian composer, was born in 1930 on Chandni Chowk Street in Calcutta. He is best remembered for Indo-Jazz Fusions with Joe Harriott, which is widely regarded as one of the finest works in British jazz.

He studied at the Calcutta School of Music, worked as a violinist and jazz drummer at the Lighthouse Cinema and then studied classical music with Mehli Mehta – Zubin Mehta’s father – before a scholarship took him to England.

This 1993 suite shows a different Mayer: a composer looking back at the city of his childhood and hearing it through a Western classical piano. Restaurants, roads, markets, temples, churches, mosques, rickshaws, and nursery rhymes all are mentioned.

John Mayer wrote Calcutta-Nagar, but it was Fali Pavri who first brought it to life on record. Some years ago, I was lucky enough to find a CD copy of the album, released by...

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