Finding Carlton - The Story of Jazz in India

Finding Carlton - The Story of Jazz in India

Produced by Susheel Kurien
Finding Carlton tells the unknown and mesmerizing story of a bygone age of jazz in India

Videos

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

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
Years of Production
2009-2010
Locations
Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, Various US locations
Prod. Partners
Chrysalis Films, Mumbai

Distribution Details

Photos

40153851167769d9472c8e0ecb0c27d8

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