His Indian musical odyssey began in September, he remembers.

Musician and resear cher Jay Kreimer had visited Mumbai for a few days before making his way to Guja rat and happened to witness the cheerful frenzy of Ganeshotsav, including the st reet bands which combine the myriad sounds of so many instruments. The strains of the music followed him to Gujarat. And Kreimer was struck. I saw a great percussion band in the street, along with a crowd of red-dusted dan cers. In Baroda, I went for the final immersion ceremony at the Sursagar Lake an d saw thousands of people and some great street bands, including two that used t he Indian banjo, one of my favorite instruments. We were literally pulled into t he dancing, he says with a laugh. There has been no looking back after that for the US-based musician who is docum enting the work and lives of Indian brass bands, which provide the backdrop and colour to so many festivals and celebrations but are struggling for recognition. Kreimer s bio is extensive a musician, instrument maker, sculptor, composer and ed ucator. A senior research fellow with Fulbright, he first came to India in 2009, accompanying his wife who was researching the ikat fabric. He stayed in Baroda for four months and was fascinated by street wedding bands, particularly their i ntegration of folk and popular music. When his proposal to document their lives and their music was approved by Fulbright, he packed his bags for India again. It s not easy to get hold of Kreimer, who has been in the country for two months n ow. When he s not catching brass band musicians on tape, the 61-year-old is crisscrossing Gujarat, finding his next potential interviewee. I was drawn to the brass bands because of their combination of sound and visuals. I like the kind of distortion the portable PA (public address) systems give the vocals and I love the way the singers use the echo boxes, Kreimer tells dna over the phone as he rests near a fortress in Bhuj after a long day of trekking. He bought two echo boxes for himself. Music to the ears Kreimer has so far documented the young and the old of Gujarat s street bands chil dren as young as four and five playing the dhol and youngsters who take it up on ly for the money. He s spoken to treble and shehnai players, dholwallahs and saxop honists. Band leaders, vocalists, echo machine performers, synthesizers and even non-performers are next on his list. India s tradition of street bands goes back to when they would be used only for roy al weddings. In fact, many of the bands I met have been doing this for generatio ns, continuing a family tradition, he says. Aside from interviewing musicians who played conventional instruments, his trave ls led him to interesting discoveries like the jodiya-pava, a traditional musica l instrument that is today almost unheard of. I met Noor Mohammad, who plays the jodiya-pava, in Bhuj. It s a reed instrument com posed of two separate tubes and reed sets played simultaneously using circular b reathing, he says. Noor Mohammad has only two students to carry forward the legac y his adult nephew and a Frenchman who comes to Bhuj every year to take lessons from him. While several happy stories emerged as Kreimer went about his interviews, he als o discovered that there was another side to the story. In his experience, the be tter players are happy. One saxophone player said he felt peace when he played. Another musician started out playing the snare drum with a band in Baroda and is

a professional percussionist in Mumbai today. Such stories, however, are few and far between. The band people, who can barely p lay their instruments or don t play at all, and are used to fill out the ranks of the bands, seem to be the source of the sense of unhappiness in the bands. I ve se en them getting ridiculed by other band members and even people on the street. I t must be a difficult job, and a hard role to perform with dignity, says Kreimer. Raising awareness The cacophony of trumpets, clarinets, drums and cymbals are an inevitable part o f any baarat but there s no hiding the fact that band musicians are a neglected lo t. There is hardly any material that documents their lives and little recognitio n for their music. Kreimer hopes to change all that with his documentary. When I discovered how little documentation existed, it became a clear opportunity to jump in and do some work that I hope others will continue. I m approaching thi s as a working artist with a reasonable understanding of scholarly methods. Kreimer hopes to finish his documentary by May next year. His experiences with b and musicians have been humbling. He is impressed by their generosity and their willingness to establish a connection. He already has plans to showcase the docu mentary at the University of Nebraska. I ve seen a real range of quality, excellent musicians and the vitality of the stre et life here is a huge contrast to the rest of the world. This documentary is my labour of love. There is no fun in a wedding without a Brass band I ve been managing the New Brass Band for almost 10 years now. I m continuing a trad ition and my family has been in this business for the past 50 years. We ve establi shed a name for ourselves and we extend our services to places like Goa, Ahmedab ad and Surat. There are 40 members in my band and during wedding season, we re completely booked every day. However, Mumbai is not a very band-friendly place. I believe we don t get any izzat (respect) from the people here. The love and the gratitude we are shown in small towns is so much more. In fact, not just the public, but we also face problems from the police here. As soon as they spot us, they try to extract money from us. The wedding band scene has really changed a lot in the past decade. There are mo re agents now and fewer owners of bands. A lot of my band members are people who come from small towns and with the inflation, Mumbai is a very expensive place. For them, the temptation to take up other jobs is more. We cannot restrict ours elves to perform just at weddings so during non-wedding season, we provide servi ces for other events like religious festivals. I still consider myself fortunate because we have been in this business for a long time so sustainability is not such a big problem for me. But the demand has gone down comparatively. I think it also has something to do with the music. Earlier, there was better music more classical but now people wa nt more more fast , commercial music. I don t know what will happen to brass bands in the future but I know one thing: band ke bina shaadi mein kuch mazaa nahi hai ( There is no fun in a wedding without a brass band).