Carlton Kitto: An Indian jazz guitar legend joins the Big Band in the Sky

I’ll never forget my first conversation with Carlton Kitto. It was on the phone, in May, 2008. I was at home in New York, and had spent months tracking down his number after reading about his nightly jazz gig at Kolkata’s Grand Hotel in a New York Times travel article.

“Mr. Kitto”, I said, “I loved your guitar playing on this recording of The Nearness of You and the voice leading technique…”

“With Sonia [Saigal]? From that Jazz Yatra?” the old guitar player asked. “Yes, yes! I am playing some Barney Kessel things, I think!”

I could feel a smile radiate all the way from his home on Alimuddin Street as he tore into the structure of the tune and why he loved the way it found the G minor chord in the bridge section.

Carlton Kitto was an extraordinary self-taught musician, who mastered the intricacy of jazz guitar and the instrument’s complex chordal, rhythmic and melodic capability. Blessed with a musical ear, and bereft of any formal music education or conservatory discipline, he had learned his craft and honed his skills from listening to ’78 records on the winding gramaphone. Along the way he taught himself the sophisticated musical theory that underpins every jazz musicians work, delved deep into the canonical foundation of jazz – the classic tunes that are known as the Great American Songbook – and developed an amazing repertoire of the jazz standards.

He was encyclopaedic in his knowledge of these standards and their authors, as well as the musicians who made certain tunes so endearingly famous. He came from a lineage of largely self-taught Indian jazz men and women, and on Monday morning, Carlton Kitto, who was perhaps 74, joined them in the Big Band in the Sky.

A long quest

I had been trying to find Carlton for a little while before I finally spoke to him. As an amateur jazz guitar player who now lives in New York, I was frequently being asked how I had come to listen to and love jazz in India. As I began to research the history of this African-American musical form in India, perhaps for a short article.

The internet threw up information about how jazz had arrived in India in the early 20th century, as also descriptions of early and more contemporary musicians. More Googling and a pattern of musical diffusion emerged that showed a spread beyond the big cities of India and names of band leaders, piano players, and singers who seemed to have had local celebrities. It wasn’t long before I stumbled on Carlton Kitto’s name. His choice of instrument , the same as mine, offered what turned out to be a fortunate bias.

By then, I had talked myself into letting the intended essay mutate into a documentary film. Friends in India introduced me to their friends and soon I was in a network of fellow travellers on the same road. A lineage of legends appeared, including predecessors and sometimes teachers to Carlton.

References to Carlton Kitto kept turning up, along with a few snippets of sound. However words don’t make a jazz guitarist: it is the music they make that speaks to who they really are – especially if they are a a bebop-playing guitarist in India. Nobody had been playing this genre of jazz with any passion or sincerity in India for decades. Bebop jazz had been born in the US in the mid-40’s as a reaction to slower moving swing styles of the past. It brought awesomely expressive creative possibilities and breakneck tempos that demanded technical virtuosity. It was music that demanded listening and emerged only where there was a community of musicians. If there ever had been such a community in India, it was long gone. The markers all pointed to Carlton as a solitary remaining Indian exponent.

This was absolutely intriguing and my commitment to a film featuring Carlton demanded that I had some conclusive proof of his musical ability. It was the recording from the Jazz Yatra that put my concerns to rest. I played some of the recording to my friend, the great guitarist Jack Wilkins (and as I found out later, one of Carlton’s heroes). “This guy is a guitarist” said Jack, in his understated way. With that affirmation, I could proceed.

On the road

But where was Carlton Kitto? Many of the people I was in contact knew very little about him, and only a handful had even heard him play. The New York Times article, saying that he played in the Chowringee Bar at the Grand Hotel, finally gave me contact. Everything that followed was a whirlwind, With support from my college classmate, Sunil Shanbag, and many many others, the film got underway.

There was no one left in India who could play jazz guitar like Carlton Kitto, and even today, the few guitarists who have studied their trade in conservatory and music school and returned to India with the benefit of modern music education, are hard pressed to replicate his extensive technique, years of assimilating the standards that are the foundation of the music, and his mastery of reharmonisation.

For me, he was not just a jazz guitarist. He was an exceptional jazz guitarist who had earned his musicianship by talent, hard work and unstoppable passion. This is what it takes to play the music that he loved. It does not come any other way. His lessons live on in many of the guitarists you hear in India today: he taught hundreds of them and gave them the foundation to earn a living.

My words cannot express how special he was to me and how much I respected him , both as a musician and a family man who worked so hard to give his family a good life. It was only fitting that that my film should be titled with his name.