Interview with Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy
Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy, associate professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA and filmmaker, talks about her work with her husband, the late Professor Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, who was a direct student of the Dutch ethnomusicologist, Arnold Bake, at SOAS, and their film on Bake’s 1938-39 field trips in South India, Bake Restudy in India, made in 1984.
Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy is Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnomusicology, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. A classical pianist and singer by training, Amy’s main research interest lies in the classical and folk music traditions of India. She has worked on the music of the African-Indian Sidis who live in Gujarat, and has curated their concerts outside India. Recently she releasedMusic for a Goddess, a film on the music and dance of Dalit Devidasis for Goddess Renuka/Yellamma. Together with her ethnomusicologist husband, the late Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, who was a direct student of the Dutch ethnomusicologist Arnold Adriaan Bake, Amy made several films, including Bake Restudy in India: 1938-1984, which received an award from the Society for Visual Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. She is now planning a sequel to this film. In 1984 Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy and Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy helped set up the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies in New Delhi (the office is now in Gurgaon).
Moushumi and Sukanta met Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy in Mumbai on 9-10 December 2009. Here are extracts from their conversation. The audio clip of Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy’s narration is from An Alphabetical Authobiography of Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, a DVD created by Amy for Nazir’s Charles Seeger lecture at UCLA in 1995.
Amy Catlin and Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy’s publications can be browsed at www.apsara-media.com
Excerpts from the interview with Amy.
- Letter from Mainadal (At the time of Covid-19)
- Sound Expeditions : Recording Tarak Das Baul in Kenduli
- Letters from Mainadal
- Raka Banerjee – Songs from the Tea Gardens
- Mary Frances Dunham’s work on jarigan songs.
- Muhammad Ali Ahsan’s recordings, আলীর ডাইরি
- Surojit Sen writes about his experience of engaging with fakiri songs
- Debdas Baul on Bhaskar Bhattacharjya, documentary filmmaker, who worked on the bauls.
- Video extracts from Ruchir Joshi’s 1992 film on the bauls, Egaro Mile (Eleven Miles) and his letter about making the film
- Soumya Chakravarti account of recording folk singer Anantabala Baishnabi in 1968.
- Arnold Bake’s 1932-33 films and audio recordings from Bengal
- Extracts from Khaled Chowdhury’s interview