Wynton Marsalis and (below) Roy Hargrove in performance

Multiple Grammy-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz composer Wynton Marsalis, the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni Band, Mingus Dynasty, Roy Hargrove, Thelonius Monk Jr have all evinced interest to perform in the city, according to Pamela A. Hall, programme director of the Riff jazz channel of WorldSpace Satellite Radio network.

“They are all keen to come down to India and Calcutta and we are looking at options and strategic partners to make that happen,” Pamela told GoodLife last week, on her first visit to Calcutta. She was in town for a workshop-performance by Chennai-based jazz pianist Madhav Chari, the only Indian musician to be aired on Riff.

While Chari, who has studied and interacted musically with Wynton Marsalis, is trying to steer the artiste to India and “play under his leadership”, Riff is ready to jazz with the duo when the collaboration clicks into gear. Upcoming trumpeter Roy Hargrove, unearthed by Marsalis himself, is another name on the India swing roll.

“Also John Lee, who used to play bass with Dizzy Gillespie and now directs the Alumni Band, has spoken to me and said they want to make music in India. Ditto with the Dynasty, which is still keeping the Charles Mingus music alive and Monk Junior,” disclosed Pamela.

With a career in radio spanning over two decades and now celebrating her fifth year as programme director and an on-air personality for Riff, Pamela is also scouting around for Indian jazz and blues musicians who could be featured on the channel. “All I need are CDs and we will evaluate those, besides looking at potential for hooking them up with US jazz artistes,” she smiled.

Riff is readying a one-hour “blues special” programme to be aired on Indian prime time, while a fusion window is also being eyed. On a weeklong India trek stopping at Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai with the WorldSpace Chari shows, Pamela hopes to pick up threads to help her stitch together more programming for India.

Once back at the network’s Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring studio on August 29, Pamela, responsible for creating the sound and feel of Riff (“I’m a one-woman army really, with just part-time jockeys helping out”, she says) hopes to turn to her dad again.

William Hall, young-at-heart at 80 and possessing “some of the finest records of jazz classics”, calls himself ‘Dr Jazz’ on radio, and helps daughter Pamela out with a “hugely popular” show, lending his priceless collection to the WorldSpace archives.

Pamela is passionate about jazz and a warehouse of information on the music, its performers and the entire sub-culture that the genre has created around itself.

“I owe a lot of that passion to my parents who played jazz in the house all the time and even travelled from Baltimore to New York to catch all the greats on 52nd Street, including Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra,” she declared.

Riff brings America’s indigenous jazz music to a global audience, presenting legends like Miles Davis and Count Basie, alongside today’s artistes like Arturo Sandoval, Diana Krall and Joe Sample to another generation. It also blends the ever-widening range of international jazz players like Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ruben Gonzales and Cesaria Evora.