"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
In ‘The Jazz Bug’, the author has recounted the history of jazz music from before its birth. In this concise narration, he describes the genre’s exciting years of growth in USA from its earliest roots infused with African traditions to the emergence of an altogether new genre of music, over a hundred years ago.
The book brings to life, the deep emotions that were welling inside the earliest creators of this music, living in an alien country far removed from their own homes. This dislocation in their lives eventually gave rise to what we today call Jazz.
The author believes that, a brilliant and established art form such as Jazz, with its wonderfully varied and intricate sounds merits a large following in India. Thus, greater promotional efforts to make it better known would be a welcome path to its popularity in this country where this music has been languishing and now almost forgotten despite its former widespread following up to the decade of the ‘60s.
‘The Jazz Bug’ was thus written with this in mind as also with the author’s particular desire to create, through this book, a lasting interest in this music specifically amongst the younger generation.
Aloke Mookerjee
With his family steeped in art, literature and music, Aloke Mookerjee grew up exposed to a wide variety of books and music both of western and Indian origins. It allowed him to understand and appreciate the traditions and cultures other than just his own. Music of various kinds was always in the air at his home and amongst the many genres that wafted in, Aloke turned to Jazz when he heard it with attention for the first time at the age of sixteen. He has been following this genre ever since with growing admiration.
Aloke’s professional life began in Calcutta (now Kolkata) as an executive in a mercantile firm, briefly in the early ‘60s, before opting out of city life to join the tea estates. Starting off at North Bengal, he spent two decades in the plantations of the Dooars and then Assam. He left India thereafter to work in the tea and coffee plantations of Papua New Guinea, an island in the Pacific region.
On his return, Aloke started his own business and now lives with his wife in Gurugram, Haryana where he spends his spare time listening to Jazz and indulging in his new found indoor hobby, cooking (gourmet food only!) over weekends!
On the backburner lies his other love of vintage aircrafts of the first and second world wars. He hopes to begin his next project soon concerning these flying machines.
