A new type of festival has reached India, which celebrates regal tradition and contemporary music, all to the vibrancy of Holi, the Indian spring festival of colours. Jen Marsden writes.
Billows of bright powder descend onto a long procession who are all in white, as townspeople enthusiastically throw colour from the rooftops of this old walled city. It’s Holi, the Hindu spring festival of colour, and this ‘Colour Me Pink’ event is just one of several events that is part of the new Jodhpur Jazz Safari.
Jodhpur Jazz Safari was founded by Reggie Singh, whose regal lineage dates back 700 years. His ancestors were the founding family of the ‘Blue City’ of Jodhpur, so called due to its blue-hued buildings.
Proud of the region he calls home, Reggie knows just about everyone in Jodhpur. In fact, most of the city’s boutique heritage hotels and havelis are owned and run by cousins and close friends.
With his charming, larger-than-life personality, Reggie is someone who never rests, and is always keen to showcase Rajasthan’s rich heritage to anyone who will listen. As one of the first people to bring mobile tented camps to India, you’ll find Reggie’s Camel Camp Osian in the nearby, sprawling Thar Desert.
Set across one hundred acres, Reggie’s Camel Camp Osian is an inviting venue and obvious starting point for these spring gala celebrations.
First launched in 2020 just prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, Jodhpur Jazz Safari had somewhat of a false start, and so it was put on hold until its modest return in 2023. Despite just six weeks to prepare after only getting permission from officials at the last minute, this year’s event was a surprising success, bringing together 350 guests from across India and the world.
Reggie’s festival co-founder, Daragh Casey, is a former management consultant. After tiresome flitting between corporate offices in Sydney and Hong Kong and completion of a major project, she booked an open ticket to India, where she visited Reggie’s illustrious Mountbatten Lodge as a guest, only to find herself relocating here permanently.
That was five years ago, and now Daragh manages the operations and plays host to the lodge’s many influential guests and, as she puts it “…helps realise the bags and bags of creative ideas that Reggie has.” Jodhpur Jazz Safari, of course, is one such idea, and the name nods to the multi-location nature of the festival.
Conscious of not “swamping the event with tradition”, the idea for the festival came from Reggie’s love of the jazz genre. “…And when we say jazz, we don’t limit it to the typical free-flowing discordant music that only purists love, we mean jazz in a much broader sense,” explains Daragh.
“Jazz has descended from blues and ragtime roots and wharfed into many things: swing, experimental, world music, reggae, you name it. We want the music of our festival to reflect that and be something both familiar and appealing, but also a place where new, fusion sounds are introduced, and often from lesser-known artists,” adds Daragh.
Music from Ella Fitzgeralnd and James Brown made an appearance at the latest event, while Reggie’s sons, who are both in their twenties, help bridge any divides in musical taste among the eclectic mix of guests.
The opening night of the two-day Jodhpur Jazz Safari begins shrouded in centuries-old tradition out in the desert, where good triumphs over evil.
Guests have a strict dress code: ladies wear the native phagunia saree or are in all white, while men wear white bandhgalas or kurtas with their radiant red or orange phagunia turbans.
Dressed in the simpler lungi (a single cloth used as a skirt), Reggie’s regal troupe of Muslim musicians’ rouse guests with their traditional instruments of dholak (drums), khadtal (castanets), sarangi (violin), and harmonium. This is unlike your typical Rajasthani folk group however, for it is led by showman Babu, a five-foot tall, six-man wide character who commands the stage.
Babu has sung with several acclaimed guests of Reggie’s over the years, including Sting and Mick Jagger. When he sings, he has what Daragh describes as the “voice of a Welsh choir boy,” who can “hold a note longer than a deep-sea diver can hold his breath.” You’ll find the troupe playing Marwari music that straddle all elements of life, covering love ballads and war songs alike.
Rathore clansmen, swad in saffron turbans, trot in on camels, with large machals to light a huge pyre two storeys tall as part of the burning of Holika ritual.
Perched on the desert’s highest dune, the bonfire seemingly licks the stars overhead in a spine-chilling, rousing moment while villagers and royals alike parade around to the beating of drums.
With one foot in these conservative customs and another in the modern world, the evening then transforms into a suave cocktail party where a DJ plays lounge music for an evening of joyous merrymaking.
The event is ideal for discerning guests who are well travelled in India, tired of the typical five-star hotel stay, and are seeking a more off-the-beaten track experience. It’s also far more experiential than any other music festival we’ve ever come across.
The following day is the official day to play with gulal (coloured powder) and water in Jodhpur’s ancient streets. Reggie and Daragh have managed to source a supplier who makes a gentle, washable organic pink powder that’s made with rose petals that doesn’t stain your skin, unlike today’s usual synthetic dyes.
In preparation for the street party, neighbourhood families and shop vendors are briefed and invited to join in. While security is always on hand with a backup convoy of jeeps, the crowd are welcoming and joyous. The parade slowly moves through the streets until it reaches the clocktower and ancient step well located in the heart of the Old Town. JDH, an Urban Regeneration Project that aims to restore the old Walled City of Jodhpur to its former glory, have also been huge supporters, serving a huge spread of food and drinks to everyone present.
For the final evening is the Royal Chieftains Dinner, a buffet feast in which eight major royal houses cook one of their signature dishes – the rule being that it must have been passed down the family. These mouthwateringly, rich Rajasthani flavours are the perfect end to this unique celebration.
It’s hoped that this two-day programme will eventually be scaled into a whole week of events, that offers a real inclusiveness, with free events and day passes for the people of Jodhpur to come out and enjoy events both in Osian Desert and in the city’s royal households.
To find out about future Jodhpur Jazz Safari events, visit jodhpurjazzsafari.com.