Indian Brass Bands

Members of the Shiv Mohan Band take a break after performing at a Jain procession in Delhi.

In years gone by, I used to write a lot about music. I don't any more. In fact, after a few years off, I thought it pretty unlikely that I would ever do so again.

Over recent months, though, I've become fascinated by the phenomenon of the Indian brass band. They look excellent, sound funny (in both the weird and comical sense of the word) and, thanks to the shaadi (wedding) season, are absolutely everywhere in North India at this time of year.

Just for the sake of it and without much of a plan to do anything with them, I ended up shooting quite a few pictures of bands in both Delhi and Jaipur, and in the process began to learn a lot about how the industry functions. (In addition to my own very basic enquiries, I have to tip my hat to the New Zealand ethnomusicologist Greg Booth, who has done some fascinating and incredibly informative work on this subject.)

After a quick, off the cuff Twitter chat with a friend, some of these shots have ended up being used for a double-page spread in the next issue of The Wire magazine. I've also written a piece to go with them. Feels a bit strange to be doing that kind of work again, but it was really fun and I was always very fond of that publication and the people behind it. Tear sheet up here some time soon, hopefully.

Quick note: Most of my brass band pictures have been made digitally. The one above is the result of an impromptu run-in with the Shiv Mohan Band (whom I'd met a couple of days before), while they were performing at a Jain procession through Chandni Chowk in Delhi. I was on the way to do some work in Khari Baoli and only had film with me, so, rather annoyingly, the sequence of shots it comes from don't fit with the my main edit at all. I like it, though, so I thought I might as well chuck it up here.