The family of my father Ahmed Ebrahim lived on Canning Street, Kolkata, and he attended the boarding school at St. Paul’s in Darjeeling where, other than academics, he was an accomplished athlete, even completing a full marathon. One of my favourite things about him was his exceptional command over English — he had even memorised the entire Oxford English Dictionary (or so he claimed), and loved to read.
His father, Esmail, was a doctor and a freedom fighter, and was active on the political scene in the independence era. He was even imprisoned for a while in the early ‘60s as one of the leaders of the medical college student union and being vocal about not wanting Kolkata to be a part of the ‘new’ Pakistan.
His mother was Sofibai Ebrahim who was the loveliest person I’ve ever known. My father moved to Pune in 1998. He loved the city for its warm people and weather. He founded the Pune Jazz Club in 2001 because he wanted to introduce the city to jazz. He wanted to build an audience for the genre. The festivals and concerts conducted by the club also had famous international names.
Starting from 2004 to 2016 (the last jazz festival was conducted in 2016), he had some of the best names of jazz coming to the city, including American jazz artiste Cedar Walton, Steve Turre, Peter Beets, Saskia Laroo (popularly known as the Lady Miles Davis of Europe) and Lumahama from Switzerland; he had Brazilian and Iranian bands as well.
{{/usCountry}}Starting from 2004 to 2016 (the last jazz festival was conducted in 2016), he had some of the best names of jazz coming to the city, including American jazz artiste Cedar Walton, Steve Turre, Peter Beets, Saskia Laroo (popularly known as the Lady Miles Davis of Europe) and Lumahama from Switzerland; he had Brazilian and Iranian bands as well.
{{/usCountry}}He fell in love with jazz fairly early, in part due to the fact that Kolkata already had a vibrant jazz scene from roughly the 1930s. He and some of his friends consider themselves ‘Superfans’ because of their love for the music and involvement in the jazz scene in the late 60s and 70s.
Because of his love of Jazz, we grew up in a house surrounded by Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Stanley Turrentine, Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, and of course Miles Davis to name a few. Music has punctuated almost every element of my young life.
Weekday evenings were spent with Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter, Sunday afternoons sang along with Astrud Gilberto. He was vastly knowledgeable about jazz and one of the greatest joys in his life was that he got to share his love of the music with those around him. I barely remember any of the dates I ever learned in History class at school, but there’s no way I’ll ever forget that Miles Davis’ seminal album, Kind of Blue, was released in 1959.
He was also involved with his community, as a long-time member of the Rotary club. He also enjoyed spending time with his friends playing bridge, enjoying the occasional single malt, playing golf and was a member of the ‘Hash House Harriers’ running club.
He was diagnosed with leukaemia this past December. He fought hard against the disease, but it unfortunately claimed him. He was 67 and generally very healthy. He’d workout several days a week and took good care of himself.
He is survived by his wife Niloufer Ebrahim, a consultant psychologist and psychotherapist at Jehangir hospital, his son Adnaan Ebrahim, a digital media and video gaming professional in Helsinki, his daughter Roma Kojima, a media professional in Toronto and his granddaughter, Clio.
(By daughter Roma Kojima)