A classic Jazz standard: On the sunny side of the street

 Where the winter is quite cold people seek fireside and sunlight to warm themselves. On the streets many would naturally prefer to saunter in the sun but some may still walk in the shade. 

'On the sunny side of the street' is one of the widely known and performed song from the genre Jazz Standard. Written by American lyricist Dorothy Fields and composed by Jimmy McHugh in 1930 (some authors say that Fats Waller was the composer, but he sold the rights to the song), it was introduced in the Broadway musical 'Lew Leslie's International Revue' the same year.

Unlike Western classical music written for and played by symphony orchestras, Jazz bands comprise a much smaller number of musicians and singers but in the potential for making really good music Jazz is no less than orchestral music. Esperanza Emily Spalding, an American jazz musician, singer, songwriter, and composer and who won four Grammy Awards said at a performance of the song some years ago, “Europe gave us classical music and Jazz is America’s classical music”.

 Interestingly, it is a music video by an European musical band Lag Jazz (Milano, Italy, 2017) that looks the best among the many renditions of 'On the sunny side of the street' available on YouTube. Released in black & white with the performers in vintage costumes using a classic microphone on a worn out stage floor, the video is evocative of the mid-twentieth century jazz bands. (There were reportedly numerous all-female jazz bands during the 1940s replacing men who left for World War II.) The singers’ sweet demeanour and graceful moves in harmony with the sunny theme of the song have been well filmed. 

(Compilation includes information from Wikipedia) 

Lyrics have been added as subtitles. Click on the link below to watch (3 min: 44 sec):

https://youtu.be/lCzQEWzH80s

On the moonlit waters of the Indus River

The song ‘Sindhu nathiyin misai nilavinile’ (On the Moonlit Waters of the Indus River) comprises five stanzas from the poem ‘Bharata Desam’ by Subramania Bharati (1882–1921), who is regarded as one of the greatest Tamil literary figures of modern times.

Bharati worked as a journalist for many newspapers and took part in India’s freedom movement. In 1908, the British Government issued an arrest warrant which forced him to live in exile in Pondicherry, which was under French rule. When Sri Aurobindo, whose nationalist politics Bharati had been supporting and against whom also a British arrest warrant seemed imminent, arrived in Pondicherry in 1910, Bharati used to visit him at his residence and discuss a wide range of topics in the evenings. 

‘Bharata Desam’ was one of the most popular poems written by Bharati in 1919, possibly in Madras a year after he left Pondicherry, ending his exile. The Tamil poem contained stanzas in Telugu also, a language described by the poet as beautiful in the same poem. Three out of the 13 Tamil stanzas and 2 Telugu stanzas of the ‘Bharata Desam’ formed a song in ‘Kai Kodutha Deivam’ (The God Who Saved, Tamil film, 1964). Earlier, three other Tamil stanzas from the same poem formed a song in the biopic of freedom fighter V.O. Chidambaram titled Kappalottiya Tamilan (The Tamilian Who Launched a Ship, Tamil film, 1961). 'Kai Kodutha Deivam' was a successful movie and also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil – the President's silver medal. [Its story is about the friendship between two men and the sacrifices one makes for the other. Actors Sivaji Ganesan (who became a legend of Tamil cinema in the decades that followed) and S.S. Rajendran played the roles of friends.] The music for the song was composed by Viswanathan-Ramamurthy, and the singers were T.M. Soundararajan, L.R. Eswari, and J.V. Rahavulu.

Subramania Bharati. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Bharat Desam is the poet's dream of India and stands relevant today more than ever. Admiration and respect for other languages, aspiration for the progress of the entire country, love and appreciation of the best in the people of other provinces, love of natural beauty therein, desire to re-establish historic but lost links with the rest of the subcontinent, acceptance of dharmic love between man and woman beyond provincial differences, etc. are expressive of Bharati’s vision of the diversity in unity of Bharat.

The poem, which is a relatively simpler Tamil poetry – a paradigm shift of which Bharati was a pioneer in the early 20th century – has been translated into English. Translation of the Telugu stanzas into English, at my request, was kindly done by Smt Chitra Srinivasmurty. I have made small changes in the latter with the intention of making it sound better. 

Names in the poem that maybe unfamiliar:

The Sindhu River - The Indus River

Betels - leaves of an evergreen Indian creeping shrub, whose fresh/dried leaves are chewed with betel nut.

Setu - the now submerged land bridge linking India and Sri Lanka. 

Isle of Sinhalese - Sri Lanka 

Click the link below to watch the video (B&W, 6 min : 3 sec)

Sindhu Nathiyin with English translation, film Kai Kodutha Deivam