Abstract
Arriving in India in the mid‐1930s seeking performance opportunities and an improved quality of life, African American jazz musicians were active in expanding the presentation and consumption of jazz and Western popular music. Finding appeal in the power and success that African American musicians commanded, Anglo‐Indian and Goan musicians also performed jazz in cosmopolitan centres throughout India. In Bombay, Goan musicians integrated Western popular music into local live performances in cabarets, and eventually into some early film songs. This article outlines the role of African American musicians in increasing the terrain of Western popular music in India beginning in the 1930s, and concludes by speculating on the artists' influence on early Bombay cabaret songs and the ‘hybrid’ music of the early film industry.
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