Mickey Correa
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Correa, who was born in Mombasa and who spent his childhood in Karachi, belonged to the first generation of Indian musicians to play jazz. He and his contemporaries perfected their skills in the late 1930s in the bands of African-American musicians like the pianist Teddy Weatherford and the trumpet player Crickett Smith – men who spent long years in India, preaching the gospel of jazz.
Correa was hired to lead an orchestra at the Taj in Bombay. He stayed there until 1961. Over the decades, his band was a nursery for fresh talent. The musicians who emerged from his ensemble included the pianist Lucilla Pacheco, the saxophonists Johnny Baptist, Norman Mobsby and George Pacheco, and the trumpet players Chic Chocolate and Frank Fernand.