In Mumbai, Sunil Sampat, Pradip Bhatia and Apurva Agarwal started Jazz Addicts in 2012 with the aim of bringing the best classic acoustic jazz to India. They organised two international jazz festivals that year (in Mumbai and Delhi). Then in November last year they expanded to include Pune. Mainly American bands participated in these JUS' JAZZ festivals.

"There are about 400 to 500 musicians in India playing jazz in its loosely defined form, but the trend here is about a decade behind the US," says Sampat, an engineer who also plays jazz occasionally.

As a precursor to Jazz Addicts, a group named Capital Jazz, which was headed by former attorney-general Soli Sorabjee, and also included Sampat and Ashok Gulati, organised Jazz Utsav festivals in Delhi and Mumbai for almost a decade. The jazz festival tradition started in 1978 when the group Jazz India held bi-annual Jazz Yatra festivals in Delhi and Mumbai. But Jazz Yatra and Jazz Utsav faded away due to lack of sponsorship. "This continues to be a problem as funding for jazz is hard to come by," says Sampat.

Jazz has, however, recently been given a boost by large organisations such as the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, which arranged its fourth annual three-day jazz festival in Delhi in March. International and local bands are invited to perform at these festivals, which take place under starry skies in Nehru Park in the embassy district of the capital.

The festivals have gone from strength to strength, with thousands of Delhi residents this year enjoying the free event from seats or picnic blankets.

But Ashutosh Sharma, a travel agent by day who arranges monthly live band evenings in Delhi and started his own record label, Amarrass, five years ago because he was "frustrated with not being able to get good music", points out that free entry is a part of the appeal of these festivals.

"The Nehru Park jazz festivals are a giant picnic," he says. "How many of the audience would actually pay to listen? People in India need to learn to pay for music. Real fans are those who will pay 500 rupees [HK$65] for a ticket."

A dedicated audience is indeed in short supply, and most musicians report being restricted to playing the favourites rather than something more challenging. There is little original jazz being played in India now, with just a handful of bands, mostly older musicians, still writing in the jazz idiom.

"Even in the days when there were more jazz bands than today, it was mainly covers of standards. People did their own versions of standards, but mostly they stuck to the arrangements of the tunes they were covering," says singer-songwriter Jayashree Singh, who plays in veteran Calcutta band Skinny Alley. "There is not much of an audience any more for jazz music, and the audience that exists is still looking to hear [classics such as] and "

In the 1950s and '60s, Calcutta was home to a number of jazz bands, but Singh says the scene is now largely moribund. There are, however, a precious few stalwarts trying to keep the tradition alive, such as Amyt Datta, a guitarist and composer who is writing and performing jazz with elements of Indian music.

"The state of jazz in Calcutta is sad, considering it used to have a lively scene; it's a real struggle for the old-timers trying to keep the tradition alive," says Singh. "Amyt Datta is perhaps the only one in Calcutta, maybe in the country, who has actually fused the two genres together. You cannot separate the jazz harmonies from the Indian scales in his writing and this to me is true fusion."

Mumbai musicians Louiz Banks and Ranjit Barot are also writing music that incorporates jazz and Indian classical music. Banks, sometimes described as India's best jazz pianist, says that while he performs mainstream jazz in a modern format, he is now focusing on fusing Indian classical music with various forms of jazz. "Composing this genre of jazz is my direction now and I really enjoy it because I get the best of both worlds. Surprisingly, it's being appreciated very well," he says.

"I have been playing jazz for 40 years in India and audiences have been receptive most of the time, but the music, most of the time, goes over their heads. It's on account of the degree of evolvement in performer and listener - there's a marked difference in the level of appreciation.

"Audiences are not attuned to progressive jazz as it is played today; they prefer old-style mainstream swing as opposed to progressive modern," Banks says.

Still, there's a growing number of musicians offering something new: bands in Mumbai and Delhi have recently turned towards acid jazz, and this is becoming an underground trend, while musicians in the south of India are incorporating traditional Carnatic music into jazz.

Susmit Sen, of Indian Ocean, arguably India's most famous group with its contemporary fusion of folk, jazz and Hindustani classical sounds, has been touring with various artists in a new set-up named The Susmit Sen Chronicles which includes some jazz influences. While older listeners are more set in their expectations of what jazz should be, this fusion jazz is attracting younger audiences.

"More youngsters are attracted to fusion jazz, and that's a great beginning," says Banks. "I see it as the dawn of a new era of jazz in India. Fusion jazz in many variations, configurations and permutations is the only way to take jazz forward."

Sampat says there are now jazz appreciation groups in Calcutta, Pune, Mumbai and other cities in India. These are small, and not always very well organised, collections of jazz fans. Typically, they gather once a month and listen to a presentation by one of their members on a selected theme. "Jazz listenership in India may not be widespread, but the core groups involved are quite knowledgeable and dedicated," says Sampat.

So how to expand jazz to a wider audience? "It is an issue of space - bigger spaces mean a bigger risk. A band has to be quite popular to attract 200 to 500 people, and most venues are not willing to take the chance," says Sharma. "Venues need to stop always playing it safe and thinking short-term."

The music industry also lacks a culture of wanting to build a creative, supportive music scene, and there is very little marketing of live music to those beyond the individuals who are already involved in the business.

"In India everyone just wants a bigger slice of the pie instead of building the scene so that everyone benefits. Some clubs won't allow bands to promote their next show at another venue, for example," says live music organiser Sharma. "We need to have people with long-term vision."

More than anything, Sharma believes that jazz lovers need to work together to further develop the scene. "I have plenty of hope. Over the past four years we have been in business, we have seen things improve," he says.

"There are more venues and more creative things are happening. We started with 15 people coming to watch our monthly band performances; there is now on average 100 people. There are passionate individuals trying very hard to build India's music scene, but the only way to get bigger is for individuals to work together."