The logo Freedom JamNo Bread perfectly sums up the spirit behind a festival which is all about playing your thing---everything else be damned!

Though the Freedom Jam movement was birthed in Bengaluru, its offshoot versions in this city have not just provided a platform for the performance and enjoyment of diverse genres of music whether it was jazz, blues, pop, hip-hop, honky-tonk or soul and funk, but greatly helped build the tourism appeal of the place.

After a break of a couple of years, the 12th edition of Freedom Jam returns to the city and will be staged over three days from February 27 with a variety of music by performers from the backyard, Chennai, Bengaluru.

The Freedom Jam gigs were seeded in Bengaluru in 1996 when Siddhartha Patnaik, who grew up in Puducherrys libertarian environment, and a few of his like-minded friends, got together to facilitate a performing space for rock bands in India.

In those days, the benchmark for quality was all about how well you did covers a dead-on copy. For instance, a Santana cover would be perfect if the musician timed the moment he would point the guitar away from the body to gain feedback. There was hardly any space for people who did original work, said Siddhartha, who had already formed a band Bajaa.

Though the maiden event hosted at Bengalurus Ravindra Kalakshetra with a handful of bands, the more important takeaway was that the Freedom Jam got entrenched as a tradition. Alongside the annual Freedom Jam gigs, the music enthusiasts also initiated a tradition of Sunday Jams for budding musicians. These jam sessions of open-ended playing have featured bands like Avial that went to make a name for themselves in the circuit. At one point, the Freedom Jam became big enough an event to attract patronage from MTV and Levis, says Siddhartha.

However, even after tasting corporate support, Freedom Jam remained true to its founding concept of providing a stage where artistes offer their performances without any fees and retaining their artistic freedom to express themselves without commercial constraints, while the audience enjoys the music for free.

This celebration of indie music later struck roots in Goa and Chennai. The venues have been flexible too---audiences have grooved to musicians playing by the seaside in Puducherry, in a shady raintree grove in Chennai or even under a large banyan tree in Goa.

Puducherry is no stranger to an international music culture. For well over a century, the former French enclave had been a hub for classical musicianship---the city must have the one of the highest number of Trinity College fellowships.

If you look back to the 1970s, this city had a vibrant live music scene, says Mathew Samuel, musician and former secretary of Tourism here.

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Freedom Jam notes waiting to waft through winds