The week in Caribbean Jazz ending June 15, 2012 – a sampling from the Woodshed

This week in Caribbean-Jazz – a sampling

Another one of those busy times for paternal Jazz fans all over is Fathers’ Day. The Woodshed abounds with listings planned for that day, June 17.  However, the Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival lined up Jazz daily in the lead up to Fathers’ Day.

Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Fest began on Saturday, June 09 with Opening Jazz Day at the Courtleigh Auditorium, Kingston. This auditorium became awash with the sounds of Jamaica, namely the Jamaica Big Band, Desi Jones (drums), Marjorie Whylie (piano), Karen Smith (piano), Ladies of the Keyboard (Dr. Carol Ball, Kamla Hamilton, Dr. Kathy Brown, Joy Brown) and the Energy Plus Mento Band; and Brazil (Ba-Boom).

A Jazz Brunch at Hotel Four Seasons on Sunday, June 10 and Jam Sessions at the Jazz villages in Kingston at the Four Seasons Hotel and in Ocho Rios at the Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort, all week-long, kept the JA J-Fans fed and psyched up for the Big Day that is Fathers’ Day.

But before the Big Day, ethnomusicologist Herbie Miller and pianist Marjorie Whylie presented at an Educational Jazz Workshop. That was on Friday morning.

On Saturday, June 16, there was a Dinner Jazz session at Glenn’s Jazz Club, Tower Isle, St. Ann, the Sonny Bradshaw School Band Competition and Jazz Treasures at the Two Seasons Guest House, Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.

More here…

Starting on Tuesday, June 12, Paquito D’Rivera was the master of his own domain, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center.  D’Rivera (alto saxophone, clarinet) teamed up with Diego Urcola (trumpet, valve trombone), Alex Brown (piano), Oscar Stagnaro (bass), Mark Walker (drums), and Arturo Sabile (percussion) for Paquito D’Rivera’s Boleros de Chopin, an explosive mix of be-bop, boleros, and Frederic Chopin.

If you planned on celebrating D’Rivera’s 64th birthday with him on Wednesday night, tough luck, the show was sold out. The rest of the residency might have been as well. You would have  been better off just watching the international ambassador of jazz live online at Dizzy’s on Thursday night, June 14 at jalc.org/live.

Tuesday gone – and every Tuesday for as long as I can or will remember – the Ebe Gilkes Jazz Trio held court at the Waterfront Café, off the Careenage in Bridgetown, Barbados. Gilkes landed in Barbados in 1957 fully intending to move to the UK.  But as with most things, he landed the girl too, and England receded from his plans.  Since then, Barbados has been his domicile and The Waterfront Café the home  for his piano playing. It is two years now since Gilkes released a CD, a fine outing with his Waterfront Café trio and guest, Andre Woodvine.

Still in Barbados, the NJ3O Jazz Band, a three-piece band with Andre Forde on drums and a leaning towards swing, bebop and Latin, was Live at Blakey’s Bar in Hastings, Christchurch on Thursday.

One up on Gilkes is Trio Zalizé, which launched a new album, actually the fifth incarnation of Jazz Ka Philosphy, at Baiser Salé in France on Tuesday. Trumpeter Frank Nicholas, bassist Michel Alibo and drummer Sonny Troupé have produced in Jazz Ka Philosophy a self-described cocktail of thundering rhythms – reinvented from the Guadeloupe tradition – and melodies that when intertwined with the avant-garde, Caribbean style, oscillate between the traditional and modern.

Without a doubt, the Woodpick of the Day for Thursday would have been the mini-concert at Martin’s On Woodford Jazz And Piano Bar, Trinidad put on by pianist Raf Robertson featuring vocalist Nyol Manswell (singing in Spanish and all) and some of Manswell’s Berklee friends (an Italian guitarist, a St Thomas saxophonist and a Canadian bassist plus Charles Ryan, Gerion Williams and James Fenton.)

Nigel Campbell, the Blackberry Bro was in the Martin’s audience at Woodbrook, Port of Spain and reported that Raf led the students in the art of Kaiso-Jazz – “A masterclass in the “kaisojazz” envisioned by Scofield Pilgrim” is the way he put it. The young musicians, he said, responded by challenging the master, making magic on Raf’s “Pan for Carnival” and Sparrow’s “Slave.” “Pan for Carnival” was given “a bluesy makeover with harmonica and a Coleman Hawkins’ style sax by the Thomian Jonte [Samuel].” The BB Bro texted that Nyol tinged the lyrics of Raf’s arrangement of Sparrow’s “Slave” – redone some years ago by Raf and again on his recent CD “Majesty” – evoking Ellington and showing that a Trinidad songbook is ripe for reinterpretation by skilled musicians.