Mother’s Day, Caribbean-Jazz style (updated May 16 with Maria Nunes photo gallery)

Trinidad

A Tribute to all Moms….Jazz & much more!, May 09 2010

Island Productions and Promotions of Trinidad and Tobago put together their second annual Mother’s Day tribute to mothers on Sunday, May 09, 2010.  This follow-up to a similar event last year took place at the Senior Common Room Grounds of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus from 06:00 pm, Sunday.

At the top of the card as listed on the Mama Dis is Jazz website was the pianist Dave Marcellin Trio.

However, the line up was so packed with some of the best Tn’T Jazz talents that it would not be a stretch to lump the Marcellin Trio with the UTT Jazz-tet, which boasts other national greats drummer Sean Thomas, guitarist Theron Shaw, keyboardist Wayne Guerra and bassist Douglas Reddon; The Jazz Singer Vaughnette Bigford;

…bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mike Boothman; and sitar player Mungal Patasar and Pantar.

Also appearing at Mama Dis is Jazz was 3 CANAL, The PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars Steel Orchestra, Kenneth Clarke, Robert Munroe and friends.

Haiti

Another Caribbean Jazz-themed Mother’s Day event that took place in the diaspora was the Mother’s Day Haitian Jazz Music Celebration.  Some of the most prominent Jazz musicians from the Haitian side of the world were down to perform at SOB’s on 204 Varick St. and We. Houston.  They were keyboardist Reginald Policard with bassist Addi Lafosse, drummer Harvel Nakundi; bassist Rigaud Simon with guitarist  Eli Menezes, keyboardist Axel Laugart, saxophonist Joe Albano, drummer Gashford Guillaume and percussionist Sergo Decius.

Making special appearances at An Evening of Haitian Jazz Music were trumpeter Jean Caze and singer Pauline Jean with drummer Shirazette Tinnin, keyboardist Miki Hayama, bassist Linda Oh and percussionist Paula Green.

Port of Spain, here comes The Jazz Singer Vaughnette Bigford (updated)

Trinidad

makeover 1, November 15  2009

by Production One, edited by Israel

Southerner Vaughnette Bigford was the fifth Songbird in the series SONGBIRDS…live at Aura Restaurant & Bar on Wednesday, November 04 2009.  Bigford continues the trend of talented female singers showcasing their talent at this unique production, bringing her smoky Jazz tinged voice to Port of Spain.

Since her debut in 2004, Bigford’s rich, earthy Jazz vocals have been making audiences sit up and take notice – and she’s been developing quite a fan club too!  She is recognised for her haunting delivery of some of the most timeless Jazz standards and confesses that when she discovered Jazz, she knew she had found a “home“.

Hailing from South Trinidad, Bigford’s professional entry onto the Jazz circuit came at the 2004 Steelpan & Jazz Festival (formerly Pan Royale) as guest vocalist with Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and Phase II Pan Groove.

For three consecutive years, she graced the stage at the San Fernando Jazz Festival, appearing with Carlton Alexander’s Coalpot Band.

Bigford has trained and continues to perfect her craft with some of the finest local and foreign vocal coaches and musicians.  That list includes Cristiana Balbosa and Jessel Murray (Trinidad), Jazz legend Dr. Barry Harris, Hank Jones and vocalist Sheila Jordan.  She continues to work with the esteemed Ms. Donna Mc Elroy, a Professor at the Berklee College of Music Voice Department.

Closer to home, Vaughnette has worked with some of Trinidad and Tobago’s most celebrated Jazz musicians: Carlton Zanda, Theron Shaw, Raf Robertson and Ray Holman. Topping her list of most noteworthy performances to date is her smoldering centre-stage solo act at the YWCA’s “Sisters in Song” – a Caribbean Jazz concert featuring local greats like Mavis John and Chantal Esdelle – Jazz Artists on the Greens in March, 2008 and her role as guest vocalist to the band Earthsound at Ryles Jazz Club in Boston in June 2009.

Bigford remains an active member of the US-based International Women in Jazz.  She is also a student of Berklee music online and was one of the few Caribbean nationals to be awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music Summer Performance Program in 2008.

SONGBIRDS…live featuring Vaughnette Bigford, Wednesday, November 04, 2009 @ AURA Restaurant & Bar, 51 Cipriani Blvd, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.  Behind Bigford was guitarist Theron Shaw, bassist Douglas Reddon and percussionist Modupe Folasade Onilu.  Note that Bigford shed the trap drums for this date.

Vaughnette Bigford:

Wanna hear some Brazilian, Columbian, French music…check me out at Aura…music for all races and cultures.

(Follow the image link for a Facebook concert review by Brenda B Butler)

For more of Vaughnette, go to  http://www.vaughnettebigford.com or http://www.myspace.com/vaughnettebigford.

A heck of a week of Jazz in Trinidad and Tobago (updated May 10)

Trinidad

St. Thomas Trio f/ Arturo Tappin

This past week was one heck of a week for Jazz in Trinidad and Tobago.  That was the place to be in the Caribbean, from The Corner Bar, the Lion’s Cultural Centre and Jazz Plaza on the big island, to the Redemption Sun Setters Pan Yard/Theatre, Mt. Irvine and Pigeon Point Heritage Park on Tobago.

And the action is not over yet though.  The instruments were carried back to The Corner Bar for another go around on Tuesday, April 28 when Sean Thomas was once again on the ball, but this time with guest pannist Rudy Smith.

Anyhow, the week of April 20 got under way at The Corner Bar where The Sean Thomas Trio featured Barbadian saxophonist Arturo Tappin, fusing many different styles of music with Jazz.

The Trio was the leader himself on drums, Theron Shaw (guitar) and Douglas Reddon (bass)…with Tappin sitting in.

Fast forward.  Take a ferry, fly a charter (whatever) to Tobago on Thursday, April 23 for what reviewer Joan Rampersad dubbed a “powerful performance” by Trinidad’s Mavis John.  John appeared at Pan Jazz in d Yard at the Redemption Sound Setters Pan Yard with Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe, Rudy ‘Two Left’ Smith, John Arnold, Liam Teague among others.

Mavis John packed her set with an original of hers, Jazz in de Callaloo, written for Eintou Springer’s concept of the same name, and a few others by Trinidadian writers: Ras Shorty I’s Who God Bless, one of the songs that signalled the Soca movement twenty years ago; Andre Tanker‘s Morena Osha, which John has recorded; and Boogsie Sharpe‘s That’s the Debt I Owe. John closed her set with another couple of tunes, one of which was the ever-popular Guantanamera.

Ah, Boogsie Sharpe.  Rampersad felt that Boogsie was more aggressive than usual in his pan attack on a varied programme strung with odes to Indian cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar (Lord Relator) and to Frank Sinatra, arguably the individual most synonymous with My Way, and a dip into the hymnal wellspring for How Great Thou Art. That was not all from Len Boogsie Sharpe, but the picture of the mood he was in is clear, at once retrospective and contemplative.

Jacques Schwarz-Bart

One trip back to the main island put one in place to access the Lion’s Cultural Centre for the Jacques Schwarz-Bart‘s Gwo ka and Jazz concert, held under the auspices of the Alliance Française and the Patron’s of Queen’s Hall of Trinidad.  Schwarz-Bart was backed up by his band, Abyss that had within its ranks Trinidadian trumpeter, Etienne Charles.

This French West Indian, affectionately called Brother Jack, is the first to experiment with the Gwo Ka rhythms (played with Gwo Ka drums, the larger boula and the marker or maké) and the possibilities for Jazz interpretations of it.

Gwo ka drum

Gwo Ka, a major part of Guadeloupean culture, manifested contemporaneously in communal Lewozes, Carnival and other celebrations, is a combination of seven rhythms played with flourish and embellishment by master drummers who interplay with dancers and a lead singer to tell a folk tale.

The lead singer is commonly a female whose complex delivery is characteristically guttural, nasal and rough.

The members of Abyss were Charles, Milan Milanovic (piano), Ari Hoenig (drums), Itaiguara Brandao (bass) and Puerto Rican percussionist Reinaldo De Jesus.  An Escuela Libre de Musica (PR) and Berklee trained classical percussionist, Reinaldo has, in the eight years since graduating from Berklee, toured with the William Cepeda Afro-Rican Jazz group, Miguel Zenon and the Rhythm Collective, Papo Vasquez and Roy Hargrove.

Then on Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26, it was all Tobago for an all-out Jazz Experience.

Mount Irvine Bay Hotel and music producer Carl ‘Beaver’ Henderson complemented the main fare at the Pigeon Point National Park (Latin Jazz on Saturday and Beach Jazz Fiesta on Sunday) with their own Jazz on de Beach, at Mt. Irvine.  On Saturday afternoon, Chantal Esdelle and Moyenne and the Clive Zanda Experience were front and center.

However, the main stage at Pigeon Point National Park was all abuzz on the Saturday with the sitar playing of Mungal Patasar and Pantar, Élan Parlé, Canefire and Bellita y JazzTumbá.

Élan Parlé, for their part, was on point as usual with their unique stylings in the vein of Classical Jazz and original compositions.  But it was Mungal Patasar and Pantar that had the modest crowd up in arms, calling for encores in the throes of a mix of local Trinidadian and World Music.

The Clifford Charles Quartet, Douglas Redon’s Tabanka Blues and the Jazz Singer, Vaughnette Bigford waited one more day for their turn on de beach. St. Lucia’s Ronald ‘Boo’ Hinkson was thrown in with them, keeping them honest.

Pan Trinbago’s Pan Jazz in De Yard also had some sound and memorable performances too, on opening night.  Such were those of the United States’ Virgin Islands’ tenor pannist Victor Provost, that of the house band Caribbean inXS, United States-based Trinidadian panman Liam Teague and honorary Trini, Andy Narrell.

Finally, The Sean Thomas Trio was at The Corner Bar with Copenhagen-based Trinidadian pannist, Rudy ‘Two Left’ Smith; and the Jazz Singer, Vaughnette Bigford, rose up in song at Raytees in Point Fortin, on Tuesday, April 28, 2009.

The Sean Thomas Trio – Wayne Guerra (keyboard), Douglas Reddon (bass) and Sean Thomas (drums) featured Trinidad’s finest Rudy “Two Left” Smith on Double Tenors.   The Trio and Smith tapped into JAZZ standards such as “Green Dolphin Street”, “Summertime”, “Autumn Leaves” plus more, up close and personal.