adapted from le Bananier bleu with additional reporting by the WEC
Just a little over a year after the January 12, 2010 earthquake disaster in Haiti, the Festival de Jazz de Port-au-Prince was back on track at the behest of la Fondation Haïti Jazz.
What a great lesson in courage, optimism and tenacity!
The festival, the 5th edition, was held nightly from February 19-26, 2011 at several locations in the city of Port-au-Prince, namely Karibe Hotel, L’Institut Français d’Haïti, L’Institute Haitiano Américain et le Parc Historique de la Canne à Sucre. The days were filled with training workshops targeting young Haitian Jazz musicians.
Fifty young musicians participated in a workshop called “The Roots of Jazz: introduction to Blues, Negro Spirituals” given by the stunning Haitian-American vocalist, January 25. Jean sought to answer the question, “What is Jazz” and put this musical trend within in a historical context for the students.
According to her, “Jazz is a musical language that has its roots in African-American communities in the South-eastern United States in the early 20th century. The style combines the musical traditions of West Africa and Europe. Jazz as any musical style draws on three basic concepts: rhythm, melody and harmony.”
The Berklee College of Music graduate evoked the history of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. “New Orleans is a landmark in the history of Jazz,” she said. “But it is partly due to the contribution of Haitian migrants who doubled the French population of Louisiana after the 1804 Haitian revolution that Jazz was established in the United States. ”
The singer reviewed the various styles that enrich the annals of Jazz before dwelling on the Blues which she defined as a state of mind that suggests sadness, struggle and suffering.
The subject of improvisation fuelled the debate in the auditorium of the L’institut Haitiano-américain. Jean explained that improvisation plays a big role in Jazz music. “It’s like a conversation. The Jazzman listens to his accomplices, talks to them. In the tradition of Jazz, musicians are free to express their feeling, which is not always possible in other styles. Mushy Widmaier was closely following the debate and interjected that “this freedom is not synonymous with anarchy, as some conceive.”
Percussionist Marcus Schwartz, whose work has been highly appreciated for the emphasis he places on the language of the drums, added that the drum plays a crucial role in Jazz and is the mainstay of music in general. He continued, Haiti has a rich rhythm like no other. Each “Lakou,” each region, has its specificity. This is one of the few African countries where the tradition in its entirety or almost, is perennial. He cited the variety of drums – Ibo, Nago and Dahomey – not found easily elsewhere. Schwartz believes it is important for Haiti to hold on to its roots, the traditions it has to offer to the world.
Assisting Jean in demonstrating the role of the different instrument in the language of Jazz were Mimi Jones (bass), Willerm Delisfort (piano), Shirazette Tinnin (drums). [Translated and paraphrased from “Pauline Jean creuse les racines du jazz” by Nélio Joseph]
Pauline's Musical Offering at the Haitian-American Institute in P-au-P Feb. 25, 2011. (Photos by Roberto Stephenson)
Of course, Haitian artists, among them singer Pauline Jean and pianist Mushy Widmaier, were featured prominently. But there was a strong foreign presence from Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Canada and the United States with saxophonist and flautist Jane Bunnett and pianist Aaron Goldberg leading the line-up.
The French Antilles and France was also well-represented by percussionist Mino Cinelu from Martinique.
The theme for Festival International de Jazz de Port-au-Prince 2011 was Ayiti pi djamn ak Jazz meaning “Haiti, Stronger with the Jazz.”
The world now revolves around Haiti as peoples from the four corners of the globe mobilize in response to the tremendous human suffering wreaked upon it by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Central to this outpouring of support is music. Artists from across all genres have already begun to lend their talents and star power to draw in support, in cash and in kind, for our brothers and sisters who occupy one-third of the island of Hispaniola that they share with the Dominican Republic.
Not to be left out of the loop, Jazz artists are no more swinging their axes, blowing their horns, wielding their sticks, beating their drum heads and exercising their pipes just because, but rather for the cause.
For instance, Haitian Jazz artist Pauline Jean, instead of preparing for her tour to Haiti for the International Festival de Jazz de Port-au-Prince, was otherwise engaged with Project S – “Sisters in Jazz” in putting on a Benefit Concert for Haiti Earthquake Relief. The Tuesday, January 19 Exclusive that resulted from this collaboration was held at Tutuma Social Club, New York, NY.
Joining Jean were five other lead females, drummer Shirazette Tinnin, bassist Mimi Jones,keyboardist Miki Hayama, saxophonist Camille Thurman and percussionist Paula Green with support from Luis Perdomo on keys and Obed Jean Louis on guitar.
The Pauline Jean Quintet and other Talented Artists United for the Cause, performed at MIZIK POU AYITI/Music For Haiti Benefit Concert on Friday, January 29 at the Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture, Brooklyn Public Library.
The evening of music in support of relief efforts in Haiti also featured Buyu Ambroise (with Paul Beaudry, Steeve Belvilus and Allan Mednard in the Blues in Red Band), Mozayik, Jean Caze,Markus Schwartz (Tanbou Nan Lakou Brooklyn), Chardavoine, Melanie Charles, The Altino Brothers, Lou Rainone, Tiga Jean Baptiste and more…
Jean gets back to her charitable ways at il Casale Italian Bar, Belmont, Massachusetts on Monday, March 15 2010 with Her Sisters in Jazz band (Pauline Jean (vocals), Mimi Jones (bass), Shirazette Tinnin (drums), Miki Hayama (keys) and Paula Green (percussion).
Heritage and Heart for Haiti will celebrate the vibrancy and history of Haitian culture through its music and art. Pauline Jean and the Sistas will perform classic Haitian music while narrating the long-term needs of the Haitian people who have become victim to the devastating earthquake of January 12.
Part proceeds are earmarked for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
Canadian flautist Jane Bunnett, who was due to perform at the International Festival de Jazz de Port-au-Prince from this weekend, had a cause of her own to fulfill on January 28, 2010. Bunnett organized a fundraiser for that day at the Hugh’s Room, 2261 Dundas St. W, Toronto to, as she told InsideToronto, “…make as much money as we can…to go to Doctors Without Borders.” Her assemblage comprised of the Spirits of Havana with special guest Hilario Durán and others.
More than that, Bunnett has pledged to do a whole series of such fundraisers for the people of Haiti. Thus, the same soprano sax that would have wowed the Port-au-Prince Jazz fraternity from January 23-30 sounded a clarion call to Jazz Fans in Toronto to reach out on January 28 and lend their helping hands.
Jane Bunnett has a history with Cuba, which serves as a hub of sorts for her Latin forays. Several collaborations with Cuban and other Latin musicians have resulted from that relationship. Interestingly, she became inadvertently tied to the Haitian experience through musicians of Haitian origin who migrated to Cuba.
Now we go across the waters to Jamaica for an example of Haitians helping Haitians. Singer, songwriter and producer JeanPaul Solomonoff, born to a Haitian mother and a Russian Polish Jewish father, performed with Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander at the 2010 Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival, Jan. 28th. All proceeds are destined for the Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund.
JeanPaul teaming up with Alexander was not an ad hoc pairing by any means. In fact, Alexander appears on JeanPaul’s début single Eyes for You from a forthcoming album entitled Introducing JeanPaul. The single drops on iTunes on February 14, 2010. I figure it might well be a Valentine for Haiti.
Heading further south into the Caribbean Sea, Barbadian musician/artists undertook a massive Relief Concert and Telethon on Saturday, January 30 from mid-morning til nightfall. From first glance, one would think that every single singer of songs and player of instruments were lined up backstage at Farley Hill to touch nerves and coax the goodness out of the pockets of their country folk.
Haiti, Barbados Loves You – Relief Concert and Telethon was an eight-hour marathon featuring 114 local Barbadian artistes and 7 bands. David Rudder, the special guest for the occasion, was no doubt a must-have on the strength of his “Haiti” apology.
These hundred plus artists ran the gamut of Gospel, R&B/Alternative, Spouge, Reggae/Dancehall, Calypso/Soca and, yes, the Jazz of Kellie Cadogan, Arturo Tappin, Nicholas Brancker and Marisa Lindsay.
The other women and men of honour are:
Allison Norville, De Warrior, Hozia Hinds, Kareem Clarke, Lillian Lorde, Mya Daniel, Paula Hinds, Shane Forrester and Sister Marshall from the Gospel field;
Carolyn Leacock, Dwayne Husbands, Kirk Browne & Strategy, Omar McQuilkin, Philip 7, Ria Borman, Richard Stoute, Rosie Hunte, RubyTech, TC, Toni Norville and Kim Derrick from the R&B/Other Alternative field;
Kirtorah, Mike Grosvenor, Mike Thompson and Tony Grazette from the Spouge field;
Albert Olton, Brimstone, Buggy, Danielle, Fully Loaded, LRG, Oracle, Prosperity, Ras Al-I, Seth Billy, Super Ruben, Tabitha, Black-Clay-Soil from the Reggae/Dancehall field;
Adrian Clarke, Allan Sheppard, Colin Spencer, Edwin Yearwood, Gabby, Grynner, John King, Khiomal, Little Rick, Mikey, Mr. Dale, Natalee, RPB (Red Plastic Bag), Merrymen, AC, Dazzle, Sir Raule from the Calypso/Soca field;
The MCs for the marathon are Ferdinand Nicholls, Peter Coppin, Admiral Nelson, Jamar Browne and Mac Fingall.
From Barbados in the middle of the Lesser Antillean arc, we make a great big loop to the north-western end of the Caribbean region. We land in the Cayman Islands where the Rotary and Rotaract Clubs of Grand Cayman organized Cayman’s Jazz musicians for Haiti.
The island’s Grand Old House, on Wednesday, February 03, was ground zero for a silent auction Haiti Relief effort featuring saxophonist Gary Ebanks and Leyannes Valdes, Chris Bowring, Big Eye Squirrel and Cool School.
Swedish Jazz musician Ed Epstien, a friend of the Woodshed Collective from early, has mobilized the Jazz fraternity over there for a Haiti benefit tentatively scheduled for February 13 at Martas Cafe in Lund, Sweden. Weeks in the making, Ed tells us that “it looks like it is finally going to happen.” We do hope it does, Ed.
Coming back around from the Caymans, we touch base with the Haiti Community Support (HCS) of the United States Virgin Islands. The HCS had been active in their support of Haiti for seven years before the earthquake struck and were already in the habit of mounting an annual Fundraiser and Family Fun Day to fund the school that they built, a hot lunch programme for the 200 pupils at that school, a medical clinics that has been treating quake victims from day 3 and water projects.
This year, the HCS held its seventh fundraiser on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at Mt. Victory Camp in Federicksted, St. Croix, not as a one-off event, but with a special mission to raise US$80,000 over the entire year. This project, called “Eighty for Haiti” will go towards maintaining the clinics over the long run.
Of course, no fundraiser would be complete without music. So for the Jazz, in came the VI Rhythm Section; for the Quelbe/Fungi/Scratch/Folk (call it what you will), Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Knights, for a swing through Cuban Son, there was Seite Son…and the list goes on.
This is the plan: Cuban pianist Elio Villafranca lands in Haiti this weekend for Festival International de Jazz de Port-au-Prince 2010. Villafranca has been hired by Canadian saxophonist/flautist Jane Bunnett for her January 23 – 25 FIJPaP concerts. Bunnett then leaves Haiti, but Villafranca stays on at the behest of Haitian singer Pauline Jean.
Jane Bunnett
In such a strong genre as Cuban piano, (and I’ve been lucky to perform and record with some of the greats … Frank Emilio, Hilario Durán, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Chucho Valdés) Elio is the next great voice to check out! His compositions and his playing are extensions of each other (a little like Monk). He’s a thinking man’s Cuban jazz pianist and continually inspires and surprises me. His surprises often come where the lines of composition and performance are blurred into one, that is, when spontaneous improvisations sound like full pre-meditated compositions. (eliovillafranca.net)
Pauline Jean is booked for five consecutive nights including one at the Institut Francais d’Haiti at Port- au- Prince (January 27) and a second at Parc Historique de la Cannes à Sucre in Tabare (January 30). The venues for the other dates on January 26, 28 and 29 are not given at last check. Jean’s other band members for Festival International de Jazz are named. They are Mimi Jones (bass), drummer Shirazette Tinnin – whom I had the pleasure of meeting in May at Jazz on the Hill – and Markus Schwartz (percussion).
The Berklee trained Jean is a New Yorker, born of Haitian parents. It is that background that has fed her arrangements of Jazz and Blues with the traditional Afro-Haitian vibe that becomes her. The character she brings to the genre has in turn taken her to attractive opposites in the 2ndAnnual Women in Jazz Festival and the Haitian Jazz Festival as well as Reggae Vibes in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Her début CD, A Musical Offering (Sekonsa Record), is out since June. She describes this recording, backed up as she is by bassist Corcoran Holt, whom we last sampled on Luther Franςois‘ Castries Underground and Jean Caze, a fixture on the Haitian Jazz scene, among others as “swingin’, bluesy and soulful.” (Pauline Jean on MySpace)
Can you tell?
Jazz Vocalist Pauline Jean performing “Beautiful Friendship” at her CD Release Concert on June 21, 2009 at Metropolitan Room (NYC)
Riyel, Vanessa & Alex Jacquemin with George Mel as a special invited guest were the other invited Haitian artistes from the United States. Joining them would have been Dizwikara de Pierre Rigaud Chery and Natif Jazz Quartet de Claude Carré.
That was the plan.
This weekend was supposed to be a time to play songs of joy and laughter…something like this…
Instead it is a time of wailing, sorrow and tears…something like this…
Hmmm…
The world now revolves around Haiti as peoples from the four corners of the globe mobilize in response to the tremendous human suffering wreaked upon it by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Central to this outpouring of support is music. Artists from across all genres have already begun to lend their talents and star power to draw in support, in cash and in kind, for our brothers and sisters who occupy one-third of the island of Hispaniola that they share with the Dominican Republic.
Not to be left out of the loop, Jazz artists are no more swinging their axes, blowing their horns, wielding their sticks, beating their drum heads and excercising their pipes just because, but rather for the cause.
For instance, Canadian flautist Jane Bunnett, who was due to perform at the International Festival de Jazz de Port-au-Prince this month, has a cause of her own to fulfill on January 28, 2010. She has organized a fundraiser for that day at Hugh’s Room, 2261 Dundas St. W, Toronto. More than that, Bunnett has pledged to do a whole series of such fundraisers for the people of Haiti.
Now we go across the waters from Port-au-Prince to Jamaica for an example of Haitians helping Haitians. Singer, songwriter and producer JeanPaul Solomonoff, born to a Haitian mother and a Russian Polish Jewish father, will perform with Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander at the 2010 Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival, Jan. 24th-29th. All proceeds are destined for the Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund. (As an added note, Claude Wilson of JamaicaMusic OFFBEAT has revealed that “…Etienne Charles joins Monty Alexander on main stage Thursday, January 28 at the Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival at the Greenfield Stadium just outside Montego Bay.”
Just a little over a year after the January 12, 2010 earthquake disaster in Haiti, the Festival de Jazz de Port-au-Prince was back on track at the behest of la Fondation Haïti Jazz. 
Woodshed Entertainment Collective 