St. Lucia Jazz is off and running again. That sun did not, however, rise in the east; rather it came up on the fringe located to the South of St. Lucia, at Laborie and Vieux Fort.
As reported here, that was not the original plan. Bad weather forced Jazz in the South to push back its first event on Saturday, April 30 by one day. Thus, their Sunday, May 01 show at the Coconut Bay Resort and Spa in Vieux Fort shared the starting line with Jazz on the Beach, the Beachfront of Royal by Rex, and the Fire Grill Restaurant and Lounge Bar.
An all-St. Lucian lineup led by the premier Lucian saxophonist and Caribbean Jazz icon, Luther François, rang in The Jazz at the Jazz on the Beach. Tailing off behind Francois’ conga line were the likes of Blues guitarist Robert ‘Zi’ Taylor among others – Stacy Charles & Phaze Band, 4th World, Pantime Steel Band and Teddyson John. Luther François could be seen again at Carellie Jazz – in the park on May 02.
Over at the Fire Grill on May 01 was the Derek Yard Project together with a lapo kabwit (goat skin) drum ensemble. Jazz on the Grill is a three-day fringe event, which ends on May 03.
Boo Hinkson & Friends manned the Fire Grill on Monday, May 02; Zi & the Vibe Tribe served up the menu on Tuesday, May 03.
Boo Hinkson doubled the fun, again and again. Firstly, he was at the J Q Charles Shopping Mall on Tuesday, May 03 duringJazz Rhythms @ Rodney Bay Mall; the Derek Walcott Square in Castries had him early afternoon Wednesday, May 04; then at sundown on that same day, the St. Lucia Golf Club received him in a collaboration with Roger Eckers.
Hinkson’s lunchtime appearance at Derek Walcott Square for Jazz on the Square on Wednesday sandwiched him between St. Lucia’s E’vion, which had as its special guest, the award-winning Barbadian singer Kellie Cadogan. Cadogan was voted Barbados’ 2010 Jazz Artiste of the Year. This marked Cadogan’s second consecutive visit to St. Lucia Jazz, having performed with Rupert Lay and Red Clay last year. The Derek Yard Project was the other act on the Golf Club bill, dubbed Jazz on the Green.
Lay was himself on the Square the following day, Thursday, May 05. That Thursday action included Trinidad and Tobago’s Elan Parle, the St. Lucia School of Music Orchestra and Alibi.(Alibi: Teddison and Francis John, and Richard Payne)
Jazz on the Square shut up shop for another year on Friday, May 06 at which time St. Lucian guitarist Harvey Millar played in the middle of a three-band bill.
The leader of Elan Parle, Michael Low Chew Tung aka Ming mentioned on his Facebook page Tuesday that the band would be flying in to St. Lucia on Wednesday and with them would be guitarist Clifford Charles. By the way, Ming and Charles’ bands just played separate sets on closing night, Sunday, May 01, at Tobago Jazz Experience.
The Fire Grill stayed lit through Thursday, May 05, thanks to Alibi. Guitarist Carl Gustave and the Cali Kats performed there on the Wednesday, May 04.
The Black Ants Band, a faction of the St. Lucia School of Music Orchestra, did Tea Time Jazzat 03:00pm in La Place Carenage on Wednesday while Barbara Cadet’s Sisterhood held it down on Thursday.
The one-day only Jazz on the Pier – Pointe Seraphine Duty Free Shopping Complex – outfest is actually a three-segment marathon that started at 03:00 Friday afternoon with a Warm Up Segment of steelpan music and ended with what was presumed to be an advertisement for St. Lucia’s 2011 Carnival.
The bachannal was tempered by a Jazz Segment from 04:00pm till 08:00pm. All of the acts for this show – Harvey Millar, E’Vion featuring Kellie Cadogan, Rob Zi Taylor and Luther Francois – were making comebacks, having played at various locations during the first week of St. Lucia Jazz.
For some, St. Lucia Jazz is really bracketed by the last five nights at The Gaiety Rodney Bay (two nights) and Pigeon Island National Park.
Gaiety opened its doors on Wednesday, May 04 to Allison Marquis and Eclectic Pan Jazz, Regina Carter and Ledisi. A former member of Third Eye out of St. Lucia, Marquis has performed with Andy Narell and the Bernard Brothers of Martinique. He has collaborated with folks like Harvey Millar and recorded with his countryman Emerson Nurse, Barbadian pianist Adrian Clarke – recently deceased – and Michael Boothman of Trinidad and Tobago. Marquis’ last appearance at St. Lucia Jazz was in 2009.
On Thursday, May 05, Augustin “Jab” Duplessis was on tap. Jab Duplessis was, like Marquis, a member of Third Eye. Jab toured independently with the West Indies Jazz Band of Luther Francois and otherwise performed with the Bernard Brothers, Fourplay and Earth Wind and Fire.
Currently, he is working on a solo project that will fuse Caribbean rhythms and traditional Jazz. Jab Duplessis returned to St. Lucia Jazz after an eight-year absence.
First published on January 19, 2011; updated, January 22, 2011
Heard of the cancellation of the Barbados Jazz Festival, did you? Yes indeedy, the BJF crashed and burned on re-entering the 2011 Jazzosphere. The producers, GMR International Tours Inc. headed by Gilbert Rowe laid the blame gingerly on the festival’s main supporter, the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) for not being forthcoming. But reports are that there was a conflict between GMR and the BHTA, which resulted in the eventual deferment of the festival. Whatever the problem – and we will go deeper into that – the festival is off for 2011.
Then there was the Cayman Islands Jazz Fest. That one too hit the dirt. Well, we understand Cayman’s position, having been dealt a serious blow by Hurricane Tomas, the downturn in the economy worldwide and the pressures being applied on Offshore Banking by the United States and most recently a former banking executive who worked in the Cayman Islands.
The Jazz Showcase in the BVI has also suffered, but for different reasons. Since past President of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, Dr. Michael O’Neal, retired from the institution, the “young people” went to the Jazz with a scalpel, succeeding in reducing the offering of three concerts per season to just one.
And In the past few months, the single Jazz station in the Caribbean, WMJX, Trinidad, went off the air.
Add to that the relegation of authentic Jazz in the surviving Jazz Festivals and you have a bleak future for The Jazz if something does not give.
Thankfully, St. Lucia Jazz is staid and is expected to hold fast. The one year, 2009, when they drifted a little away from The Jazz, they got an earful. In 2010, they reverted to the old formula. The prospects for St. Lucia Jazz look good. Fingers crossed.
At this moment in time though, it is the Barbados Jazz Festival that lights up the bulbs at the Shed.
GMR’s Gilbert Rowe sat down with Kaymar Jordan, Editor-in-Chief at the Nation newspaper of Barbados in December to clarify the issues. This followed the publication of an Official Press Release on the producer’s website. Asked what specific challenges he faced, Rowe placed the blame squarely on the economic recession.
However, that was a hard pill to swallow since in the same breath, Rowe claimed to have “managed to hold on to all our other sponsors,” which implied that it was only the BHTA that hit the skids and could not come up with their percentage of the sponsorship monies. Either that or the BHTA was just playing hard-ball with Rowe and would not cut him a cheque early enough to give him the six months head start he needed to promote the festival.
In fact, Rowe would have us believe that the latter is true. But why? His explanation in the Nation interview was that the BHTA was only prepared to take responsibility for the international marketing of the festival, which they knew to be inadequate for an event the size of the Barbados Jazz Festival. For the matter, the BHTA supported the BJF with a cash infusion all seventeen years since the first edition in 1993. Rowe made no bones about it; the Barbados Jazz Festival could not survive without tangible support from the BHTA.
And compromising the integrity of the festival by scaling the brand down from an international spectacle to a Caribbean or even Barbadian one was not a viable option for GMR.
When a shoe loses a foot, there is always another foot to step in it. Enter Jazz’N Barbados.
Jazz’N Barbados mounted a major coup in drawing some major Caribbean Jazz acts from neighbouring St. Lucia, Trinidad and Venezuela to join their local Barbadian cast for five nights of Jazz, January 12 – 16, mainly in the outdoors. It was like – how should I put it? – some sort of “Town Hall Jazz,” bringing the sound to the people where they are most comfortable, in De Street, in De Hall, under De Mango Tree, on De Gap and De Second Street and in ‘De Woods’ (my coinage) of Naniki. The one night that The Jazz was taken indoors, it was for a traditional concert under the roof of the Frank Collymore Hall in Bridgetown.
Jazz’N Barbados was pulled together by Limelight Inc. within one week – nine days to be exact – after Gilbert Rowe announced the cancellation of the Barbados Jazz Festival. There to lend a hand was the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Authority (BHTA) that spurned Rowe’s GMR Tours because they would not provide the BHTA with the details of the contracts they were due to sign, presumably with BHTA money. Some of those funds went instead to Limelight for Jazz’N Barbados.
“…[W]e’ve gotten a lot of logistics support from them…we’ve got a lot of guidance, moral support and a little bit of money. Not a lot of money, but even the little bit of money that we received made a big difference,” Grady Clarke of Limelight told NationNews Mobile.
And the people trucked to the Mango Tree at Peronne Gap, Worthing, to take in Trinidadian music educator and pianist, Dave Marcellin & Friends at Jazz’N De Street on Wednesday, January 12, 2011.
The Thursday, January 13, was set aside for the sit-down types to savour The Malcolm Griffith Septet with Michael Cheeseman and the ‘Barbalucian’ (Ok, Drakes was born of Barbadian and St. Lucian parents, but lives and practices her art in Barbados) pianist Rhea Drakes and her St. Lucian band at Frank Collymore Hall.
On Friday, January 14, the fans trekked to Mahagony Ridge for Jazz’N De Trees to hear and see Barbadians Roger Gittens Big Band and Friends, saxophonist Arturo Tappin and songstress Rosemary Phillips. Visiting the Ridge on the night was Trinidadian multi-instrumentalist Michael Boothman whose primary instrument these days is the electric guitar.
The next day, Boothman was ferried to the mecca of live music in Barbados, St. Lawrence Gap. The name of this event? (You guessed it!) Jazz’N De Gap. The date? Saturday, January 15.
Now, those of us who have been to De Gap are well aware that the live bands hardly ever unplug, taking the night owls through the night, literally to daybreak. No wonder then that Jazz’N De Gap featured a fat cast that included Barbadian drummer Antonio “Boo” Rudder & Friends, Rudder’s compatriots David “Ziggy” Walcott on his tenor pan and Tappin at Hal’s; Mike Sealy Quartet, Ricky Aimey and Boothman at Paolo’s; the Barbados Community College’s BCC Ensemble featuring Kirk Layne and Reggae Fusion All Stars at the Reggae Lounge. Returning home, so to speak, for this Jazz action was Trini pianist Raf Robertson.
YVETTE BEST filed this report for NationNews Mobile. We have reproduced it here unedited.
St Lawrence Gap was a jazzy zone Saturday night as Jazz’N Barbados made its fifth stop for the season.The parking lot between Paulo Churrasco Do Brazil and Sweet Potatoes was the central place for Jazz’n De Gap, where patrons gathered to hear some of the finest talent in Barbados and the Caribbean, and the developing talent out of the Barbados Community College.Under mostly clear skies, and with a cool night breeze blowing through, patrons were treated to selections from Boo Rudder and his group, the Ziggy Walcott Band, Raf Robertson and friends and Rickey Aimey and his friends.It was not the original concept where the gap was closed off and music playing from the various establishments and on the street, but fans had a delightful musical treat that took them close to 2 a.m. And for those who still had not had their fill, the vibe continued with a reggae fusion jam in Reggae Lounge with John King and his group.
Clifton Henry of NATIONNews.com also had something to say…
David “Ziggy” Walcott one of the best, if not the best, steel pan player on the island, was met by screams of approval from both locals and visitors. He did not disappoint.
Songs like Never Too Much by George Benson and Through The Fire soon had everyone in a dancing mood. Following would be David Rudder’s Bahia Girl, and a Mighty Sparrow medley that included The Lizard, Melda, Drunk And Disorderly, Jean And Dinah and Big Bamboo.
Walcott would eventually rock the street with Rihanna’s current No. 1 selection Only Girl In The World.
There are no more adjectives that can aptly describe Arturo Tappin’s musical genius. Badd by Michael Jackson, Independent by Neo, Green Light by John Lennon and Roll by Alison Hinds were among his servings in a most spectacular performance.
Cadogan (on mic), Luther (sax) Photo, Lennox Devonish
The Jazz fans would have had a busy time of it on that Saturday – I can tell you – if they would have had any chance of taking it all in for home-grown C4 Kaiso Jazz Fusion, a quartet from the Barbados Community College (BCC) and a St. Lucian contingent comprising of the Luther Francois Quartet (with Luther’s brother Ricky on drums and Barbadian singer Kellie Cadogan) and Blue Mango, a group of Lucian and Martiniquan musicians, disturbed the peace at the Naniki Amphitheatre of the Lush Life Nature Resort in St. Joseph, Barbados, from 1:00 till 06:30.
YVETTE BEST of NationNews Mobile was on tap and filed this edited report.
The hills, up north, came alive with music as the first day of Jazz At Naniki – A Caribbean Jazz Festival, started in St Joseph…The Luther Francois Quartet, with singer Kellie Cadogan, was among the acts that serenaded the audience…
Actually, Jazz’N Barbados served up a two-day menu of Jazz at Naniki in parallel event with their Jazz’N this and Jazz’N that all over the place. Saturday’s course was the first serving.
Come Sunday, January 16, the Elan Trotman Quintet and Arturo Tappin out of Barbados assembled with Trinidadian bassist David “Happy” Williams for the second go round the Jazz buffet, held within earshot of Naniki Restaurant.
The fanatic who would have imbibed The Jazz at Naniki would then have had to Jazz’N up Second Street, Hole Town, like bats out of hell to catch Trinidadian elder pianist Robertson, Aimey, Walcott, Tappin and Venezuela’s Ernesto’s Salsa Band featuring Trinidad’s Rellon Brown on trumpet.
Now that Jazz’N Barbados has staked a claim for an expanded event in January of next year, it will be interesting to see how it coalesces with a possible return of the Barbados Jazz Festival.
Trinidadian multi-instrumentalist Michael Boothman added another title to his hat, that of philanthropist, when he and his band, Boothman’s KysoFusion put on a benefit concert on November 28 to aid the island of St. Lucia recently devastated by floods and landslides brought on by Hurricane Tomas.
The 2010 Caribbean Jazz Fusion Concert, held at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain , Trinidad on November 28, also featured Biguine-Jazz band Makadanm out of Martinique.
Boothman was inspired to commit part proceeds from the concert to St. Lucia by virtue of his long-standing relationship with St. Lucia Jazz and the people of St. Lucia.
The concept of the Caribbean Jazz Fusion Concert is being expanded into a first of its kind Caribbean Jazz, Food and Wine/Spirits Festivaltentatively scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. (Source: Jazz takes on Martiniquan twist)
The Blackberry Bro, Nigel Campbell was at the Caribbean Jazz Fusion Concert and filed this report on the KysoFusion segment of the concert:
After Makadanm had taken flight with their French Caribbean beguine, Michael Boothman’s KysoFusion hooked up and with our Songbird, Nisa Nora on the vocals, did “Saying it with Music,” a remake of a 1970s Boothman classic. Much was expected from Nisa because you know the lady can sing. And she delivered the goods.
Then KysoFusion played “Maya Mosquito” – never sounds old; the hallmark of great song-writing.
But as Boothman pulled out those kaisojazz gems and classics out of his creative bag, the crowd began to dwindle. That’s disrespect.
“Jump to It,” another classic co-written with percussionist Ralph MacDonald, was a loss for those people who left, and worse yet, those who were not there to witness the man Boothman playing with a band for the first time in a while, by his own admission.
KysoFusion closed its set with a cover of a Roger Boothman composition (the Boothman Brothers are an institution in Trinidad) and a Michael Boothman original entitled “A Brighter Day.” This song was dedicated, quite appropriately, to St. Lucia, that she may see a brighter day after the scourge of Hurricane Tomas weeks ago.
However, the fun was not yet over for Makadanm was invited back on stage for a last jam with KysoFusion. They came out with Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” with Makadanm’s vocalist doing a creole rap over the melody.
The Jazz Alliance of Trinidad and Tobago continued to advance the Jazz cause this past December with another packed roster of events. The Events were as diverse as they come, refreshing the Drink! Wine Bar, the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago and Aura with alliterations for fostering Jazz appreciation among the impressionable young while nurturing the tastes of the seasoned fans and drawing in a new cadre of converts.
The month’s Events commenced on Thursday, December 3 2009 at Drink! on Rosalino and Robert in Port of Spain where Russel Durity (bass), Jeffrey Pataysingh (guitar), Jesse Ryan (sax) and Sean Thomas (drums) took the Drinkers on “A Closer Walk With Jazz“.
Get Jazzed…
Two days on, the JATT entered into yet another collaboration with Storyteller Auntie Thea. Singer/guitarist Gillian Moore and Thomas and Auntie Thea got together at the Storytelling Room of the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago in PoS on Saturday morning, December 05 at 10:00 am to tickle the fancy of the pre-teens assembled with a one-hour set of “Rhythm Stories“.
Get Jazzed…
On Thursday, December 10 and Thursday 17, Drink! hosted two more Live Thursdays “Intimate Sessions“. Anchoring these Events was Thomas who surrounded himself with two different configurations of musicians for each of them. “Intimate Sessions 8” pit Thomas with Durity, Wayne Guerra and Anthony Adams. Thomas pared down the quartet to a trio on December 17, replacing Durity who had played the bass for him on Sessions 7 and 8 with Douglas Redon and bringing on board guitarist Theron Shaw.
Get Jazzed…
Next up was “Jazzang” at the Phase 11 Panyard on December 27 and “Candlelight” at Aura on December 30.
JAZZANG was one of three events to be staged to aid in the setting of a Musical Scholarship Fund for artistes in need of furthering their studies in the field of Jazz Music. In the case of “Jazzang“, part proceeds will be awarded to saxophonist Jesse Ryan who was recently accepted to read for a music degree at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Generally, the monies raised go to music students in need of financial support to study either locally in Trinidad or overseas. However, this particular event, it would seem to us at the Woodshed, served as a morale – and financial – booster for young Ryan whom we understand was snubbed when he sought government’s help to enable him to take the space offered to him at Berklee.
The artistes who were committed to the show, which hyphenated Jazz with Trinidad’s folk music, Parang, included cuatro player Robert Munroe, steel pan impresario Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe, Chantal Esdelle on piano, guitarist Theron Shaw, Douglas Redon on bass, saxophonist Ryan himself, Sean Thomas on drums and the winners of 2009 Parang Finals, Los Alumnos de San Juan. The event also featured, Armonias Divina and a special guest appearance by 3 Canal.
In the case of Candle Light Jazz on Wednesday, December 30, that show was put together by the JATT (Jazz Alliance of Trinidad and Tobago) to close out the year and the first decade of the century in style. The Jazz stylists for this were guitarist Michael Boothman, bassist Russel Durity, drummer Sean Thomas and vocalist Nyol Manswell.
GET JAZZED…
The Jazz Alliance of Trinidad and Tobago was back in the act this past weekend with the hosting of the First Annual “Trinidad and Tobago Jazz Festival 2010 – Introducing Chutney Jazz” from Friday, March 12 to Sunday, March 14.
The action started at the Brian Lara Promenade and Spalkers Restaurant and Sports Bar on Friday 12, moved to the University of the West Indies (UWI) Centre for Creative and Festival Arts on Saturday 13 and then to the Corner Bar on Sunday 14 to close.
Full post on First Annual Trinidad and Tobago Jazz Festival here…
For the first three weekdays in August, young lions in the sphere of Jazz music in Trinidad preened and pointed the way for musicians of other genres and generations to duplicate. On Monday, August 3, Etienne Charles launched his new CD Folklore at a listening party at the Jazz-themed restaurant, Satchmo’s in Woodbrook. In anticipation of a short live set, the crowd grew larger than the dining room that hosted it as the night moved on. Etienne, and fellow young lion, saxophonist, Tony Woodroffe Jr., recently back from studies at Leeds University, played their instruments with a maturity belying their ages.
Etienne‘s music represents the genesis of a transformational moment that comes in generations. Back in 1956, Sparrow marked that kind of generational shift that propelled calypso forward through the shortened zenith of Belafonte’s Calypso age a year hence. Trinidad and the diaspora are richer for Charles‘ and Woodroffe‘s sojourn into the musical spaces that exist for local musicians who are brave enough to go into them without fear of the rhetoric of failure.
Folklore is an impressive achievement, and solidifies in my mind that Etienne is at a place musically that most local musicians have not even seen much less entered. Things can only get better with more interaction with this artist of both profound intellect and subtle style who uses the cannon of local rhythm and melodies to create the new.
A wiser scribe than I once wrote that Jazz is “the sound of surprise,” and I was surprised by the following night’s performance of Karl Doyle’sBlue Culture at The Corner Bar. The energy was sustained over an hour with a mix of originals and covers that featured the aforementioned Woodroffe and Charles together with Mikhail Salcedo who is becoming the star soloist on the tenor pan.
That youthful energy and large crowd were signals to me of a changing of the guard in the local Jazz scene. The ultimate surprise was of course the consistency and maturity of the jam! When the “cats” wailed, the crowd wooed; a musical call and response that grew with every song. There can be no backing down at this point for Karl and his crew. Blue Culture have shown that Jazz fusion can be entertaining and popular. Kudos to them.
Jazz is predominantly about the primacy of the individual voice. Jazz requires its musicians to make something new each time they take the [band]stand…Not “interpreting” in the way of classical musicians, but inventing themselves anew each night.
Richard Williams, Jazz – A Photographic Documentary (New York: Crescent Books, 1994) 15
Caroline Mair represents, to some, a challenge because of her sound, her look, her personality. Debuting the SONGBIRDS…live series by Production One Ltd. at AURA Restaurant, Caroline performed, for a sold out paying crowd, a set of both original and covers of ballads from the cannon of Broadway to Marley. No one can fault her for stage presence. Either you have it or not.
Caroline Mair with Williams (g) and Onilu (p)
Backed by Dean Williams and Modupe Folasade Onilu, she purred, crooned and delivered. There can be no looking back to a time when the female voice was relegated to backing vocals. This female voice is interpreting the music in ways that are unfamiliar or even uncomfortable for audiences that chauvinistically hold onto examples that are ironically, not of their making. This individual voice that can both echo a remembered tone and sustain an original searing note has the potential to breach the boundaries of performance spaces globally. It is an identifiable sound that we can call our own.
I must now compare these three performances with others I have attended in the week prior. August started good! Crowd. Excellence. Innovation. These young lions rule. Everyone else, watch out. These performances, as a group, stand as a declaration of a new age. Both in terms of crowd support and performance, that generational shift I have been speaking about is here and now!
One could easily identify four generations:
The Scofield Pilgrim Generation – those pioneers who were Scofield‘s contemporaries and successors such as Rupert Clemendore, Clive Zanda, Ralph Davies, Errol Ince
The protégés of the Scofield Generation ranging from Raf Robertson, the Boothman brothers, David and Michael, to “Professor” Philmore and Dave Marcellin
The New School – students of higher learning in music who finally challenged the status quo in the new century, and who have recorded prolifically: Theron Shaw, Clifford Charles and Ming together with Sean Thomas, and
The Young Lions – Etienne Charles, Tony Woodroffe Jr., Mikhail Salcedo, et al.
To be at the cusp of change in the culture of a country is to be blessed. The American experience showed the movement from swing to bebop to cool and beyond. Our challenge is to recognize and reward the vanguards at the gate.
It is now possible for artistes to easily record and distribute their performance and original output. To validate that output with critical acknowledgment and financial support is the goal of the modern audience. To do that over the generations is to be conscious of one’s place in a civilized society.
(Images courtesy Gillian Moore – Etienne Charles; Blue Culture – Karl Doyle; SONGBIRDS…live – Caroline Mair)
GAYAP 2009, St. Joseph, Trinidad and Tobago is here!. Friends of St. Joseph’s Convent teamed up with Island Productions & Promotions to present this Jazz-centric event at The Nazarene, July 18, 2009.
This inaugural fundraiser for the namesake school packed the Bamboo Sanctuary in St. Joseph with a mix of local and regional Jazz artists.
Up on stage was guitarist Michael Boothman whose credits also include songwriter and producer; sitar playing Mungal Patasar, a Trinidadian of Indian heritage whose other life is dedicated to community upliftment; pianist Dave Marcellin, equally comfortable behind the keys as he is behind the boards as an audio engineer and music producer;
Vaughnette Bigford bends a note at GAYAP 2009
Caribbean Jazz star in the making, Vaughnette Bigford who is just five years removed from her debut but who has already benefited from studies under Trinidad’s Carlton Zanda, Theron Shaw, Raf Robertson and Ray Holman and international trailblazers, Dr. Barry Harris, Hank Jones and Sheila Jordan; electric guitarist Clifford Charles, well schooled in Musical Arts at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and at the Music College, Trinidad; pannist Mikhail Salcedo; and Relator, fresh from the release of the seminal ‘University of Calypso‘ collaboration with Andy Narell.
Right up under the Trinidadians were Guyanese flautist Ruth Osman and Barbadian sax lion, Arturo Tappin.
Osman, who has made Trinidad home, was expected to put on her poet’s hat in addition to her most obvious skill as a musician and writer.
Born into a musical family – her father is into Classical music, her mother a pianist – Osman started first on recorder then went on to flute and voice, gifts she would come to express in church. She continues to feed the writing aspect of her career with her spirituality, nurtured as it were by the music she played in the church as a youth.
“I see Jazz as a sort of conduit leading from my heart to my audience,” Osman explained toPatricia Grannum of the Woman of Colour blog.
Osman surprised Marielle Barrow, host of Trini Smooth (Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 at 03:00 pm) on wmjxfm.com with her depiction of her spiritual relationship, as expressed in her music, as “Jazz with God.” Some of that will be enjoyed again at R to the Power of 3 at the new Daaga Auditorium, UWI (University of the West Indies) Trinidad, July 25 2009, the 3 R’s being Ruth, Russell (Leonce) and Rizon.
Then from across the fishing straights between Trinidad and Barbados came saxophonist Arturo Tappin to represent the collective spirit and goodwill of the rest of the Caribbean region for the noble effort to assist St. Joseph’s Convent.
With no time to spare, Tappin was on a flight out of Trinidad Sunday, after GAYAP, headed for Montserrat’s 4th Annual Calabash Festival, which would has been underway from July 11.
Tappin will be joining returning headlners from last year, trumpeter Paul Lunga and saxophonist Tony Chambers, for a gala evening on July 19 at the Montserrat Culutral Centre.
So that was GAYAP for you, a Smooth Jazz experience on July 18, 2009 at The Nazarene, a bamboo sanctuary next to Ortinola Estate, Acono Rd., Maracas Valley, St. Joseph, Trinidad.
I just have one question for anyone who can answer it: What on earth is a GAYAP?
Boo Hinkson doubled the fun, again and again. Firstly, he was at the J Q Charles Shopping Mall on Tuesday, May 03 during Jazz Rhythms @ Rodney Bay Mall; the Derek Walcott Square in Castries had him early afternoon Wednesday, May 04; then at sundown on that same day, the St. Lucia Golf Club received him in a collaboration with Roger Eckers.
Woodshed Entertainment Collective 