Olympics in London, Jazz Jamaica and Myrna Hague in Hull, England

JAMAICA

While London was gearing up for the grand opening ceremony of the 30th Olympiad, Hull Jazz Festival was awaiting Jazz Jamaica and their special Jamaican guest, Myrna Hague, on Saturday, July 28, 2012. Hague, wife of the late Sonny Bradshaw, prominent JA trumpeter and band-leader, joined a strong line-up that included Bobby Watson, Pee Wee Ellis and Bruce Barth for the 30th summer of Jazz in Hull as curated by promoter J-Night. Hull Jazz Fest is a nine-day event, which takes place at multiple venues such as the award-winning Pave pub.

Hague’s guest appearance with Jazz Jamaica paired the legendary Jazz singer with a band that emerged out of bassist Gary Crosby’s concept, to create a quintessential fusion of traditional Jamaican folk music (mento, ska and Reggae) with Classic and Modern Jazz standards. The result is that unique blend called “Skazz.”

Led by original Jazz Warrior Crosby himself, Jazz Jamaica is Denys Baptiste (tenor sax), Soweto Kinch (alto sax), Abram Wilson (trumpet/vocals), Harry Brown (trombone); the rocking rhythm section of Gary Crosby (double bass), Alex Wilson (piano/keys), Robin Banerjee (guitar), Oreste Noda (percussion), Rod Youngs (drums); and features the powerful, soulful vocals of Juliet Roberts, and rising star vocalists Zara Macfarlane and Wesley Lucas. 

Myrna Hague, Kiwanis Club of Jamaica 2011 ‘Woman of Excellence”

JAMAICA

THE Kiwanis Club of New Kingston hosted its annual awards luncheon on June 01.  Dubbed Celebrating Excellence, the awards honoured five women who have made an invaluable contribution both locally and internationally.  One of the honourees was Jazz diva Myrna Hague-Bradshaw, for excellence in entertainment and Jamaica culture. 

Myrna Hague-Bradshaw

Here is an excerpt of the citation read to Myrna Hague:

Myrna Hague-Bradshaw is referred to as Jamaica’s First Lady of Jazz and reigning jazz diva.  However, her passion for music extended to all areas of the Arts — as she excelled as actress, dancer, composer and choreographer.

She was especially inspired by Duke Ellington, the American jazz pianist and composer who in Myrna’s words “exuded black dignity in his music in a strong classical way”.

Myrna’s career took off in the mid 1960s during which time she performed at Jazz venues in London and recorded her notable ‘Melody Life’ album.  Influenced by internationally famous American vocalists such as Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington, Myrna recorded Vaughan’s biggest hit song ‘Broken Hearted Melody’, which remains to date, a Sunday staple on Jamaican radio.

On returning home in the 1970s Myrna’s outstanding performances on the hotel circuit, television shows and of course with Sonny Bradshaw‘s Big Band, propelled her even further into the world of jazz.

Along with Sonny Bradshaw, her late, Myrna co-founded the International Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival which celebrated 22 years this year.  She is the lead vocalist with the Jamaica Big Band and the Jamaica Jazz Mobile while continuing to tour the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe appearing frequently at festivals.  

She has won the Jamaica Music Industry Award for Jazz several times, as well as the Jamaica Federation of Musicians Award and Special Merit Award in 1993.  An articulate speaker, Myrna has presented papers on the development of Jamaican Jazz to schools island-wide and at the University of the West Indies (UWI).  

She earned her BA (music major) degree in 1992 from UWI, graduating with first class honours which she accomplished while maintaining her performing career.  She is currently completing her thesis on Jazz in the Caribbean at UWI for a doctorate in cultural studies.

More here and here…

21st Annual Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival is a wrap

JAMAICA

June is Jazz Month in Jamaica.  And at the center of it all was an event that whilst overtly promoting and showcasing international and Caribbean Jazz artistes, proved to be an innate celebration of the life and work of its founding member, the late Sonny Bradshaw.  After all, the Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival is Bradshaw’s legacy.  

Less than a week before the show got on the road throughout the island of Jamaica, in places like Negril, Montego Bay, Runway Bay, South Coast, Port Antonio to Kingston, it was yet unclear what the full line up for the festival was. What we knew then was that there would be some thirty events starting with a ‘Jazz Concert’ for The Year of the People of African Descent at the Courtleigh Auditorium, Kingston on Saturday, June 11 followed by a ‘Jazz Brunch’ at Hotel Four Seasons, again in Kingston, on the Sunday; free afternoon ‘Public Concerts’ from Monday 13 to Friday 17 at the Ocho Rios Ocean Village Shopping Center; nightly ‘Jam Sessions’, Monday to Friday, at Hotel Four Seasons and Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort in Ocho Rios; a Workshop at the Alpha Boys Center on Tuesday, June 14; ‘Jazz at Sunset’ at Negril Escape; and a ‘Benefit Concert’ on the Friday to aid the Jamaica Jazz Festival and the Jamaica Cancer Society.

And according to a Facebook Friend, “And Then de Bachannal Started.”

‘Jazz Treasures’, Karen Smith and Friends and Dr. Kathy Brown and Friends, mined their respective play books at the Two Seasons Guest House on Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth, Saturday, June 18.  

On Fathers’ Day, Sunday, June 19, Kathy Brown and Friends joined forces with the Jamaica Big Band, made famous by Bradshaw, for the grand closing of the Ocho Rios Jamaica Jazz Festival 2011 in Turtle River Park.

Throughout the festival, Woodshed Entertainment kept an ear cocked for the names of the artistes booked for the ‘Jazz Brunch’ and ‘Jazz at Sunset’ but heard nothing.  Suspicions were that Jamaican drummer Desi Jones and compatriots Fab 5 Inc. would be slotted in at one or the other of the events.  

The Jamaica Observer reported that pianist Marjorie Whylie headlined the ‘Jazz Concert’ on June 11 with her Whylie Wrhythm band, which she told the Observer is “an elastic rhythm side of bass, guitar, keyboard and percussion.“

Ocho Rios Jazz Festival lasted ten days from June 11-20, 2011. 

Main source: ochoriosjazz.com

Jamaica Ocho Rios International Jazz Festival 2010

Jamaica

makeover 2, July 04, 2010

“I need to do this for him” Myrna Hague told the Sunday Gleaner in a piece published online on April 11, 2010. By that date, Hague had gotten through the initial paralysis of losing her husband, Sonny Bradshaw in late 2009 and was about ready to launch the 20th Annual International Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival.

Hague is one of three directors of the Sonny Bradshaw Foundation, the producer of the Annual International Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival.

The funds raised will flow in the direction of young Jamaican musicians who are serious about developing their chops on the trumpet – Bradshaw‘s instrument and the Foundation’s priority-or some other instrument if deemed fit.

The first fund-raiser of the festival, a Jazz, Wine and Fashion Show, came off on Saturday, June 12 at the French Ambassador’s residence in the parish of St. Andrew.

The eyes and ears of the patrons were flooded with the sights of international and local fashion designs and the sounds of the Desi Jones Trio from Jamaica and Etienne Charles, trumpeter par excellence from Trinidad via New York.

On his second trip to Jamaica this year, Trinidadian Etienne Charles gave a dazzling display of skill and talent. Alternating between the trumpet and the dejembe drum, he thrilled the audience with Douens (and other compositions) from his new album Folklore. He completed his stint with a Bob Marley classic, Turn Your Lights Down Low. (Source: jamaica-gleaner.com)

Not to be left out of the mix, the ladies of Jamaican Jazz were right up in the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival.  There was Ouida Lewis, a percussionist who has studied both music and the performing arts in tandem over in Holland and at the Edna Manley School of Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica.  No stranger to Ocho Rios Jazz, Lewis played there for two years consecutively, in 2005 and 2006.

Then there was the pianist Marjorie Whylie and the Whylie Wrhythms.  Whylie is also a respected musicologist and lecturer who, for good reason, was inducted into the Jamaica Hall of Fame in 1997.

Then there was medical doctor Kathy Brown who, over the past few years, has injected herself into the Jazz scene in Jamaica as a pianist and Jazz instrumentalist.

…and then there was Myrna Hague herself, the voice of Sonny Bradshaw‘s many Jazz projects over their lifetime together.

Myrna Hague was the first of the vocalists. Dressed in blue and black, the vocalist gave a beautiful rendition of Falling in Love and That’s Life, but did not return when the audience called for more. (Source: jamaica-gleaner.com)

Flying in from the Commonwealth of Dominica for the festival was Marie-Claire Giraud, a singer who straddles the divide between Jazz, Classical and Hip-hop.

Ocho Rios celebrated the life of Cecil “Sonny” Bradshaw with a total of thirty events under the theme JAZZ – THE REAL DEAL.

Jamaica Pegasus Gardens hosted OPENING JAZZ DAY, June 13; and from June 14 through 18, Ocho Rios Ocean Village Shopping Centre was the venue for free daily concerts starting at 04:00 on afternoons with nightly jam sessions at Jazz Villages Hotel Four Seasons, Kingston and Sunset Jamaica Grande Hotel, Ocho Rios.

A short list of the Jamaican artists appearing at the festival included the Seretse Small True Democrats, the Tony Greene Quartet, the Jamaica Big Band, Alpha Boys Band, Karen Smith/Jackson and Fab 5, Inc.

Ocho Rios Jazz culminated on Father’s Day, June 20, at Turtle River Park.  This show featured Hammond B3 organist Kingsley Ettienne of Grenada/Canada.

The death of Sonny Bradshaw

Jamaica

Sonny Bradshaw (Jamaica Observer)

Sonny Bradshaw is dead.  The 83-year-old Jamaican trumpeter who devoted much of his life to mentoring younger musicians and who made it a life’s work to sustain the Caribbean Jazz genre through the medium of the Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, the Sonny Bradshaw Big Band and the Sonny Bradshaw Seven died in London Saturday night due to complications from a stroke.  Bradshaw survived a heart condition for the last ten years of his life.

Bradshaw co-founded the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival in 1991 and served as Director from its inception.  He was also the Past President of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians for all of twenty-five years and a member of the Board of Directors of the Jamaica School of Music and the Jamaica Cultural Development Foundation.

He grew Ocho Rios Jazz from a one-day event called The Ocho Rios ‘Mini’ Jazz Festival into an eight-day affair within the first three years of its existence.

The Festival was further developed not only as a vehicle to showcase the very best of Jamaican Jazz and to expose the musicians to internationally acclaimed Jazz icons and greats, but it was woven to become a boost to the Jamaican tourism product as well.  As such, The Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival is now a complete family vacation package for international visitors to the Caribbean island, having spread its Youth programme, free daily concerts and a Photo Exhibition from Ocho Rios to Runaway Bay, Negril, Montego Bay and Kingston, Jamaica.

Bradshaw also presided over a Jazz Hall of Fame that honoured Jamaican and Caribbean Jazz musicians and Jazz exponents who distinguished themselves through their contributions to Jazz appreciation in our region and the wider world.

The Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival website described Sonny Bradshaw O.D. as a “Jazz pioneer, bandleader, producer, promoter, composer, arranger, recording artist, journalist, teacher and creator of various radio and television commercials and programmes.”

Sonny was married to Jazz singer Myrna Hague.  They split their time between their London and Jamaica homes.  It was while they were visiting London in August that Bradshaw suffered a stroke and never recovered.  He died in a London hospital on Saturday, October 10, 2009 (Source: Jamaica Observer)

Vox Pop Jazz: Black history all Jazzed up

The recollections of a Jamaican Jazz icon who traces the history of the music in his homeland.  The bolds and italics are those of the Collective.

published: Sunday, February 10, 2008 in the Jamaica Gleaner News 

Sonny Bradshaw, Contributor

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Ella Fitzgerald

Jazz – classical black music – once taboo in Jamaica and referred to as ‘devil music‘ by the churches, was not to be played on Sundays.

We had the popular musicof North America and Europe played by what were called road bands in dancing halls like PORA (Prison Officers Relief Association) on Laws Street, The Jamaica Success Club (63 Upper Wildman Street), the Jubilee Tile Gardens (Upper King Street), the Forrestors Hall (North Street), the Progressive Lawns (North & Church Streets) and later Bartleys Silver City on East Queen Street, all in what is now called downtown Kingston.

Sonny Bradshaw

But things and times changed along the way and the same churches were having fund-raising functions using the music of the day, ‘a little jazz’, now getting respectable, handed down from the North – those same slave-oriented sounds coming out of the brothels in the Caribbean Port of New Orleans in the USA.

The black music was getting white and the technology afforded more widespread dissemination and popularity in the ‘black’ neighbourhoods on the US mainland and in islands like Jamaica.

Bringing home records

 

The late Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd

But we in Jamaica, land we love, are a different lot in many ways, culturally and otherwise. So much later and lots of water under the bridge, when the farm work project started, people like jazzman Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd spent a lot of his cotton-picking earnings to bring back records (78 rpms) of the music from Florida with the distinctive Blues as well as rhythm and blues sounds to play on his box, called a sound system.

In time, these sound systems moved from their local surroundings of Pound Road (now called Maxfield Avenue) and South Race Course (home of Lord Koos) and eventually took over the dancing halls everywhere – and not just in Kingston.

The sound systems began substituting for road bands as they could play very long hours (without tiring) and the music was for both dancing and listening, as they played what could be called Jazz and Blues (what a term!).

The Jazz part really got respectable when bandleader Milton McPherson promoted a two-night concert at The Ward Theatre called Fashions In Jazz (I can’t remember the year). But what gave Jazz an extended popular music life was the series of Jazz Concerts – Carnegie Hall Style also at The Ward Theatre, devised by me and piano player civil servant land surveyor, Lloyd Adams. We kept up this series from 1954-58 with no foreign act, just Jamaican musicians and artistes.

It can be remembered that on the day of the first concert of the series only one ticket was booked, that by jazz lover Dudley Ball, but at showtime the 900-seat Ward Theatre was bursting at its seams, including the fowl coop gallery.

Jazz, the classical black music, was at the top of its game, later being included in Stephen & Dorothy Hill’s Celebrity Concert Series which first brought mostly white classical music. But later came international acts like the legendary Louis Armstrong, fantastic piano virtuoso, (a) young Oscar Peterson, breathtaking jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, a new (at the time) sensation, Jazz singer Carmen McRae, who reportedly has Jamaican roots and the top of the modern jazz singers, the Divine Sarah Vaughan.

These top acts could not be accommodated at The Ward Theatre alone, so the new Russell Graham run 1900-seater Carib Theatre and even the open air Tropical Theatre on Slipe Road had to be pulled in to satisfy the jazz audiences of the day.

Undermining the music

Underneath the music goings-on in North America, ‘the Jazz’ as a dancing music was being undermined by the new young set of musicians of bebop as more so listening music (as Perkins would say, for the thinking persons) while in Jamaica a cultural sleeping giant was aroused with the advent of a second radio station, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC). Disbanding lofty ideas of a studio orchestra, arranger Carlos Malcolm and I were delegated to stay on board, thus promoting Jamaican music on air through the vehicle TADP (Teenage Dance Party), and the Jamaican Hit Parade Top 30 (popular music) from the stage of The Regal Theatre weekly.

The Jamaican recording industry got a real push, having more people being aware of the new cultural music, ska, rocksteady and reggae, on their doorstep. Our early ‘record producers’ also discovered that they could make money not just from royalties (they didn’t pay the artistes) but also revenues from ‘publishing’ piling up in the outside world.

Taking a beating

Sarah Vaughan

Jazz, the classical black music in Jamaica had lost ground and struggles today to stay in its rightful place through the dedication of the handful of musicians who do make their living from live music.

But Jazz is taking another beating from persons and organisations, not excluding the church, that promote anything under the name of ‘Jazz’ to make what Eric Coverley had described as ‘filthy lucre’, carrying the great masses along with the misleading idea of what this classical black music is. The Caribbean area is fraught with these Jazz Festivals (like the Plymouth Jazz Festival) that are made up of programmes of the popular music of the…day, and any non-Jazz megastar like…US$300,000…Ms Diana Ross, who recently visited Jamaica in our tourist city, Montego Bay, home of the past Reggae Sunsplash and current Reggae Sumfest.

With Black History Month at hand, it is hoped that the Jazz renaissance will be assisted by the series of Jazz & Blues films being shown through the efforts of The United States Embassy Public Affairs Division at RedBones the Blues Café throughout the month and also that other presentations will reflect the true meaning of Jazz, the black classical music that started its upward climb from the Caribbean port of New Orleans.

September Jazzz page updated with news on Pan Jazz DVD release

…a sampling of Jazz news deserving of a post rather than a roll, a blogroll

→ Have a yearning for Pan Jazz?  Well, Pan Trinbago has released “Pan Jazz in De Yard A Tobago Experience,” a concert footage DVD featuring two of Trinidad and Tobago’s champions of steel, performances by some of the country’s Pan Maestros and a Caribbean Jazz virtuoso.

The footage on the DVD was taken in part from Pan Jazz in De Yard, which was held in April of this year as a fringe event of the Tobago Jazz Festival.

The DVD is not in wide circulation, unfortunately, and is only available at select places in TnT.

Buzzz off to the September Buzzz page for more

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→ Cuban composer and saxophonist Yosvany Terry premiered a suite of World Music exploring the West African Arará culture on Saturday 15 at Central Park, New York.  Commissioned by the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the piece was designed to “explore the enduring legacy of the Arará culture that…continues to thrive in Cuba (La Habana and Matanzas) and throughout the Caribbean (Haiti, Trinidad and Carriacou in the Grenadines as in St. Vincent and the Grenadines”) even today.

Terry fronted the Yosvany Terry with Yedégbé & Afro-Caribbean Legacy (or Yosvany Terry & the Yedégbé Project Afro-Cuban Septet).  This outfit comprised of the brightest stars of Afro-Caribbean, West African and Jazz including Terry’s younger brother Junior on bass.

Buzzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for details

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→ September 22 is a D-day of sorts for the Jazz cats of Gants Hill in Ilford, Essex, England.  What’s the Buzzz?  Well, Jamaican Jazz trumpeter and now legend, Sonny Bradshaw and his wife, singer Myrna Hague, will be in that town to give a Jazz concert for charity.  The beneficiaries of their generosity is the Gants Hill Methodist Church, which is where they worship when in Britain.  They divide their time between Jamaica and their home in Gants Hill.

Myrna Hague and Sonny Bradshaw

Buzzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for details.

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August 2007

→ Step aside Rihanna, Barbados has a new rising star on the horizon, Marisa Lindsay.  Her stylings are well grounded in Jazz though she demonstrates a conspicuous relish for rhythm and blues that when brought together  point her in the direction of Erykah Badu.  Having sampled some of the tracks on Lindsay’s debut recording, Submit2Love, I have to agree that Lindsay does share a sound with Badu.  But as to whether this is intentional or coincidental is not for me to say.

Buzzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for the full story and make up your own mind.

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→  Come Sunday, August 12, Trini trumpeter, Etienne Charles will take to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) Garden stage as the featured artist for a free summergarden Jazz concert at sunset.  According to freenyc.net, Charles will explore the Jazz idiom to the backdrop of African rhythms and the folk traditions of the Caribbean.

Buzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for more on EC

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July 2007

→ To aficionados of the genre, the name “LRF Soundworks Jazz Project” will ignite a measure of excitement among the jazz faithful, reminiscent as it is, of the short-lived but glorious days of the West Indies Jazz Band, the Caribbean Jazz Project and their predecessor, the Luther François Music Lab project. 

On April 24, LRF Soundworks Jazz Project launched its maiden voyage from the stage of the National Cultural Centre under the direction of St Lucia’s Jazz pioneer Luther François, alongside former members of The West Indies Jazz Band and the Caribbean Jazz Workshop Group.

 Luther Francois

Buzz off to the Retro Caribbean Jazz page for more

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Andre Woodvine Album Launch

 

→ After four years of hard work in an 8×10 home office, using a PC, sound card, software, speakers and microphones, Caribbean jazz saxophonist Andre Woodvine presents nine unique, original compositions in a package entitled “Some Assembly Required.”  Released on April 29 at a special live performance at Barbados’ Plantation Garden Theatre as part of the Notes to Notes concert series, this CD reflects the many diverse influences on Woodvine’s music, from jazz to Caribbean rhythms, science fiction to family.

Woodvine is a longtime collaborator of St. Lucia’s premier saxman Luther François. 

Buzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for a few notes on CD Baby

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→ Barbadian saxophonist Arturo Tappin’s latest CD “Inside Out” has been out on the market for several weeks.  However, it is only on Tuesday, July 24 that the Album Launch will take place.  

Buzz off to the Jazzz Buzz page for the press release on Earthtimes.org

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→ The Sun reported in its Friday, July 06 edition that Dominica’s singing star, Michele Henderson, was due to give a benefit concert Saturday 07 in St. Kitts. 

The concert did come off as planned and was said to have attracted a “sizeable” audience who witnessed a “passion filled” and “talent pregnant” concert, which was second to none.  

Buzz off to the  

I had the privilege of seeing Michele with the Freewinds Band aboard ship at Road Harbour, Tortola, British Virgin Islands in 2005 and then again at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival in May ’06, on the Main Stage.

Buzz off to the Jazzz Buzzz page for my personal impressions of the Tortola, British Virgin Islands concert.

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→ Have you ever wondered about the roots and heritage of international Jazz luminaries?  I have.  And so has Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander.  Speaking to Andrew Gilbert of the Union-Tribune, Alexander speaks to this issue as well as detailing one more root of the Reggae tree and his role in bringing Reggae together with the Jazz idiom.      

SignOnSanDiego.com

June 2007 

→ Carnival of Instruments III – Steelpan Jazz at Brooklyn’s Afrika House