19th Annual Jamaica Ocho Rios International Jazz Festival 2009

June 14-21, 2009

The theme for 2009 is "The Preservation and Promotion of Black Classical Music - Jazz"

2009 ARTISTS ~ 2009 EVENTS

COOL HOT CARIBBEAN MUSIC: JAZZ IN JAMAICA!

By Joyce White (USA based free lance journalist)

The 19th International Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival is heating up and I can hardly think of a better setting: sunny climes, breathtaking scenery, delicious jerk chicken, cool jazz and probing conversation. Ah Jamaica, mon!

The festival this year strikes a lofty tune: "The Preservation and Promotion of Black Classical Music-Jazz." I am already booked.
It runs from June 13 to June 21, 2009, with events hosted at various venues across the island, including Montego Bay and Kingston. And for the last leg of the nine-day festival, on June 20, the jazz moves to Jamaica's beautiful south coast at Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth, before closing on Father's day (June 21) in Ocho Rios.

A host of well-known jazz musicians from France, England and the United States, as well as throughout the Caribbean, will perform. The festival will also offer jazz lunches, teas and culture tours to sights such as Dunns River Falls. Admission to some of the events is free; tickets to other events are moderately priced.

This year's line-up features such luminaries as Jamaican composer/arranger, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Cecil "Sonny" Bradshaw, who has long recognized jazz as the classical music of black people and its influence on music of the Caribbean, including ska and reggae, both born in Jamaica.

"There is a relationship between Jazz and all the Jamaican popular music that came out since the blues," Bradshaw said the other day by telephone. "Jamaican popular music was derived from ska, which was the invention of the Jamaican Jazz musicians in the late fifties."

The story goes that the relationship began during the height of rhythms and blues in the late 1940s and '50s. Back then many Jamaican musicians incorporated the 12 bar blues chord progressions and boogie bass lines with mento guitar rhythms, influenced by Black American artists such as Fats Domino and Louis Jordan.

Eventually, increasing emphasis was placed on the offbeat rhythms of mento, which was a fusion of African rhythms and European tunes. By and by the offbeat rhythms became shorter and more detached. These distinctive syncopated rhythms were sounded on guitar and piano.
The whimsical name "ska" was born one day when a local Jamaican musician was trying to get the guitar to play something and said, "Make the guitar go ska! ska! ska!"

And of course, the great late Bob Marley, who put reggae on the world map, always acknowledged that his soulful music was influenced by Jamaican ska, the 1960s Motown sounds, and the revival-like Rastafarian movement of Jamaica.

But jazz runs especially deep on the Caribbean island of Jamaica, and several reasons have been cited for the genre's popularity there.
For example, in 2007 during a scholarly conference on jazz in the Caribbean, it was noted that the Jamaican population is the most entertainment oriented in the region, with a wide range of options offered continually.

This includes concerts, fashion shows, dance presentations, tea parties, brunches, and banquets, and most times all of these events are accompanied by music, jazz being one of the forms most often used in this context, second only to reggae, which of course is Jamaican born. As a result, Jamaica has had the longest era of sustained jazz activity than any other island in the region.

Some of the performers lined up for this year's jazz festival include Kathy Brown, a standout Jamaican pianist, jazz instrumentalist and medical doctor, who routinely captivates audiences with pleasing jazz arrangements and delightful piano riffs.

Drummer Desi Jones, a musical son of Sonny Bradshaw, will also be on hand, as well as Marjorie Whylie, the leader of the National Dance Theatre of Jamaica singers, for whom she arranges song suites and composes interludes and music for dance choreographers. Whylie has also worked extensively with the internationally known artistic director of the dance company, Rex Nettleford, composing and arranging several full-scale widely acclaimed works.

In St. Elizabeth at Treasure Beach

On June 20, the lineup moves to the Two Seasons Guest House, offering an array of musicians. The lineup includes: again, drummer par excellence, Desi Jones, and his band of friends: Christopher McDonald on keyboards, Adrian Henry on bass, Rupert Bent on guitar, Dean Barnett on steel pan, Courtney Fadlin on sax, and Winsome Benjamin vocals.

The song bird of Jamaica, Karen Smith, will also add her vocal talent to the treasure-trove of jazz. Mutabaruka will play selections from his extensive collection of jazz CDs. And local artistes will take the stage. Show time is 7:00 p.m. Gates open at 6:00 p.m.

The Two Seasons Guest House is owned by local Jamaican Christine Marrett, and it boasts 10 lovely rooms with private baths, and three have kitchenettes. Summer rates are $60 per night for deluxe single rooms, $100 for doubles, and $50 per night for standard single accommodations, a bargain, all rates cited above in USA currency.

Lovely Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth is about 2.5 hours or more by car or taxi from Kingston, and for best rates, ask your travel agent or hotel in Kingston or Montego Bay or Ocho Rios or wherever, to arrange for a transfer to the village, rather than rely on a pickup taxi, which is usually more expensive.

For information about the Treasure Beach festival, contact Christine at: info@2seasonsguesthouse.com or by telephone 876-571-0818. For booking, send an email to: booking@2seasonsguesthouse.com.

******

SONNY BRADSHAW: JAZZ AS A METAPHOR FOR LIFE
THE SOCIETY FOR CARIBBEAN STUDIES CONFERENCE 2007
JAZZ IN THE CARIBBEAN
written by Myrna Hague-Bradshaw

2009 ARTISTS ~ 2009 EVENTS

Overseas and Jamaican Sponsors and Participants
please contact us:

in the States at
(866) 649-2137 or
(323) 857-5358
E-Mail: jazzinfo@ochoriosjazz.com

or in Jamaica at
THE JAZZ CENTRE,
22 East Kings House Road,
Kingston 6,
Jamaica.
Ph/Fax (876)927 3544
E-Mail: jazzfest1@cwjamaica.com