Woodshed Entertainment Collective

       Tn’T

The first annual Jazz Artists on the Greens, Tobago edition, was staged by Production One Ltd. at Canaan Bon Accord Recreation Grounds, Centre Street on Thursday, April 24  2008.  A precursor, and antidote, to the Plymouth Festival that weekend, JAOTG was one of two attempts to put the Jazz in Plymouth.  The other was Pan Jazz in de Yard Reloaded, which started a day earlier than JAOTG and went up against it on April 24th.

The attendance at the JAOTG “…suffered because the group of people who would have been interested in this type of show was NOT in Tobago (for the “jazz” festival)” according to Trinidad Jazz singer Vaughnette Bigford. 

Audience or not, the “…show was great…great cast, great music.  It was just the perfect night…”said Bigford. 

Tony Bell was at the show too.  He came away with the view that Production One was at their best in Tobago “in terms of quality of music.”

Harold Homer had even more to say in this contributed piece on Jazz Artists on the Greens in Tobago.  

Competing for an audience, made up of mostly Trinidadian holiday-makers, who were in Tobago to attend the Plymouth Jazz Festival on the weekend of April 25th through 27th, and facing well-publicized competition from Pan Trinbago’s same night “Pan Jazz in ‘D’ Yard – Reloaded”, Production One Limited’s first edition of Jazz Artists on the Greens – Tobago was held (on) 24th April 2008 at the Bon Accord Recreation Grounds.

Blessed on the night with excellent weather for an outdoor event, the show’s content lived up to Production One’s usual distinctive, organizational brilliance in all aspects, except audience attendance.  From the first note, which was played promptly at 7.00 p.m. by the island’s well-rehearsed Euphonics Steel Orchestra, through Tobago’s Kariwak Players, Cuba’s Bellita and her Jazz Tumbata, Nilson Matta’s Brazilian Jazz Voyage and a grand finale that featured Trinidadian Sean Thomas on drums, Bajan vocalist Marisa Lindsay, New York based Grant Langford on saxophone and accompanied by Nilson Matta (acoustic bass) and Klaus Mueller on piano, the show maintained its advertised schedule.  Change-overs were smooth and in spite of the foibles of the emcee, were happily painless for the small, but appreciative, audience.

 

Marisa Lindsay accompanied by Nilson Matta (b), Grant Langford (s)

(Photo by Vaughnette Bigford)

With an audience that included a few local jazz regulars and some tourists, JAOTG – Tobago proved that good jazz is good jazz, anywhere and at any time.  After the first on-stage act - the Kariwak Players under the leadership of John Arnold – Bellita and her Jazz Tumbata (a group of versatile troubadours), which is comprised of Lilia Exposito Pino (aka Bellita) on piano (and African drum), her husband, Miguel Antonio Miranda Lopez, who is the only known artiste to play jazz music on the electric bass with one hand while maintaining afro-latin percussion on bongos, congas and high-hat with the other (and cow-bells with his foot), her daughter Glenda Lopez Exposito on flute, Emir Santa Cruz Hernandez on saxophone and clarinet and Alain Ortiz Samada on drums, held the audience in rapt attention during its entire allotted forty-five minute set.

Just when it was thought by some members of the audience that things could not get much better, Nilson Matta’s Brazilian Jazz Voyage Quartet, with Klaus Mueller on piano and Mauricio Zottarelli on drums and rounded out by featured, world-renowned trumpeter Claudio Roditi, treated them to some of the finest jazz to grace the country in a long while.  With pieces ranging from Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “A Felicidade” to some of his own compositions, Matta struck out boldly to demonstrate his versatility on the upright acoustic bass.  He is an undoubted master at his craft and amply illustrated why he continues to be first call for many of the U.S. prime Jazz musicians.

The curtain-closing act, which comprised an eclectic aggregation of jazz professionals, each with wide-ranging performance exposure to some of the better internationally known jazz greats, was able to sustain the show’s high energy.  The Latin-Jazz lead established by the Cubans and reinforced by the Brazilian Voyage was complemented by the Sean Thomas Ensemble of saxophonist Grant Langford, Nilson Matta on acoustic bass, Klaus Meuller on piano and Thomas himself on drums.

After the audacious treatment of three well-known jazz pieces in which all instrumentalists demonstrated their renown, leader Thomas invited the up-beat female Barbadian vocalist, Marisa Lindsay to join his group on stage.  Immediately taking charge of her audience, this twenty-eight year old showed why, in addition to her youthfulness and enthusiasm, she is described as a naturally charismatic, deep, soulful, sensual woman. 

Using her wide vocal range to full advantage, she playfully toyed with members of the audience as she energetically belted out three beautifully delivered renditions.  This young lady has lots of sugar, spice and talent and will certainly be going places.

On a weekend in which Tobago was all abuzz for the Plymouth Jazz Festival, Jazz Artists on the Greens was certainly “the appetizer that rivaled the main course”!  Asked whether, in light of the commercial challenge posed by their first attempt in Tobago, they would be back in 2009, all members of the Production One team emphatically replied in the affirmative.