She's been mak­ing a name for her­self in T&T over the past few years as a singer with a unique voice and mu­si­cal tal­ent. Tonight, Ruth Os­man will ap­pear in con­cert at Drink Wine Bar with a new ac­com­plish­ment un­der her belt, and the lessons it brought her. Last Sat­ur­day, Os­man per­formed be­fore a cou­ple thou­sand au­di­ence mem­bers at the Spey­side Recre­ation Ground, at the open­ing night of the To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence. Af­ter singing at Ma­ma this is Jazz and Gayap Jazz, the To­ba­go gig was the high­est pro­file one she's land­ed yet. "It was a good ex­pe­ri­ence in terms of ex­po­sure and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sing to a dif­fer­ent au­di­ence," she said. But it wasn't with­out its chal­lenges.

Jazz for so­ca peo­ple

The Guyanese singer, who is now mar­ried to a Tri­ni, per­forms jazz stan­dards and soul­ful ver­sions of Caribbean songs, as well as her own eclec­tic com­po­si­tions. She al­so plays the flute. Or­gan­is­ers sched­uled her to sing on the night of the fes­ti­val, which tra­di­tion­al­ly fea­tures so­ca artistes. She de­liv­ered her mel­low, jazzy songs to a crowd hyped and wait­ing to hear Roy Cape's Kaiso All Stars, with Denise Bel­fon and Ben­jai. "There were groups of peo­ple who came to the front of the stage and took in every­thing," she said, "they were lis­ten­ing and re­spond­ing." But as for the mass­es, "they want­ed Denise to come on stage and do the bi­cy­cle wine; they want­ed Ben­jai to come and sing Tri­ni." Os­man said or­gan­is­ers ex­plained their pro­gram­ming de­ci­sion was no ac­ci­dent. As the fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to evolve, they want "to wean the crowd off so­ca, and ex­pose them to jazz."

Bridg­ing the gap

They thought Os­man would be a good per­son to help bridge the gap. So al­though there was still a lot of work to be done to turn so­ca peo­ple in­to jazz lovers, she said: "I felt re­al­ly good on­stage. I felt the love." There has been crit­i­cism from some quar­ters that the To­ba­go fes­ti­val was not what it was in its pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion as the Ply­mouth Jazz Fes­ti­val, no longer at­tract­ing acts like Sting and Ste­vie Won­der. Os­man said: "Ply­mouth was very cor­po­rate and ex­clu­sive in na­ture. It was great to see those acts on stage, but how does it de­vel­op the lo­cal mu­sic scene? "Ply­mouth of­fered no op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple like me. What is beau­ti­ful about this arrange­ment is that lo­cal bands and groups can de­vel­op their craft and per­form on stage in front of a ma­jor au­di­ence."It's an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op the in­dus­try. We have to build it."

Tonight's show

Os­man plans to record some of her songs this year, in­clud­ing You, Rain, Let It Go, and New Blues.

Tonight, fans who didn't catch her in To­ba­go will have an­oth­er chance to hear her reper­toire, "with a few vari­a­tions." It's a ramped up ver­sion of her pre­vi­ous set, with the ad­di­tion of bass play­er An­ton Ri­car­do, along­side Mar­va New­ton on gui­tar, Ja­nine Xavier on vi­o­lin, and James Fen­ton on per­cus­sion.

"I love the in­ti­ma­cy of per­form­ing at Drink," Os­man said. "When­ev­er I per­form, I want to touch peo­ple. That set­ting fa­cil­i­tates that kind of in­ter­ac­tion." Ruth Os­man will per­form as part of the Can­dle­light Se­ries at Drink Wine Bar, at the cor­ner of Ros­ali­no and War­ren Streets in Wood­brook. The event starts at 9 pm and ad­mis­sion at the door costs $60.