DAVID CUFFY

Women in Jazz 2014 end­ed on a mu­si­cal high at Fi­es­ta Plaza in Movi­etowne, Port-of-Spain on April 26 with Glen­da Col­lens con­fi­dent­ly giv­ing her own voice and in­ter­pre­ta­tion to sev­er­al jazz stan­dards and orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions.

It didn't take long to find out that this was go­ing to be a unique con­cert, an ad­ven­ture in­to the world of a well-honed mu­si­cian who holds a Bach­e­lor in Mu­sic in Voice Per­for­mance from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, and has been fea­tured in so­lo recitals in Lon­don, France and Italy, and in many of Rap­so group 3Canal's Car­ni­val pro­duc­tions, as well as her own pro­duc­tion Swing Out Live which was nom­i­nat­ed for six Cacique Awards.

With just Ever­ald "Red Man" Wat­son on the djem­be (African drum) as ac­com­pa­ni­ment, she opened with the jazz stan­dard Na­ture Boy, vo­calised by Nat "King" Cole in 1948, to set the stage for an hour-long per­for­mance in which she paid homage to some of the world's best song­writ­ers and mu­si­cians in her own inim­itable style.

Many would have heard Dave Brubeck's Take Five be­fore. It was writ­ten by Paul Desmond in the key of E-flat mi­nor, and is fa­mous for its dis­tinc­tive two-chord pi­ano vamp; catchy blues-scale sax­o­phone melody; imag­i­na­tive, jolt­ing drum so­lo; and use of the un­usu­al quin­tu­ple (5/4) time from which its name is de­rived.

Col­lens of­fered lis­ten­ers a rare and bril­liant show­case of the song's lyrics that state in part: "Won't you stop and take a lit­tle time out with me. Just take five. Stop your busy day and take the time out to see if I'm alive. Just take five." Com­pe­tent­ly com­ple­ment­ing the work were Dale Dol­ly on key­board, Dawud Orr on sax­o­phone, Re­my Cory­at on drums, and Shane Col­lens on bass, with vo­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment com­ing from Shaz­i­na Ram­sumair and Kevin Humphrey.

Slow­ing the tem­po, she fol­lowed with Sum­mer­time, recog­nised as one of the most cov­ered songs in the his­to­ry of record­ed mu­sic, with more than 33,000 cov­ers by groups and so­lo per­form­ers. It was com­posed by George Gersh­win for the 1935 opera Por­gy and Bess, with lyrics by Du­Bose Hey­ward.

While main­tain­ing the el­e­ments of jazz and the song styles used by ne­groes dur­ing the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry con­tained in the song's or­ches­tra­tion, Glen­da took the work to a dif­fer­ent lev­el with a beau­ti­ful vari­a­tion on the melody.

High­light on the play­bill was the show­case of Four Women, a song writ­ten by jazz singer, com­pos­er, pi­anist and arranger Ni­na Si­mone, re­leased on the 1966 al­bum Wild Is The Wind that tells the sto­ry of four dif­fer­ent African-Amer­i­can women (in­vent­ed by Si­mone) (Aunt Sarah, Saf­fro­nia, Sweet Thing, and Peach­es), each rep­re­sent­ing an African-Amer­i­can stereo­type in so­ci­ety at the time.

Join­ing Glen­da, and us­ing low-key and moody, but pow­er­ful, singing to con­vey the melo­dra­ma of the song, were Ny­ota Nel­son-Ji­ranek, Shaz­i­na Ram­sumair, and Mari­cia Ca­gan. Their com­bined ef­fort earned the evening's loud­est ac­cla­ma­tion.

Glen­da, who was trained as a clas­si­cal singer abroad, and had to fight a de­bil­i­tat­ing ill­ness, dur­ing that pe­ri­od, that threat­ened her abil­i­ty to sing, then show­cased a cou­ple of orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions writ­ten by her hus­band Shane (the bass play­er) and her­self. They in­clud­ed Rush Hour and You and Me, the lat­ter bring­ing to a high-en­er­gy close the sixth year she has been per­form­ing at the Women In Jazz con­certs.