Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

The vil­lage of Spey­side came alive Sat­ur­day evening as the 2015 To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence got un­der­way with Jazz in the East.Thou­sands of lo­cals and for­eign­ers gath­ered at the Spey­side Recre­ation­al Grounds for the of­fi­cial start of the mu­si­cal fes­ti­val.De­liv­er­ing on its promise to sat­is­fy a va­ri­ety of mu­si­cal tastes, the event's line-up fea­tured a mix of Caribbean beats and tra­di­tion­al jazz acts.

The con­cert saw per­for­mances from so­ca heavy­weights Farmer Nap­py, Adan­na Roberts and Os­car B, as well as lo­cal acts Garvin Wal­ters and Gar­dah Knight.But it was the head­lin­er, Ja­maican reg­gae artiste Ro­main Vir­go, who shook the crowd with a pow­er­ful dis­play of au­then­tic jazz ren­di­tions.Com­ing to the stage be­fore thou­sands, Ro­main belt­ed out a reper­toire of his many hits in­clud­ing Stay With Me, Soul Provider and Ever­last­ing Love.

Yes­ter­day, the ac­tion shift­ed to the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex for Jazz Sig­nal.This week, ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude stu­dent work­shops on Mon­day and Tues­day, Jazz on the Wa­ter­front at the Mil­ford Road Es­planade in Low­er Scar­bor­ough on Wednes­day, and North-East Jazz at Cas­tara on Thurs­day.All roads lead to the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park on Fri­day for World Mu­sic Night and Eu­topia on Sat­ur­day night.

The Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence comes to a cli­max at the same venue on Sun­day.Jen­nifer Hud­son, Machel Mon­tano, Busy Sig­nal, Kool and the Gang, Jill Scott are among sev­er­al top lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ers at this year's event.