Shel­don Os­borne

Song­birds Live 2010 is a se­ries of con­certs fea­tur­ing Caribbean fe­male vo­cal­ists pro­duced by Pro­duc­tion One Ltd, a com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for live per­for­mances with a dif­fer­ence. Pro­duc­tion One, the same or­gan­i­sa­tion re­spon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing the suc­cess­ful an­nu­al show Jazz Artists on the Greens, came up with the new con­cept for an in­ti­mate se­ries of con­certs fo­cused on the fe­male voice, and last year saw the first se­ries of this kind: Song­birds Live 2009. It was deemed a suc­cess by the pro­duc­ers, and will be re­peat­ed this year. Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny's Web site, from June to No­vem­ber on the first Wednes­day of each month, the Song­birds Live Con­cert Se­ries will fea­ture "some of the most no­table up­com­ing and un­her­ald­ed fe­male voic­es in con­tem­po­rary mu­sic in Trinidad and To­ba­go" for those with an ear tuned to "jazz and world mu­sic."

The Web site de­scribed the Song­birds Live con­certs as "small­er pro­duc­tions," with the "im­pro­visato­ry sur­prise that is the hall­mark of jazz," and a range from "neo-soul, to world-jazz, to qui­et storm" that would set it apart from what the or­gan­is­ers de­scribe as "the pletho­ra of jazz gigs pop­ping up around the city of Port- of-Spain." So far this year's se­ries has fea­tured Ni­quet Gold­son from Ja­maica on June 3, and Glen­da Col­lens on Ju­ly 7. Col­lens, a hard-hit­ting judge at last year's Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Stars Com­pe­ti­tion, demon­strat­ed that she prac­tised what she preached, as she en­ter­tained the small but ap­pre­cia­tive crowd at Cas­ca­dia's Sky-View Lounge. She was ac­com­pa­nied by her hus­band Shane Col­lens on bass, Ryan Mo­hammed on gui­tar, and Rene Cory­at on drums. Saman­tha Good­en is card­ed to per­form on Sep­tem­ber 1.