"Ker­nal Roberts is prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant writer, arranger and pro­duc­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go mu­sic at present. Ker­nal's work with Machel, De­stra, Patrice Roberts, and now with JW and Blaze with Palance is chang­ing the face of the Car­ni­val. That is why for this first year of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Jazz Fes­ti­val we will be stag­ing Jazz in De Palance. So says Jazz Al­liance of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Jatt) di­rec­tor Rubadiri Vic­tor.

"In it," he said, "Ker­nal Robert's biggest hits will be jazzed up." The T&T Jazz Fes­ti­val main con­cert will be held on Sat­ur­day, from 4�10 pm in the lush set­ting of UWI's Cen­tre for Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts, next to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, St Au­gus­tine. It will be?host­ed by none oth­er than Paul Keens Dou­glas. A spokesman for Jatt said on Mon­day: "The jazz mu­si­cians will be mess­ing with songs like De­stra's It's Car­ni­val and Bon­nie and Clyde; Machel's High­er than High, Band of the Year and Jumbie; and, of course, Palance.

"Ker­nal has made so­ca so­phis­ti­cat­ed again by rais­ing the pro­file of both melody and rhythm. He is Kitch­en­er's son–for re­al! Lo­cal jazz prodi­gy Sean Thomas will be lead­ing the jazz­ing up en­sem­ble." An­oth­er in­no­va­tion of the fes­ti­val is chut­ney jazz, where the mu­sic of the year's chut­ney monarch will be jazzed up as well. This year, both Chut­ney Monarch Ravi B and Rik­ki Jai will be grac­ing the fes­ti­val stage. Fes­ti­val di­rec­tor and pres­i­dent of Jatt Sean Thomas said: "We are cre­at­ing a tru­ly in­dige­nous T&T Jazz Fes­ti­val and, with chut­ney­jazz, we are cre­at­ing some­thing that has nev­er been heard on the plan­et be­fore."

The fea­ture act at the fes­ti­val this year will be the beau­ti­ful Ko­re­an-Amer­i­can vir­tu­oso sax­o­phon­ist Grace Kel­ly. On the lo­cal side, Jatt is pleased to wel­come back the sound of Gene Lau­rence (Jumbie?Bird) to our shores for what is sure to be a bril­liant set of nos­tal­gic and new mu­sic, ac­com­pa­nied by vet­er­an pan­nist Ray Hol­man. Pa­trons are in­vit­ed to bring mats and come to the first an­nu­al T&T Jazz Fes­ti­val for the ex­pe­ri­ence of a life­time! Pro­ceeds from the fes­ti­val will go to­wards the Jazz Al­liance's Mu­sic Schol­ar­ship Fund, help­ing to make the dreams of our mu­si­cal youth come true.?