Aba A Luke

Great things are hap­pen­ing in the mu­sic in­dus­try here in T&T. We're ex­plor­ing so many facets of cul­ture, al­low­ing for mu­si­cal growth and a wider range of op­tions for our na­tion's young peo­ple–but on­ly if we al­low them to lis­ten, choose and make it theirs. The el­ders may con­sid­er it mu­ti­la­tion, but to the youths them­selves, it's sim­ple evo­lu­tion.

Sean Thomas and the Jazz Al­liance of T&T have some­how got­ten this rev­e­la­tion, and are mak­ing strides to­ward in­cor­po­rat­ing the jazz that they know and love with the aca­d­e­m­ic syl­labus that our na­tion's chil­dren are guid­ed by.

As a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Jazz Al­liance of T&T is ded­i­cat­ed to ed­u­ca­tion, de­vel­op­ment, preser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion of jazz as a mu­si­cal genre. This year, the mem­ber­ship, which has over ten years of ex­pe­ri­ence spe­cial­is­ing in jazz ed­u­ca­tion, per­for­mance and the pro­mo­tion of the art-form, has em­barked on a se­ries of events aimed at get­ting every­one in­volved–no mat­ter what age, mu­si­cal am­bi­tion or so­cial ech­e­lon.

A holis­tic ap­proach

A sum­mer Holis­tic Jazz Work­shop com­mences on Au­gust 11 and runs through Au­gust 18. In­clud­ed in the week-long, hands-on train­ing ses­sion will be jam ses­sions with stu­dents and lec­tur­ers, an ex­plo­ration ex­er­cise on gen­res such as ca­lyp­so, blues, gospel, clas­si­cal and opera, and lec­tures from the best jazz mu­si­cians in the re­gion and lo­cal­ly. The work­shop will al­so de­liv­er train­ing spe­cif­ic to every mu­si­cal in­stru­ment, while em­brac­ing all age groups.

Call­ing cor­po­rate T&T

Thomas, the or­gan­i­sa­tion's pres­i­dent, says that there is much to be done for the genre to be ac­cept­ed coun­try­wide, point­ing to cor­po­rate Trinidad's lack of in­volve­ment in the de­vel­op­ment of mu­sic and cul­ture. "Trinidad needs to get more se­ri­ous when it comes to our young peo­ple," says Thomas. He high­lights his per­son­al ef­fort with his child, whose pre-school be­came a fo­rum for his mu­si­cal ex­pres­sion through the beat of the drum.

He ex­plained that he was in­vit­ed to show­case and speak about his pro­fes­sion at the school. The chil­dren took an im­me­di­ate lik­ing to the beat of the drums that he played. Thomas said he syn­chro­nised the beat with chil­dren's sto­ries and soon got the idea to mo­bilise the project from the pre-school lev­el, across the na­tion. Still in the plan­ning stages, Rhythm Sto­ries, is an idea that has sparked some in­ter­est from var­i­ous pre-school stake­hold­ers. How­ev­er, Thomas lament­ed that with lit­tle fund­ing, avail­able, the idea re­mains in the pipeline.

Maybe Gov­ern­ment will help

The Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs has, in what ap­pears to be a pos­i­tive sig­nal of feed­back, re­spond­ed to the Al­liance, say­ing that an of­fi­cer has been as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate the project, fol­low­ing which a re­sponse re­gard­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance will be giv­en.

Even with this still un­de­ter­mined, Thomas and the rest of the mem­ber­ship, in look­ing to­ward the growth of jazz mu­sic and the lo­cal artistes in­volved, will move full speed ahead to pro­vide their week-long work­shop, which promis­es to ed­u­cate all who wish to learn and em­brace the mu­sic and its many won­der­ful at­trib­ut­es.