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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Jazz lovers enjoy pre-Emancipation treat

by

20100805

While many cit­i­zens were trekking to the Jean Pierre Com­plex, par­tic­i­pat­ing in Sun­day's Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions on Ju­ly 31 in Port-of-Spain, the night be­fore Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, a se­lect crowd of Jazz lovers were flock­ing to the neigh­bour­ing Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, off Wright­son Road, where Square Deal Lev­el staged its sixth an­nu­al Jazz and Cock­tail Evening. The show opened with Mar­i­onettes Chorale singer Leah Lewis, a young woman whose voice cov­ered a wide range of oc­taves–from sweet and sul­try bal­lads, to grav­el­ly notes that re­mind­ed the au­di­ence of the late Louis "Satch­mo" Arm­strong.

Louis & The Lynx com­plet­ed the first half of the evening's pro­gramme with pop­u­lar all-time favourites, such as Shad­ow Of Your Smile, Oh What A Night, and I Wan­na Know Where You Are. The pop­u­lar band al­so de­liv­ered some ca­lyp­so melodies and orig­i­nal ma­te­r­i­al. Dur­ing the in­ter­mis­sion, pa­trons at the all-in­clu­sive event min­gled at the bar and en­joyed dou­bles and pas­tries be­fore set­tling back to their seats as show em­cee Ian Gill showed off his own singing abil­i­ties. Gill then in­tro­duced Ar­turo Tap­pin, a gift­ed mu­si­cian from Bar­ba­dos with world­wide ac­claim, who made a dra­mat­ic en­trance. Ini­tial­ly, the au­di­ence could on­ly hear the sweet notes of Tap­pin's sax­o­phone, and the mu­si­cian re­mained out of sight. When he even­tu­al­ly en­tered from the back of the venue, there was loud ap­plause.

Tap­pin has per­formed for many Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences, in­clud­ing two US pres­i­dents, and start­ed out with the sweet slow notes of When I Fall In Love, fol­lowed by Whiter Shade Of Pale. He then moved on to a med­ley of Ca­lyp­so favourites, caus­ing the au­di­ence to join in the singing. Tap­pin was ac­com­pa­nied by Raf Robert­son and his Or­ches­tra, and stu­dents of the Bird­song Acad­e­my, a mu­sic school formed out of Bird­song Steel Band. Af­ter his per­for­mance, Robert­son in­tro­duced Niall Man­swell, a vi­su­al­ly chal­lenged mu­si­cian, and the younger broth­er of box­er Ker­ston Man­swell. The younger Man­swell is on a mu­sic schol­ar­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, and had per­formed for au­di­ences in Hol­ly­wood ear­li­er this year. The high­point of Man­swell's per­for­mance was his ren­di­tions of Ras Shorty I's Watch Out My Chil­dren and Spar­row's Slave.


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