Nigel Teles­ford

The 20th edi­tion of Jazz Artists on The Greens (JAOTG) takes place this evening at “The Greens” at WASA Sports Club Grounds in St Joseph. This im­mer­sive mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ence host­ed by Pro­duc­tion One Lim­it­ed is renowned as the biggest and longest sur­viv­ing jazz fes­ti­val in T&T.

JAOTG has fea­tured sev­er­al Gram­my-nom­i­nat­ed acts, in­clud­ing Nil­son Mat­ta, Clau­dio Rodoti & Mauri­cio Zot­tar­rl­li.

This year is no ex­cep­tion as Je­re­my Led­bet­ter—a mem­ber of Lar­nell and Joy’s band—just won a Juno Award for Jazz Al­bum of the Year on March 30.

Jazz Artists on the Greens® is the key event that be­gins the jazz sea­son in the south­ern Caribbean and this year’s cast in­cludes vo­cal­ist Char­maine Forde, gui­tarist Kyle Pe­ters, soul sis­ter Kye De Vere; steel­pan vir­tu­oso Joy Lapps and world class drum­mer Lar­nell Lewis, in ad­di­tion to the re­turn of the fab­u­lous Ju-Né, among oth­ers.

Reg­is­tered as a cer­ti­fied fes­ti­val on The Na­tion­al Reg­istry of Artists & Cul­tur­al Work­ers, JAOTG has grown from hum­ble be­gin­nings on Ju­ly 1, 2003, at the UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre in­to the largest Caribbean jazz event in T&T.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Char­maine Forde be­came an in­stant hit when she com­pet­ed in the then-pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion tal­ent se­ries Scout­ing for Tal­ent at the end of the 1970s, be­fore delv­ing head-first in­to a pro­fes­sion­al mu­sic ca­reer in 1980.

Forde was com­pared to the likes of Nan­cy Wil­son, Na­tal­ie Cole and Cha­ka Khan, and was nick­named “Cham­pagne Char­maine” by her fans. Her work with jazz gui­tarist Michael Booth­man re­sult­ed in a cov­er of What You Won’t Do For Love, which was a lo­cal hit.

Af­ter a sto­ried ca­reer in the US, Char­maine is back on the Greens to wow au­di­ences with her dy­nam­ic range and im­pres­sive soul-jazz vo­cal styling. Her per­for­mance on The Greens is made pos­si­ble, in part, by a Fea­tured Artist Spon­sor­ship pro­vid­ed by Trans World Com­pli­ance Ltd.

In this in­ter­view, she speaks about her love for jazz and plans for 2025.

Q: What does per­form­ing at the 20th edi­tion of JAOTG mean to you and your brand?

A: Per­form­ing at the 20th edi­tion of JAOTG is so time­ly and strate­gic in my singing ca­reer. This plat­form con­nects me as a mu­si­cian to a wider au­di­ence to fur­ther mas­ter the art of my in­ter­na­tion­al sta­tus and skills in my genre jazz.

Al­though I can al­ready per­form in any genre of mu­sic, I have been toy­ing with the no­tion of en­hanc­ing my brand, di­ver­si­fy­ing my brand and per­form­ing some out-of-my-com­fort-zone num­bers to show my de­vel­oped range and my ver­sa­til­i­ty. As we all know, Jazz Artists On The Greens’ suc­cess and my par­tic­i­pa­tion in it serve as a roadmap for fu­ture en­deav­ours, in­spir­ing me to con­tin­ue push­ing cre­ative bound­aries and ex­plor­ing new mu­si­cal hori­zons (to coin the phrase).

My ac­com­pa­ny­ing en­sem­ble, known as Jaz The Band, is a group of young mu­si­cal ge­nius­es. They are equal­ly as ex­cit­ed as I am to be on the stage of the 20th an­niver­sary of “Jazz Artist On The Greens! This is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone and a tes­ta­ment to them and their growth as a band, brand and in­di­vid­ual mu­si­cians.

This is a ma­jor event for me and my band, and a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment that en­cour­ages and mo­ti­vates us. The JAOTG is a plat­form for ex­pand­ing our life­long dreams as jazz per­form­ers and we ap­pre­ci­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the di­ver­si­ty and rich­ness of our craft. Per­form­ing at such a promi­nent event pro­vides valu­able ex­po­sure and helps to so­lid­i­fy my brand’s pres­ence with­in the Caribbean jazz scene and be­yond.

What ex­tra spe­cial el­e­ments have you de­signed or do you in­tend to em­ploy while on­stage on this mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion?

How do I an­swer this ques­tion? No, no, there are no ex­tra spe­cial el­e­ments to em­ploy while on­stage for this mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion ex­cept be­ing my au­then­tic self. I sole­ly in­tend to WOW you with my elec­tri­fy­ing vo­cals and mag­net­ic stage per­son­al­i­ty —this will be used to get you ex­cit­ed, make you feel every mo­ment and as­pect of my per­for­mance where you force­ful­ly live and love every mo­ment via the lyrics of the songs I’ll be singing dur­ing our per­for­mance. How­ev­er, I’ll tell you what I did do: I linked up with over 500 peo­ple to con­vince them to at­tend and I be­lieve that most of them have al­ready pur­chased their tick­ets. So if they all show up, I’ll be the hap­pi­est woman on that stage.

What does jazz mean to you per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly?

Jazz means every­thing to me. Jazz is my world. Jazz is my pas­sion! Mu­sic is all I’ve ever done. Jazz launched me suc­cess­ful­ly in­to this some­times bru­tal, al­ways com­pet­i­tive in­dus­try of mu­sic.

I start­ed singing in church in the choir—singing so­los at times. Gospel! This is where I was tru­ly rec­og­nized and told that I had a voice and re­alised for my­self that I had a GIFT. My el­dest sis­ter Jen­nifer used to play mu­sic while she was do­ing her house­hold chores and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly taught me how it’s done. While tag­ging along with my singing, she played Jazz stan­dards by some of our mu­si­cal greats: Nat King Cole, Na­tal­ie Cole, Aretha Franklin, Di­ana Ross and The Supremes, Frank Sina­tra and oth­ers. I was a child, but ea­ger­ly paid at­ten­tion and I re­mem­ber it was when she played a par­tic­u­lar artist by the name of Nan­cy Wil­son that then I knew I was hooked. No turn­ing back! I em­u­lat­ed and prac­ti­cal­ly idolised Nan­cy Wil­son. I have tak­en some of Nan­cy’s vo­cal styl­i­sa­tions and made them my own. I have de­vel­oped my craft, im­prov­ing my­self in every genre and every as­pect of mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment. This ex­plains why when I’m in­tro­duced it says, “Singer, En­ter­tain­er and Me­dia Per­son­al­i­ty.”

If you were not per­form­ing at JAOTG this year. Where would you be on April 5?

I would not have been here in T&T, I would have been in the US - my oth­er home - per­form­ing in one of my sta­ple beau­ti­ful coun­try clubs.

What have you done for 2025 thus far and what comes next af­ter JAOTG for you?

Jazz Artist On The Greens would be my first show back to the stage for the sea­son. Af­ter the Christ­mas sea­son I don’t par­tic­i­pate in the Car­ni­val sea­son, so this is my first for 2025, but I do have a few more jazz shows and fundrais­ers—ex­tend­ing me in­to Sep­tem­ber!

My biggest per­for­mance EVER is com­ing up. I plan on do­ing my own show lat­er this year as a birth­day cel­e­bra­tion to com­mem­o­rate this “rein­ven­tion” of my­self, whilst open­ing up my­self to new ma­te­r­i­al and new stylings in my pre­sen­ta­tion. I want au­di­ences to be en­thralled by the new pos­si­bil­i­ties of my reper­toire and my dy­namism on stage. This up­com­ing per­for­mance has me so ex­cit­ed about the shap­ing of the ‘new me’. It comes at the cross­roads of my per­form­ing tra­jec­to­ry. I have com­bined my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al pref­er­ences to come up with some new and orig­i­nal ma­te­r­i­al that takes me in­to some emo­tion­al and vul­ner­a­ble places that I am ea­ger to share.

The new Char­maine Forde is about to break bar­ri­ers and go be­yond bound­aries to un­earth a rich­er per­form­ing style, filled with a wide range of mu­sic gen­res test­ing my abil­i­ties and ex­cit­ing au­di­ences! Af­ter my al­most crit­i­cal or­deals in 2024, God has giv­en me a new lease on life and I’m go­ing for it. Stay Tuned!