Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (T&T) ac­claimed trum­peter, Eti­enne Charles, will put lips to horn once again, to her­ald the re­turn of the pop­u­lar Eat, Drink, Jazz (EDJ) Mu­sic and Food Fes­ti­val, to the San Fer­nan­do Hill, on Sep­tem­ber 30.

Charles and his Cre­ole Soul Band head­lines an im­pres­sive cast of jazz acts as­sem­bled for the keen­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 10th an­niver­sary of the an­nu­al show­case. Pi­anist Chan­tal Es­delle and her band Moyenne; gospel and R&B singer Nisa (Genisa St. Hillaire); jazz vo­cal­ist An­cil Val­ley and his An­cil the Band; and NL­CB Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra al­so are set to ap­pear. The show runs from 5 to 11 p.m.

Mas­ter­mind be­hind the EDJ fes­ti­val, An­cil Val­ley, says the time is right for “a sooth­ing sound” to blow over T&T and their 2023 cast has ex­act­ly “the right en­er­gy the is­lands need”. Con­cert­go­ers are asked to wear all white, he added.

“San Fer­nan­do Hill has be­come a mec­ca for jazz in the south­lands. Come con­cert night we in­tend to use our com­bined tal­ents to not on­ly con­nect with our au­di­ence but deputise them as agents of love and change,” Val­ley as­serts.

“We want to recharge their re­solve and em­pow­er them with re­newed pos­i­tive en­er­gy that they take to their jobs, schools, com­mu­ni­ties and most im­por­tant­ly their homes, be­cause that is where re­al pos­i­tive change starts,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Val­ley, Eti­enne Charles is ex­act­ly the right man to lead that love move­ment. Charles, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi As­so­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Stu­dio Mu­sic and Jazz, is a Guggen­heim Fel­low and NAACP Im­age Award win­ner for his work with young mu­si­cians.

Charles al­so was re­cent­ly laud­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia fol­low­ing a stel­lar de­but of his new works at the Lin­coln Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts in Man­hat­tan, New York, in the Unit­ed States.

“Eti­enne’s star is un­de­ni­ably on the rise and we as a na­tion want to cel­e­brate that and ap­plaud the tire­less work, he has put in­to mas­ter­ing his craft and im­pact­ing the glob­al space,” Val­ley said.

He added: “Eat, Drink, Jazz is part of his 22-stop tour mark­ing the 10th an­niver­sary of the re­lease of his break-out, chart-top­ping al­bum Cre­ole Soul, so he al­so has, in turn, made us a part of his cel­e­bra­tions.”

The best of both worlds

For the past decade, EDJ has brought mu­sic and food lovers to­geth­er, 190 me­ters above sea lev­el, for a unique son­ic and taste sen­so­ry ex­pe­ri­ence, against the panoram­ic back­drop of the Gulf of Paria.

Cuban trum­peter Alex­is Baro, US singer/song­writer Av­ery­Sun­shine (Denise White), and Bar­ba­di­an sax­o­phon­ist Ar­turo Tap­pin, have shared the EDJ stage over the years with lo­cal stars, in­clud­ing the late great ca­lyp­son­ian Shad­ow (Win­ston Bai­ley), ac­claimed sitarist Mun­gal Patasar, ca­lyp­so icon Lord Re­la­tor (Willard Har­ris), vo­cal­ist Vaugh­nette Big­ford and so­ca stars Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller and Farmer Nap­py (Dar­ryl Hen­ry), among oth­ers.

“The past 10 years have been an in­cred­i­ble jour­ney, lit­er­al­ly build­ing this se­ries from the ground up to what you will see on Sep­tem­ber 30,” Val­ley stat­ed.

“We feel re-en­er­gized to keep do­ing the work and gen­uine­ly ex­cit­ed as to what comes next. What­ev­er it is we know it will con­tin­ue to be en­ter­tain­ing,” he promised.