Beachfront Jazz delivers

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Beach­front Jazz trans­formed in­to a live­ly par­ty on Sat­ur­day night, with pa­trons singing along and danc­ing in­to the ear­ly hours at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort in Low­lands.

The event, pro­mot­ed by Black2Sug­ars, drew a strong crowd and fea­tured a mix of high-qual­i­ty lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mances set against the scenic back­drop.

The sig­na­ture event of the fourth an­nu­al To­ba­go Jazz, Mu­sic and Golf Week­end came alive mid­way through the show when a karaoke com­pe­ti­tion brought au­di­ence mem­bers in­to the spot­light.

With two paint­ings from The Art Gallery up for grabs, pa­trons show­cased both their vo­cal abil­i­ty and stage pres­ence as they com­pet­ed for top ho­n­ours.

Foot­ball coach Pe­ter Granville earned the loud­est ap­plause with his ren­di­tion of Is This Love by Bob Mar­ley.

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter his win, Granville said per­form­ing was noth­ing new to him.

“It’s in my blood. It’s in my DNA. I used to sing in pri­ma­ry school and at Bish­op’s High School. Since I re­tired from the THA, I do it as a hob­by,” he said.

The run­ner-up al­so im­pressed with a con­fi­dent per­for­mance of One in a Mil­lion, jok­ing­ly re­quest­ing his pre­ferred paint­ing af­ter re­ceiv­ing loud ap­plause.

The im­promp­tu com­pe­ti­tion lift­ed the en­er­gy in the venue, draw­ing pa­trons to their feet as the house DJ kept the mo­men­tum go­ing with an up­beat set.

Among the stand­out mo­ments, a pa­tron in a wheel­chair cap­ti­vat­ed the crowd as she ma­noeu­vred her chair in rhythm, match­ing the move­ments of her friends on the dance floor.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed sax­o­phon­ist Jazmin Ghent then de­liv­ered a high-en­er­gy per­for­mance that left the au­di­ence in awe.

The award-win­ning artiste, who holds a PhD in Mu­sic Ed­u­ca­tion, show­cased her ver­sa­til­i­ty with in­stru­men­tal ren­di­tions of pop­u­lar so­ca tracks, in­clud­ing Wed­ding Band and Co­coa Tea.

Her set be­came in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­ac­tive as she moved through the crowd, ser­e­nad­ing pa­trons who ea­ger­ly cap­tured the mo­ment on their phones.

Speak­ing af­ter­ward, Ghent said it was her first vis­it to To­ba­go and de­scribed the is­land as “amaz­ing,” not­ing the venue’s pic­turesque ocean back­drop and re­laxed at­mos­phere.

“There is a mis­con­cep­tion—jazz can be for kids, it could be for old­er peo­ple. It doesn’t mat­ter your age. Jazz is for every­one,” she said.

Reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons closed the show with a com­mand­ing per­for­mance, shar­ing mes­sages of grat­i­tude and per­se­ver­ance.

She thanked God for both opened and closed doors and paid trib­ute to her fa­ther, Su­perblue, with a ren­di­tion of So­ca Bap­tist.

Lyons al­so re­vis­it­ed her break­through hit Meghan My Dear, re­mind­ing the au­di­ence of its sharp so­cial com­men­tary.

Ear­li­er in the evening, To­ba­go pan­nist Ger­ard Bal­four opened the event with an en­er­getic med­ley, fol­lowed by per­for­mances from vi­o­lin­ist Car­ryl Warn­er and for­mer Mu­sic Fes­ti­val win­ner Llete­sha Sylvester. Gui­tarist Theron Shaw and bassist Ron Reid al­so de­liv­ered stand­out sets.

Ker­ry Roach, co-founder of Black2Sug­ars, ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the turnout, de­scrib­ing the all-in­clu­sive event as a suc­cess.

He not­ed that the open­ing golf tour­na­ment on Fri­day—in­tro­duced to at­tract more male pa­trons—was over­sub­scribed, with part of the pro­ceeds go­ing to­ward the pur­chase of a wheel­chair for a child in need.

Roach al­so thanked the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion for its sup­port this year and said he is op­ti­mistic about the event’s fu­ture.

“We are proud of what we are do­ing. This is a work of love. It isn’t about mon­ey. I love mu­sic, and I love see­ing peo­ple have a good time,” he said.

The To­ba­go Jazz, Mu­sic and Golf Week­end cul­mi­nat­ed yes­ter­day evening with Fair­ways Jazz Un­der the Stars.