An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Mu­sic lovers turned out in full force on East­er Sun­day for the I Am Jazz Fes­ti­val’s 2026 stag­ing of “Jazz in Red – The Love Af­fair,” trans­form­ing the grounds of Cipri­ani Col­lege in­to a sea of colour, rhythm, and style.

Dressed in strik­ing shades of red, from deep bur­gundy to bright crim­son, pa­trons leaned ful­ly in­to the theme, blend­ing fash­ion with mu­sic in a way that mir­rored the fes­ti­val’s im­mer­sive con­cept. Cou­ples, groups of friends and so­lo at­ten­dees moved eas­i­ly be­tween the stage and the crowd, cre­at­ing an at­mos­phere that felt equal parts con­cert and cu­rat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence.

Even in­ter­mit­tent driz­zles failed to damp­en the mood. Um­brel­las went up, but so did the en­er­gy, as pa­trons con­tin­ued danc­ing, singing and sway­ing to the mu­sic, un­fazed by the weath­er. If any­thing, the light rain added to the am­bi­ence, giv­ing the night a cin­e­mat­ic qual­i­ty as lights re­flect­ed off wet sur­faces and the crowd stayed locked in.

On stage, the line­up de­liv­ered. In­ter­na­tion­al acts, in­clud­ing Saxap­peal and Ash­ley Pez­zot­ti, brought pol­ished per­for­mances, while re­gion­al and lo­cal tal­ent such as JU’ne, Du­vone Stew­art, Jo­hann Chucka­ree, Natasha Joseph, Dane Gul­ston and Free­town Col­lec­tive kept the crowd en­gaged through­out the night.

For pa­trons, the ex­pe­ri­ence went be­yond the per­for­mances.

“It wasn’t just mu­sic, it was a whole vibe,” said Ali­cia Ram­dass, one of sev­er­al at­ten­dees dressed head-to-toe in red. “Ash­ley Pez­zot­ti stood out to me, her voice, her con­trol, every­thing felt ef­fort­less.”

Ka­reem Phillips, who at­tend­ed with friends, said the blend of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al acts el­e­vat­ed the show. “Du­vone Stew­art was ex­cep­tion­al. The way he fused pan with jazz, you could feel the crowd re­spond in­stant­ly. That was a high­light.”

An­oth­er pa­tron, Melis­sa George, point­ed to the col­lec­tive en­er­gy of the night. “Free­town Col­lec­tive brought a dif­fer­ent kind of en­er­gy. It was pow­er­ful, it was cul­tur­al, and peo­ple con­nect­ed with that.”

At the cen­tre of the pro­duc­tion was fes­ti­val pro­duc­er Kevon La Fleur, whose “See Jazz Through Colour” con­cept con­tin­ues to shape the event’s iden­ti­ty. Draw­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence with chromes­the­sia, La Fleur has pushed the fes­ti­val be­yond a tra­di­tion­al con­cert for­mat, in­te­grat­ing light­ing, vi­su­als and stag­ing in­to a mul­ti-sen­so­ry ex­pe­ri­ence.

The fes­ti­val al­so main­tained a so­cial fo­cus, sup­port­ing the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T as part of its out­reach.

With plans al­ready in mo­tion for 2027, or­gan­is­ers are po­si­tion­ing the I Am Jazz Fes­ti­val as more than a sin­gle-night event, but a grow­ing cul­tur­al plat­form.