There were far too few people at the Buena Onda Caribbean Latin Jazz concert hosted by UTT last Wednesday. The concert, which showcased the UTT Academy for the Performing Arts' Big Band and visiting artist Roman Filiu, deserved a bigger audience than the handful of patrons in the Sapa main auditorium.
Perhaps it was because the show was on a Wednesday that it attracted relatively few patrons, or perhaps because it was in South. Maybe it was the cost–$200–because UTT's shows are usually free. Whatever the reason you missed it, you certainly missed out if you're a jazz fan.
It's unusual to see an actual big band playing jazz today in T&T–we tend to run to small ensembles, quartets and such as far as I know. UTT's Big Band, on the other hand, on Wednesday night included 16 musicians not counting the faculty members who joined the band on stage.
The band members are students and former students from both the bachelor of fine arts (BFA) and the artist diploma in music performance programmes, and play sax, trombone, trumpet, guitar, bass, drums and keyboard.
At Buena Onda the set list was heavily Cuban, with pieces by Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D'Rivera, Pepe Rivero and Ernesto Duarte–probably a nod to Filiu, who was a long-time member of the Cuban band Irakere before moving first to Madrid and then to New York.
Filiu spent two weeks in T&T in November as a UTT visiting artist and returned the week before the concert to work with the band. At the show, sax, flute and clarinet instructor Anthony Woodroffe Jr–who acted as MC as well as playing and conducting–praised the UTT administration for bringing Filiu to the Academy as a visiting artist.
Filiu's incredible fingerwork on the alto sax on such pieces as his own composition El Nanga showed without doubt why he was a good choice for a visiting artist. Conducting the Big Band during the first half, Filiu took them through a range of work–from the sensuous Paulia to the more uptempo offering Tumba en Tres, both by Pepe Rivero, and other pieces. His beautiful playing on the Adan Hagley arrangement of Chantal Esdelle's Kaiso Kaiso also stood out for me.
But he was just one of the stars of the evening. Woodroffe himself, on the tenor sax, was not at all shabby, especially on the pieces he played with tenor pan soloist Mikhail Salcedo. Assistant professor of trombone and trumpet, Aidan Chamberlain, showed his chops on the trombone as well as conducted.
The third resident instructor, calypso music legend Errol Ince, blew me away with the sharpness of his trumpet playing. He appeared in the second half of the show in a pared down ensemble of the instructors with guitarist Dean Williams, keyboardist Mark Brewster, bassist Andre Jack, drummer Josh Watkins and percussionist Sheena Richardson.
One of the highlights of my evening was listening to that smaller ensemble play Todav�a No, by Juan Andres Ospina. Another highlight was hearing guitar student James Joseph's solos, particularly on his own composition Leve pour w'Danse. He's definitely going to be one to watch when his technique catches up with the speed and passion of his playing.
The show could have used a programme and an MC–no dis to Anthony Woodroffe Jr, but a lot of the time I was left wondering what the name of a piece or a musician was. The miking of the Big Band also left something to be desired, as many of the student soloists were barely audible above the band itself. However, in all it was an enjoyable evening and again, I'm sorry for those who missed it.
March and April are the height of the jazz season in T&T and of course the Tobago Jazz Experience is going on this week. Because it usually clashes with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, which is also held at the end of April, I keep missing Tobago Jazz. I'm going to miss it again this year, sadly–though this year I don't have an excuse as Bocas is next week and there's no clash. However, going to Tobago for a concert isn't an option for me right now because of school. (If you're going, take a wine for me.)
On the whole I'm really pleased to see how the local jazz scene has grown over the past decade. If you, like me, are skipping Tobago, there's always MovieTowne's Women in Jazz series, which ends this weekend with a free performance by Camille Comas on April 25.