Pe­ter Ray Blood

The fren­zy of Car­ni­val 2014 has di­min­ished with the Lenten pe­ri­od, al­low­ing jazz and the­atre to move in­to the en­ter­tain­ment spot­light.

Thus far, plays have been staged by the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop (TTW); Fred­die Kissoon; RR/RS Pro­duc­tions (Men Are Dogs); and, Abeo Jack­son Pro­duc­tions (50 Shades of Gravy).

Men Are Dogs end­ed a one-month run at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) last week­end. Di­rect­ed by De­bra Bou­caud-Ma­son and Richard Ra­goo­bars­ingh, the play starred Glenn Davis, Cor­rine Browne, Ria Ali, Leslie Ann Lavine, Aaron Schnei­der Ra­goo­bars­ingh and Bou­caud Ma­son. The play's award-win­ning set de­sign­er was Ri­car­do Samuel.

50 Shades of Gravy

There was non-stop laugh­ter at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, last week­end at the pre­miere of 50 Shades of Gravy. The eight-scene pro­duc­tion, writ­ten by Pene­lope Spencer, fea­tured Nik­ki Cros­by, Ce­cil­ia Salazar, De­bra Bou­caud-Ma­son, Abeo Jack­son, Kearn Samuel, Arnold Goind­han and Spencer, in laugh-a-minute sit­u­a­tions.

Spe­cial men­tion must be made of Gre­go­ry Singh for his won­der­ful cos­tume de­sign and in­ge­nious stage set which com­prised main­ly of in­ter­chang­ing, coloured pan­els. Hold­ing the scenes to­geth­er was some spir­it­ed danc­ing by Za­kiya-Tuere Savary, Ra­mona Tim Kee and Mori­ba Fran­cis.

The play will be re­peat­ed on April 10-13, at Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain.

HeLa the one-wom­an­pro­duc­tion

Re­main­ing on the the­atre stage, TTW in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bo­cas Lit­er­a­ture Fes­ti­val, will host the one-woman pro­duc­tion called HeLa on April 17-19, at TTW, Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont. Writ­ten by Adu­ra Onashile, di­rect­ed by Gra­ham Eatough and pro­duced by Iron-Ox­ide, HeLa is a lead-up to the Fourth NGC Bo­cas Lit­er­a­ture Fes­ti­val on April 23-27.

Pre­mier jazz events

Switch­ing to jazz, this month the coun­try's two pre­mier jazz events–Jazz Artistes on the Greens (JAOTG) and To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence–will be held. Pro­duc­tion One Lim­it­ed will stage the 12th an­nu­al edi­tion of JAOTG to­mor­row at Farm Road, St Joseph, at 5 pm. Pro­duc­tion One Ltd is al­ways on the look­out for new up-and-com­ing jazz tal­ent through­out the Caribbean for ap­pear­ance at its con­certs.

JAOTG is bring­ing to­geth­er mu­si­cians from across the globe, per­form­ing tra­di­tion­al jazz and hy­brids of this genre. In its line-up will be Cuban vi­bra­phon­ist Tama­ra Cas­ta�eda and her coun­try­men sax­o­phon­ist Emir San­ta Cruz, his Es­pi­ral Trio and the William Rob­le­jo Trio; Brazil bassist Nil­son Mat­ta; UK-based gui­tarist Cameron Pierre; Amer­i­can pan­nist Jonathan Scales; US pi­anist Klaus Mueller; and, Bar­ba­dos sax­o­phon­ist Ar­turo Tap­pin and vo­cal­ist Marisa Lind­say.

T&T mu­si­cians on the star-stud­ded cast in­clude trum­peters Er­rol Ince and Eti­enne Charles; pi­anist Raf Robert­son; pan­nists Liam Teague, Dane Gul­ston and Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore; Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic grad­u­ate vo­cal­ist Ny­ol Man­swell and, �lan parl� en­sem­ble.

Com­plet­ing the open-air fes­ti­val, pic­nic am­biance will be a va­ri­ety of culi­nary de­lights on sale; and a ful­ly-stocked bar, along with ex­clu­sive event WiFi In­ter­net ac­cess so that pa­trons can up­load their ex­pe­ri­ences in re­al-time.

Tick­ets are avail­able on­line at the JAOTG web­site at www.jaotg.com, at se­lect lo­ca­tions na­tion­wide or call to or­der at 620-6920.

Women in Jazz

Venezuela's Lil­ian Lopez, Mavis John, Glen­da Col­lens and Ruth Os­man are the songstress­es cho­sen for the 2014 edi­tion of Women in Jazz to be held through this month at The Fi­es­ta Plaza at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain. Each Sat­ur­day, one of these artistes will show­case the trib­ute to Bil­lie Hol­i­day.

Some of the clas­sic Hol­i­day songs they will in­clude in their reper­toires in­clude Good morn­ing heart ache, The man I Love and La­dy Sings The Blues.

The se­ries be­gins to­mor­row. All shows are free to the pub­lic but din­ner reser­va­tions are ad­vised by con­tact­ing any of The Fi­es­ta Plaza restau­rants. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion vis­it the Movi­eTowne web site en­ter­tain­ment page or call 62-stars (Ex­ten­sion 1165).

To­ba­go Jazz Her­itage

To­ba­go Jazz Her­itage (TJH) will be staged on April 19-27 through Spey­side, Sig­nal Hill, Scar­bor­ough, Cas­tara and the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park. The event is owned by the Di­vi­sion of Tourism and Trans­porta­tion of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and it is one of the many ini­tia­tives used to in­crease To­ba­go's vis­i­bil­i­ty in the lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tourism mar­ket.

Jazz in the East

Jazz in the East will be held on April 19, at 7.30 pm, at the Spey­side Recre­ation­al Grounds and will fea­ture Joel Phillip, Niki­ta Browne, Roy Cape All Stars, Blaxx, Michael Booth­man,Tar­rus Ri­ley and Rhap­sody Next Gen­er­a­tion.

Hill­side Jazz

Sig­nal Hill Recre­ation­al Grounds will be the venue for the April 20 Hill­side Jazz at 4 pm.

Billing for this event in­cludes Adam Alexan­der, Key­lon Whit­lock, Stephen John, Michael Nedd and Qua­cy Coop­er, Keishaun Julien, Ravi Ma­haraj & Band, Os­car B and Lee­an­dro No­ray.

The Mt Pleas­ant Sports Day is on Ar­il 21, from 11 am, at the Mt Pleas­ant Recre­ation­al Grounds and lasts the en­tire day, fol­lowed by the Buc­coo Goat Races the fol­low­ing day, from 1 pm, at the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty.

Jazz on the Wa­ter­front

The free Jazz on the Wa­ter­front show takes place on April 23 at 6 pm on the Mil­ford Road Es­planade. Artistes named for this gig are Lynette Louis and Judy Bal­four, Pe­dro Leza­ma, Ja­son Jones, Lyri­cal Lounge, Jaime Ram­sey, Fay­ola, Dar­i­on Fras­er, Nic­qua Grannum and David Frank. This mu­si­cal show­place is mod­elled af­ter the "New Or­leans style" af­fair as per­form­ers show­case their tal­ent si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly on sev­er­al stages strate­gi­cal­ly placed along the wa­ter­front.

North­side Jazz

North­side Jazz will be held on April 24, at 1 pm, at Cas­tara Beach. This beach event is al­so free to the pub­lic and its artistes in­clude Ben­jai, Trevor Hunte, Si­mon Williams, Leon De Mur­rell, K.Kay, Or­lan­do Oc­tave, Zig­gy Rankin, Jah Melody, N'kem Scot­land and Sal­isha.

World Mu­sic Night

World Mu­sic Night is on April 25 at 7.30 pm at the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, named among the world's top 100 beach­es by CNN.

Head­lin­ing this blue riband event will be nine-time Gram­my Award win­ner, John Leg­end, and Amer­i­can singer/ac­tress, Brandy. Al­so on the cast are Dil-e-Nadan, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Fay-Ann Lyons and the Asy­lum Vikings band.

Young per­form­ers will show off their vo­cal and in­stru­men­tal tal­ent in var­i­ous gen­res, rang­ing from so­ca and reg­gae to soul and jazz at Youthopia, sched­uled for 7.30 pm on April 26, at Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park.

This is the newest ad­di­tion to the fes­ti­val agen­da and its cast in­cludes The Voice win­ner Tes­sanne Chin, R'Kar­do Stevon, Er­phaan Alves, Ger­ard Bal­four, Olatun­ji, DJ Red, Journei, Krush and Pri­vate Ryan.

Jazz on the Beach

The Jazz on the Beach se­ries, host­ed by the Mt Irvine Bay Ho­tel and Golf Club at Mt Irvine Bay on April 26-27, at 11 am, will fea­ture a mix of artistes.

April 27 will see the oth­er ma­jor event � Beach Jazz Fes­ti­val � be­ing held, from 7.30 pm, at Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park. Artistes on this show are Earth, Wind and Fire, Chrycee & the Soleil Band, Tony Paul, Genevieve and Keyshia Cole.

Even be­fore the cli­max of TJH there is an­oth­er jazz event on the sis­ter isle.

The Fringe Move­ment (theFM) is stag­ing its third an­nu­al event for three nights. On April 25 it will stage Acoustic Jam on Mount Irvine Beach, fol­lowed on April 26 by a jam at Bar Hop-In on the Shir­van Road.

Shade Night­club will be the venue for April 27 fi­nale of the Fringe Fest. Acts named for this event in­clude Sol­man, Buz­zRock, Gyazette, Van­na Vee, Brain Coral, Uku, Chro­mat­ics, John Jon with Dayo Be­jide, Kin Sound Sys­tem and West In­di­an Rhythm Kon­nec­tion.

Ac­claimed Bar­ba­di­an sax­o­phon­ist Ar­turo Tap­pin and his band will al­so be fea­tured in con­cert on April 24, at The Pavil­ion, To­ba­go.