Akiela Hope

They are a lo­cal band that en­com­pass­es Caribbean Jazz sheer­ness and bril­liance. Moyenne has been on the Jazz scene for the last ten years. The band was found­ed in 1998 when pi­anist Chan­tal Es­delle joined her friend and steel­pan play­er Glen­ford "Kevin" Sobers who had spent sev­er­al years tour­ing Asia with a con­tem­po­rary Caribbean band. It was a true meet­ing of mu­si­cal minds and their man­date was clear: they want­ed to cre­ate and per­form their own unique sound in Jazz mu­sic rep­re­sent­ing their com­bined Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ences. Soon, and per­cus­sion­ist Don­ald Noel en­tered, over time the line-up grad­u­al­ly broad­ened to in­clude res­i­dent bassist Dou­glas Re­don and steel­pan play­er, arranger and com­pos­er Dar­ren Shep­pard (drums).

Es­delle who al­so pos­sess­es a de­gree in Jazz Com­po­si­tion from Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic and a Mas­ters in Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy at York Uni­ver­si­ty is a true pa­tri­ot, and through­out their mu­si­cal ca­reer, the band have per­formed stan­dard jazz reper­toires and Es­delle's ex­ist­ing Caribbean jazz port­fo­lio. Be­ing true be­liev­ers of pa­tri­o­tism Moyenne ex­tend­ed their per­form­ing plat­forms and fea­tured oth­er lo­cal mu­si­cians.

Sea­soned trav­ellers Moyenne has per­formed as far as Boston and as close as Do­mini­ca; fes­ti­val ap­pear­ances in­clude the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Fes­ti­val, the Grena­da Spice Jazz Fes­ti­val, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Steel­pan and Jazz Fes­ti­val, Pan Ra­ma­jay, and Jazz Artists on the Greens.

The group's sig­na­ture al­bum New Hope in­cor­po­rates el­e­ments of ca­lyp­so, Cuban sounds and Bossa No­va and fea­tured bassist Moses Au­guste of St. Lu­cia, drum­mer Sean Thomas, gui­tarist Theron Shaw, and flautist Michelle Mar­fan of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Oth­er mu­si­cians that have had the plea­sure of per­form­ing with Moyenne in­clude pan­nists Ja­son Bap­tiste and Du­vonne Stew­art, per­cus­sion­ist Tam­ba Gwin­di and drum­mer and pan­nist Dar­ren Shep­pard. You can find Chan­tal Es­delle and Moyenne at the To­ba­go Jazz on the Beach, Mt. Irvine Beach Re­sort, To­ba­go, April 2012.