What do you get when you mix the syn­co­pat­ed rhythms of jazz with the lo­cal Latin folk mu­sic of Parang? Well," Jaz­zang" of course. Jaz­zang comes to the Wood­brook pa­n­yard of Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove on De­cem­ber 27, from 5 to 10 pm. Parang has been a sta­ple of our lo­cal mu­sic scene and our Christ­mas Sea­son cel­e­bra­tions since any­one can re­mem­ber. The mu­sic is time­less.

Now, the Jazz Al­liance of Trinidad and To­ba­go (JATT) has giv­en parang a new di­men­sion in sound. Imag­ine parang ac­com­pa­nied, not just by a cu­a­tro, but with pi­ano, sax and more. The mu­sic is smooth, so­phis­ti­cat­ed, fes­tive and fa­mil­iar. Artistes in the show in­clude cu­a­trista Robert Munroe; Mozart of Pan Len "Boogsie" Sharpe; key­boardist Chan­tal Es­delle; gui­tarist Theron Shaw; bassist Dou­glas Re­don; sax­o­phon­ist Jesse Ryan; drum­mer Sean Thomas; and, the win­ners of 2009 Na­tion­al Parang Fi­nal, Los Alum­nos de San Juan. The event al­so fea­tures Ar­mo­nias Di­vine and a spe­cial guest ap­pear­ance by 3Canal.

Pro­ceeds from this event will go to JATT's Mu­si­cal Schol­ar­ship Fund, a fund was set up in re­sponse to the fi­nan­cial needs of T&T's young mu­si­cians study­ing, or wish­ing to study, mu­sic–both lo­cal­ly and abroad. Part pro­ceeds will be award­ed to Ryan, who was re­cent­ly ac­cept­ed to Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic. JATT head Sean Thomas said: "We at JATT nev­er lim­it mu­sic by la­belling it in neat box­es and throw­ing away the key. We are very ad­ven­tur­ous in ex­plor­ing dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal com­bi­na­tions and, with Jaz­zang, we have tak­en parang mu­sic to the next lev­el." Ad­mis­sion to this one of a kind event costs $100.