Si­mon Lee

A mag­nif­i­cent ram goat, ac­com­pa­nied by his all-in-white Bobo Shan­ti min­der, noses the sand of La­borie's Rudy John beach, on St Lu­cia's south west coast.

Be­yond the susurrus of the lazy waves' per­cus­sion, St Vin­cent floats twen­ty miles off­shore. On­stage, De­nis La­pas­sion and his band from Cayenne, French Guiana ca­ress the warm cur­rents of a late Sun­day af­ter­noon with ca­dences from the Ama­zon rain­for­est and feisty Kw�yol kas�ko rhythms.

The beach buzzes with pic­nick­ing fam­i­lies; vil­lage fish­er­men rest­ing their nets in favour of shots of rum and ro­bust fa­tigue; old tanties sell­ing home­made del­i­ca­cies; kids clam­our­ing for surf­side pony rides and trav­ellers from afar with a thirst for Cre­ole Jazz.

This is the 17th edi­tion of Jazz in the South, the flag­ship project of Labowi Pro­mo­tions, a not-for-prof­it com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion es­tab­lished some 20 years ago by a small group of La­borie-based cul­tur­al ac­tivists, with the ob­jec­tive of en­hanc­ing "so­cial to­geth­er­ness and har­mo­ny" and pro­mot­ing "eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment through cul­tur­al events and ex­pres­sion."

The com­mu­ni­ty-based jazz fes­ti­val has an en­vi­able track record of pre­sent­ing some of the best Caribbean jazz per­form­ers, as well as African artistes like last year's head­lin­er, Malian vo­cal­ist Fa­touma­ta Di­awara.

Like many home­grown cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives in the re­gion, Jazz in the South is un­der­fund­ed to the ex­tent that this year's fes­ti­val has been trimmed down from four con­certs to this sin­gle per­for­mance plus Erol Jo­su�'s Hait­ian dance and Jacques Schwarz-Bart's sax mas­ter class­es in Cas­tries. But what's been lost in quan­ti­ty has in no way com­pro­mised Labowi's high­est qual­i­ty stan­dards. The af­ter­noon in­to night descar­ga promis­es some of the re­gion's most gift­ed young and young-at-heart per­form­ers, with the best sur­prise left for last.

True to the Labowi tra­di­tion of pro­gram­ming in­ter­na­tion­al with ris­ing lo­cal tal­ent, the Vieux Fort-based Shomari (Maxwell on key­boards) and Wen­dell (Richards on sax) Jazz Project, take the stage in the wake of La­pas­sion.

In tune with the gen­tle waves, the young en­sem­ble take a slow glide through Mar­ley, Spar­row, Mar­vin Gaye's What's Go­ing On, their cre­olised ver­sion of the Sting hit–trans­formed in­to An Eng­lish­man in Vieux Fort and the Lord Melody clas­sic kaiso Ma­ma Look a Boo Boo.

As the sun dips in­to the sea tak­ing the tem­per­a­ture with it, young Mar­tini­quan pi­anist Gre­go­ry Pri­vat and his Chil­dren of Cy­paris quin­tet, fea­tur­ing Gaude­lou­pean mas­ter per­cus­sion­ist/drum­mer Son­ny Troup�, in­voke both b�l� and gwo ka rhyth­mic tra­di­tions with the ele­giac suite, Tales of Cy­paris.

Mar­tinique like Cu­ba has a long tra­di­tion of vir­tu­oso pi­anists–from Mar­ius Coul­ti­er to Paulo Ro­sine, Alain Jean Marie to Mario Canonge. Gre­go­ry Pri­vat, son of Jos�, who suc­ceed­ed Ro­sine as pi­anist in the leg­endary An­til­lean band Malavoi, is a wor­thy heir who plays far be­yond his al­ready im­pres­sive cre­den­tials.

Pri­vat unique­ly sifts the ash­es of his is­land's vol­cano, for a nar­ra­tive with which to frame the flow of his mu­sic; a sub­tle yet volatile flow, which with a sud­den change of tem­po is ca­pa­ble of shift­ing from the lyri­cal to the ex­plo­sive erup­tion of Mt Pel�e in 1902,an event of both ge­o­log­i­cal and cul­tur­al­sig­nif­i­cance.

It was the town of St Pierre, close to Mt Pel�e's base, that was the cra­dle of Cre­ole jazz, when in the 1880s b�l� mu­si­cians de­scend­ed from the sur­round­ing mornes to in­fuse Eu­ro­pean dance forms with Afro-Cre­ole rhythms to cre­ate the bigu­ine.

While the 1902 erup­tion ut­ter­ly de­stroyed this el­e­gant "Paris of the An­tilles" and its 30,000 in­hab­i­tants, there was one sur­vivor, the in­vet­er­ate tafia suck­er Cy­paris, whose drunk­en­ness en­sured his safe­ty as he'd been locked up in a soli­tary "ca­chot", with walls thick enough to with­stand the in­fer­no. Cy­paris was pulled from the ash­es to be­come a star turn in Bar­num's cir­cus as "le grand brul�", an­oth­er ob­ject of ex­ot­ic fas­ci­na­tion.

Pri­vat's Tales of Cy­paris, both com­mem­o­rates and cel­e­brates this sur­vivor. On­stage Pri­vat's rip­pling runs, evok­ing the bigu­ine of those in­cen­di­ary days, rode a back­ing track of Jean Bernab� voic­ing Cy­paris' mem­oir, with Troup�'s fu­ri­ous gwo ka beats and plain­tive gui­tar adding brio and colour to what will be recog­nised as a mod­ern Cre­ole clas­sic.

For the full star-stud­ded night sky fi­nale Guade­lou­pean sax­o­phon­ist Jacques Schwarz-Bart led his Jazz Racine Haiti en­sem­ble in an in­vo­ca­tion to the Vodou lwas, voiced in spine-tin­gling style by Hait­ian oun­gan, vo­cal­ist and dancer Erol Jo­su�.

Schwarz-Bart's most re­cent al­bum, from which his set was se­lect­ed, has made him a ma­jor con­tender in this year's French Gram­mys.

A log­i­cal and or­gan­ic de­vel­op­ment of his pas­sion for the Vodou chants and Hait­ian folk­songs his moth­er (nov­el­ist Si­mone) sang him through­out his child­hood, his adult ex­per­i­ments with Cre­ole rhythms and per­for­mances in Haiti with kon­pas kings Tabou Com­bo, Fr�re Jacques' acute jazz ear was piqued by the ex­tra­or­di­nary mu­si­cal so­phis­ti­ca­tion of Vodou chants.

So long rel­e­gat­ed to mere "folk mu­sic", Schwarz-Bart now com­pels lis­ten­ers to at­tune to the true com­plex­i­ties of this sa­cred mu­sic and par­tic­u­lar­ly its di­a­logue with si­lence, as an en­abler of the space where mys­ter­ies re­side.

Erol Jo­su�'s in­vo­ca­tion of At­i­bon Leg­ba, (lwa of the cross­roads con­nect­ing this world with that of the spir­its), the chant with which all Vodou cer­e­monies be­gin, tapped in­to the holis­tic pow­er of a liv­ing tra­di­tion. His lay­ered bari­tone made pal­pa­ble all the voic­es of Vodou his­to­ry, his nu­ances em­brac­ing the pain, tri­umph and mys­tery, which are hall­marks of Hait­ian cul­ture.

As he danced Leg­ba's chant, Rudy John beach be­came an al fres­co peri­style, the en­er­gies of the sea and the trees above the bay, re­leased by the rhythms of Claude Sat­urne's pet­wo drum.

Gre­go­ry Pri­vat was re­called to play key­boards for a di­vine­ly in­spired set; Eti­enne Charles' trum­pet har­mon­is­ing with Fr�re Jacques' tenor sax, which near­ly dwarfed him. Un­der the cres­cent moon, with white surf now lick­ing the beach, Vodou chants (Kouzin for the lwa of the land) and tra­di­tion­al Hait­ian com­po­si­tions (like the Kon­tredans giv­en an en­tire­ly mod­ern feel by fus­ing it with sam­ba), syn­the­sised with bit­ing New York jazz.

There were un­like­ly con­ver­sa­tions be­tween Ar­naud Dol­men's drums and Jacques' sax (on Blues Jon­jon, with brass lead­ing skin, melody in­form­ing rhythm) and the cli­max of Jo­su�'s thrilling fi­nal flour­ish­ing flu­id bare­foot dance, ac­com­pa­nied on­ly by pet­wo drum and Fr�re Jacques ramp­ing sax, which sure­ly brought the pow­er down.

The si­lence which even­tu­al­ly set­tled over Labowi, is still res­onat­ing with sounds from the past, car­ry­ing all who heard in­to a rich­er fu­ture.