Jazz Al­liance of T&T (JATT) will ho­n­our Fitzroy Cole­man dur­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go Jazz Week sched­uled for June 24 � 28 in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Day 2013 un­der the theme, The Bridge Be­tween Their Soul & Our Mu­sic.

The sched­uled ac­tiv­i­ties will en­gage all ages at var­i­ous venues in­clud­ing schools, restau­rants, and the Nalis Chil­dren's Li­brary. The main event on June 28, at Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain, will bring the cur­tains down with a stel­lar per­for­mance by lo­cal and for­eign artistes.

Ac­cord­ing to JATT pres­i­dent Sean Thomas, "...due to un­fore­seen cir­cum­stances our ac­tiv­i­ties for IJD had to have been post­poned. How­ev­er, T&T can and will ex­pe­ri­ence a week of jazz mu­sic, work­shops and col­lab­o­ra­tions. Au­di­ences will wit­ness an un­for­get­table jazz event come June 28 at Cen­tral Bank where lo­cal icon, Fitzroy Cole­man, will be ho­n­oured.

"Cole­man's bio is spec­tac­u­lar: He has been named as one of the top 100 great­est jazz gui­tarists ever, in a poll con­duct­ed by the pop­u­lar mu­sic web­site known as dig­i­tal­dream­door.com and stands at num­ber 93 on a list of the top 100 gui­tarists. George Ben­son stands at num­ber 21 and lead­ing the pack is Wes Mont­gomery who is num­ber one.

"Jazz mu­si­cians and lovers of the genre from around the world send in their votes for the poll. Se­lec­tion cri­te­ria are orig­i­nal­i­ty, ver­sa­til­i­ty, sig­nif­i­cant im­pact and in­flu­ence with­in the genre. Nom­i­nees are al­so cho­sen for their in­no­va­tions, their tech­ni­cal abil­i­ty for im­pro­vi­sa­tion, mu­si­cal ex­pres­sion as well as com­po­si­tion­al skill and cre­ative in­spi­ra­tion."

Cole­man was born in Al­fre­do Street, Wood­brook. His fa­ther was a steam­roller dri­ver who played the gui­tar as a hob­by. He did not want young Fitzroy to touch his prized in­stru­ment and so he fash­ioned a home-made gui­tar for the young Cole­man by nail­ing a flat pan to a piece of wood and string­ing mar­ling on it. Even­tu­al­ly Cole­man got fed-up with the con­trap­tion and when­ev­er his fa­ther was at work or went out he picked up the re­al gui­tar and taught him­self how to play.

His fa­ther caught him one day re­al­is­ing that he had learnt to play well with­out any teach­ing and al­lowed him to use it freely. It would not be long when he got the at­ten­tion of Cap­tain Arthur Cipri­ani, who took the young man to per­form at dances and con­certs in the Princes Build­ing and the Roy­al Vic­to­ria In­sti­tute. In 1942, Cole­man joined the Len Wood­ley or­ches­tra and by 1945 he was head­ing off to Eng­land to be a part of a Caribbean mu­sic band be­ing put to­geth­er by a man named, Al Jen­nings.

Cole­man was con­sid­ered to be among the top jazz gui­tarists of the day across Britain, Eu­rope and the Unit­ed States. He played reg­u­lar­ly on the BBC and ac­com­pa­nied the likes of Ma­halia Jack­son, Tony Ben­nett, Eartha Kit, Lena Horne, and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, in­clud­ing Kitch­en­er, Roar­ing Li­on and Be­gin­ner.

For more in­for­ma­tion on TnT Jazz Week vis­it us on Face­book: Jazz Al­liance of Trinidad and To­ba­go or call 625-7123 / 689-4298.