Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

As the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) seeks to at­tract vis­i­tors to the is­land all year, Black2Sug­ars is mak­ing sure jazz is a sta­ple on the en­ter­tain­ment cal­en­dar.

The pro­mo­tion com­pa­ny is host­ing its fourth an­nu­al To­ba­go Jazz, Mu­sic and Golf Week­end from May 1-3 at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, Low­lands.

Jazz events have been dwin­dling re­cent­ly, with Jazz Artistes on the Greens and North Coast Jazz both ab­sent from the 2026 cal­en­dar.

The THA has al­so bowed out of host­ing an event this year, in­stead pri­ori­tis­ing the clear­ing of debt by the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, Black2Sug­ars co­founder Ker­ry Roach said the pri­vate group is com­mit­ted to the suc­cess of its event even in the face of ad­ver­si­ty.

“What is hap­pen­ing for 2026 from a jazz stand­point? We just leav­ing it open for some of the oth­er is­lands?” he asked.

As rel­a­tive new­com­ers to host­ing jazz events, he said Black2Sug­ars is de­ter­mined to fill the void.

A key strat­e­gy this year, he said, is to get the ac­tion swing­ing with a golf tour­na­ment in­clud­ed over the week­end.

Roach said when the de­mo­graph­ics of pa­trons were analysed, they re­alised golf would be a per­fect ad­di­tion to the itin­er­ary.

This ra­tio­nale saw the com­pa­ny part­ner with Mag­dale­na in 2025, af­ter host­ing pre­vi­ous events at Mt Irvine and Tur­tle Beach.

“The plan was al­ways to have the golf. It did not come off last year be­cause of some lo­gis­ti­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sues, so we had to can­cel it.

“Golf is lit­er­al­ly a per­fect align­ment with jazz, and we’ve seen it in oth­er mar­kets. If you look at the de­mo­graph­ic of who plays golf, it is an old­er, more so­phis­ti­cat­ed kind of per­son.”

He said golf is a male-dom­i­nat­ed sport com­pris­ing play­ers in their late thir­ties and old­er, while most­ly women in that same age brack­et at­tend jazz events.

“Why not put the whole thing to­geth­er? What we have now is a fam­i­ly pack­age where every­one can at­tend. We felt it was a good mod­el to use for at­tract­ing a large seg­ment of the mar­ket.”

He said one in­ter­est­ed pa­tron told him he was here for To­ba­go Car­ni­val 2025, but did not go to a sin­gle par­ty.

“He played golf for the three days he was here. It have guys who would pre­fer to do that rather than the jam and wine.”

Roach said dis­cus­sions were held with the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion, which came on board im­me­di­ate­ly to man­age that as­pect.

He said this sport tourism will ben­e­fit the is­land tremen­dous­ly.

“Where are these guys gonna stay? How are they gonna get around? What are they gonna eat? They are spend­ing mon­ey in To­ba­go.”

T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wayne Bap­tiste is an­tic­i­pat­ing close to 30 teams in the com­pe­ti­tion.

“The whole thing is about tourism, and when you bring golf to­geth­er with jazz, it sends the right mes­sage about what you want in To­ba­go,” Bap­tiste said.

He said part of the pro­ceeds from the tour­na­ment will be used to pur­chase a wheel­chair to as­sist a dif­fer­ent­ly-abled per­son.

Roach said the part­ner­ship with Mag­dale­na in 2025 has made all the plans pos­si­ble.

“Peo­ple were very pleased with the venue last year, the pack­age was good for us.”

Roach ex­pects Mag­dale­na to dou­ble their ac­com­mo­da­tion guest list from what it achieved through the 2025 event.

He said oth­er ho­tels and guest­hous­es are ex­pect­ed to see a bump in book­ings for the week­end.

Lo­cal artistes and ser­vice providers, he said, al­so gain con­sid­er­able ex­po­sure through the week­end.

“For all of our events, we look at what our crowd would like. For To­ba­go Jazz, you have to im­merse your­self in the cul­ture. To­ba­go is known for its food, its cul­ture, the vibe.”

Roach said Amer­i­can jazz pi­anist Bob Bald­win fell in love with the is­land af­ter com­ing to per­form in 2025.

Roach said pa­trons can be as­sured of high-qual­i­ty jazz per­form­ers such as Amer­i­can sax­o­phon­ist Jazmin Ghent, Trinida­di­an bassist Ron Reid, Trinida­di­an gui­tarist Theron Shaw and To­bag­on­ian vi­o­lin play­er Car­ryl Warn­er.

He added, “We will al­ways use, as far as pos­si­ble, a lo­cal band to back up the artistes. We try­ing to bring a lit­tle taste of the cul­tures of both T&T, with the fo­cus on To­ba­go.”

Oth­er per­form­ers in­clude Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ner Ter­ri Lyons.