Pure Jazz defines the Festival as a Caribbean space

On May 11, the St Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival continued it themed nights with the aptly titled Pure Jazz featuring Uruguayan pianist Gustavo Casenave and St Lucian saxophonist and Caribbean jazz icon Luther François. Held at the 400-seat Ramp at Rodney Bay, a purpose built fabric building that facilitates jazz in an intimate space by the sea, this show showcased virtuosity and Caribbean excellence.

Pure jazz, as its name suggests, veers towards the layman's understanding of what is jazz. Not the freedom associated with improvisation, but dissonance and dexterity that suggest risk, skill and practice, and music that can not be danced to. That was clearly identified with Casenave’s performance. Classically trained, as most musicians of worth are, he balanced studied technique with a keen sense of improvisation and abandon. Fleet fingered flights of fancy that hint at a melody, became the platform for a masterclass of piano playing that bridges classical and bebop. His take on the Broadway classic turned jazz standard All the Things You Are had patrons shouting bravo and saying this level of playing was a rarity here.

His trio, piano, double bass and modified drum – an Argentinian folkloric drum replaced one of the tom toms – filled the space with music that enthralled the packed venue. Odd time signatures defined his music. Latin music and the blues worked to make this an interesting performance for a keen audience in search of the real thing. The bassist, Argentinean Pedro Giraudo plucked, bowed and made his instrument sing, drawl, squeak and bounce around, dynamically driving the rhythm and making a space for modified moods, while drummer fellow Argentinean Franco Pinna had conversations with piano and juxtaposed tempo with a deep well of Latin American rhytmic genre identifiers.

With minimal conversation or banter, the music was front and centre. And the audience took it all in. Stolid silence up front showed that jazz was accepted despite the reality of other genres dominating the festival. This was a more than a concert but a statement. The composition of the audience and their temperament contrasted drastically with the night before. Appreciative applause, sometimes misplaced, peppered when he animatedly hammered and even caressed the keys of the baby grand to dramatically solo.

Six of nine songs were self compositions showing a range of influences. Sweat moistened his jacket as the warm space heated up with fiery cadenzas. This was a return of sorts for Caseneve as he told the audience that 27 years ago he honeymooned on the island, and now he will play with the Icon, Luther François. A deserved standing ovation capped his performance.

Up next was Francois himself, and the build up was a kind of tense fascination. An orchestra takes the stage. A full orchestra. Strings, horns, woodwinds, percussion, steelpan. One considers chauvinistically, “This is how an icon presents his music in his homeland.” Luther's saxes, a baritone and a tenor sit centre stage awaiting his entrance. There was much anticipation. The MC tells us that, “the band is the personification of a Caribbean thought. It represents the thought the much music has Caribbean roots.” This is a multi-national multi-cultural group from around the Caribbean and the world: Israel, Venezuela, French Antilles, Antigua, St Lucia, the Royal Barbados Police horns. His West Indies Jazz Band from the early 1990s was a beginning. This is an evolution. The Caribbean orchestra made up of the world playing his music, was an idea that is a done thing in a developed world.

The orchestra begins sans Francois with some discordant notes, but the ideas posited by Francois of what is possible in Caribbean jazz floated to the top. The big band worked well as the night moved on, however. An older Francois comes on stage to ovation to discuss his project in the making. “It's a painful experience playing my music,” he says. The orchestra that night was the star with the man himself taking a back seat. His song Bebop has the melancholy moodiness evoked by a Duke Ellington big band lament a la Mood Indigo, or even some noir film music. The strings and horns are defining this bebop mood, with the Caribbean rhythm bringing this jazz back to the region.

Latin is a percussive piece of dissonance that contemplates big ideas. Chaos blurs into calypso with horns playing modes unheard in Caribbean music. It's a big idea. This audience responds. Portrait of a People was the last composition of the West Indies Jazz Band, unreleased, and was performed here in full. Castilian rhythms. Reggae and ska too. Odd time signatures are a theme tonight. The brassiness of a film soundtrack orchestra is replicated with a Caribbean accent. Francois did not do many solos but when he did, his power was not muted and the jazz ideas flowed easily. This was a jazz symphony. Francois’s compositions worked effectively to bridge an international sound with a Caribbean soul.

For a second night, Caribbean elan, power and soul dominated. "We need to know the music of the Caribbean. There was a deep element of jazz within the folk tradition of music from this region,” Francois told the audience. His tribute to late singer Eugene Mona from Martinique featuring voice and strings are among the plans for recording from the man, dubbed Icon. Legend. Genius. This music needs to be heard! Deserved standing ovations capped the night of high standards.

The throng of visitors have not arrived yet, as of Thursday, for the festival, so those first two nights represented an opportunity to define a Caribbean presence. If this was a deliberate idea of St Lucia Tourism Authority, the custodians of the Festival, to promote the idea of the Caribbean over the international superstars in the jazz space, it worked well, way beyond any unintended consequence. Caribbean Fusion night featuring Buju and Bunji is next on the St Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival 2023.