Wes­ley Gib­bings

Put a con­duct­ing ba­ton in the hand of com­pos­er/arranger/pan­nist/mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor, Khion de Las. Have him stand in front of a band of in­spired stu­dent mu­si­cians with jazz on their minds. Then know for cer­tain that the UWI Arts Jazz En­sem­ble is in­tent on Keep­ing the Stan­dard (high).

Such was the sce­nario when the En­sem­ble in­vit­ed an au­di­ence to Lec­ture Room Three at the UWI RBL Build­ing on Sat­ur­day as part of its an­nu­al ex­hi­bi­tion of new and young mu­si­cal tal­ent. Keep­ing the Stan­dard was this year’s theme.

To be frank, a lethar­gic ver­sion of Shad­ow of Your Smile did not sig­ni­fy the kind of “bang” De Las and his charges de­liv­ered lat­er in the pro­gramme, but it pro­vid­ed the as­sem­blage of novice and ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to hint at what was to come.

John Coltrane’s Mr PC closed the pro­gramme and pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show what each play­er had in stock, but through­out the show there were glimpses of ex­cel­lence that have typ­i­fied the ex­pe­ri­ence over the years.

The John Klen­ner stan­dard, Just Friends, and Berbie Han­cock’s Can­taloupe Is­land al­so pro­vid­ed am­ple so­lo op­por­tu­ni­ties, along­side Tan­ger­ine and La­dy Bird—the lat­ter orig­i­nal­ly with the horns specif­i­cal­ly in mind.

Here, Doue Mc Nicolls’s of­fer­ings on the clar­inet were sub­lime to­geth­er with trum­peter Miguel For­rester and Jassiem Williams on the al­to sax who showed they had been on­stage be­fore. Ja­son An­drews pro­vid­ed able sup­port on the tenor sax.

Among the more ex­pe­ri­enced and ac­com­plished of the bunch was pan­nist Sule Samp­son (of Massy Trinidad All Stars fame), whose com­po­si­tion Tum­bling Down turned out to be a high­light of the evening.

A pan so­lo by the sea­soned cam­paign­er topped off that per­for­mance with able in­puts from Sian Cob­bler who was clear­ly no new­com­er to the stage, and first timer, tenor play­er Mel­lany Ram­per­sad who showed there is a lot more in her mu­si­cal ar­se­nal, es­pe­cial­ly when she in­ter­vened dur­ing Can­teloupe Is­land.

Al­so on pan were Kylelon Ed­wards on dou­ble tenor and Ka­maria Charles Richards who prov­ably knew what she was do­ing when came her turn.

Part time bassist, Ste­fano Kennedy, kept things tidy rhyth­mi­cal­ly to­geth­er with drum­mer, Mary Aguil­lar, who of­fered a brief so­lo to­wards the end for Mr PC but was a main­stay for the en­tire set list.

De Las’ lat­est com­po­si­tion, Stan­dar­d­is­ing, was mod­est­ly po­si­tioned be­tween Can­teloupe Is­land and La­dy Bird, but could have car­ried the en­tire evening. This, ar­guably, was De Las at his best.

He had ear­li­er qual­i­fied the mean­ing of “jazz” (“jazz can be found in all forms of mu­sic,” he said, to jus­ti­fy the in­clu­sion of Damien Mar­ley’s dreamy reg­gae of­fer­ing Speak Life on the pro­gramme, but Stan­dar­d­is­ing re­quired no ex­pla­na­tion.

Most like­ly com­posed on De Las’ tenor pan or the gui­tar, there was am­ple space for vi­o­lin­ists Ja­da Cae­sar and Adela Scot­land to­geth­er with a splen­did­ly arranged horn sec­tion, the pan play­ers, and Stephen John Jr on the keys.

Stan­dar­d­is­ing helped keep the stan­dard high. Bra­vo, De Las. Bra­vo, UWI Arts Jazz En­sem­ble!