The island’s oldest and only indigenous commercial bank is again leading the way in providing an integrated platform for Saint Lucian youth interested in Jazz & Arts.
Last year, 1st National Bank (Saint Lucia) Ltd. was the original Title Sponsor for the Saint Lucia Junior Jazz and Arts Festival, launched at Serenity Park in Sans Soucis, Castries during the 2023 Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival.
At the inaugural event, the bank pledged to continue providing support and this year’s second event was held at the same venue, but over two days – and with more-than twice as many young performers. On Thursday and Friday this week (May 9 and 10).
This year’ event was largely supported, providing more opportunities for the young singers and players of instruments to ply their trade publicly at home – and globally.
The national Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival is over three-decades-old and has survived others held in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states that were discontinues for mainly cost and rates-of-return considerations.
Successive governments have invested in its longevity, as it transitioned from a mainly-Jazz festival featuring top performers from New Orleans to the global jazz billboards, the highlight of that era being its association with the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network in the USA.
Under the tutelage of its then Vice President for Events Production and Digital Marketing Paxton Baker, BET created a ‘BET on Jazz’ label that annually produced the best performers for its global TV audiences, which were also available on Cassette, CD and DVD.
The BET engagement was one of the best periods of international exposure for Saint Lucia Jazz, highlighting mainly internationally-established jazz performers who graced the local stage annually.
BET, established in 1980 by popular African-American investor Robert Johnson, had special relationships with Saint Lucia, with Soufriere-born Cybelle Brown being appointed in 2015 as Vice President for Sales and Marketing for BET Events Productions and BET Digital Networks.
BET events, under Cybelle’s management, major Caribbean and international jazz festivals, included: Bermuda Music Festival, India Jazz & Heritage Tour, St. Lucia Jazz Festival, Cayman Islands Jazz Festival, Turks and Caicos Music and Poetry Festival and Anguilla Tranquillity Festival.
Cybelle also managed all the sales and marketing operations of BET events, while BET Jazz and BET Gospel partnered with major US cable operators to promote and launch BET’s Digital Networks, maintaining the profitability of these networks by achieving aggressive annual advertising revenue.
BET Jazz, Paxton Baker and Cybelle Brown together invested greatly in creating permanent exposure of Saint Lucia Jazz to the world, which popularity has been sustained in the past decade – enough to place Saint Lucia Jazz at the very top of a recent list of international jazz festivals.
The publication ‘Wanderlust’ published a recent report saying the following about the Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival:
‘On 30 April every year, the musical genre of jazz is celebrated with its own special day. UNESCO proclaimed World Jazz Day as a way to ‘promote dialogue among cultures, freedom of expression, and mutual understanding’. The genre was born in New Orleans, Louisiana by African-American communities, who were experimenting with different forms of blues and ragtime. Now, jazz is celebrated across the world, with dedicated festivals taking place year-round and its popularity growing.’
The publication placed Saint Lucia at the Number One position in the Top 10 Jazz festivals worldwide.
Remaining in the black in the profit-and-loss column after jazz festivals is a rarity, except in cases where monies spent are seen and treated as investments — as with Saint Lucia’s continuous investment in development and promotion of the three-decades-old national Jazz and Arts Festival and 1st National Bank’s title-sponsorship of the Saint Lucia Junior Jazz and Arts Festival for another year.
The inaugural Saint Lucia Junior Jazz and Arts Festival last year provided a platform for youth and musical students ready and willing to show and stage their hidden or unknown talents at Serenity Park and the effect resulted in a greater level of interest and participation this year.
Local artistes have been relishing the opportunities this year to perform alongside international artistes from near and far and the Serenity Park event, also broadcast live to the world, also offered a global platform for tomorrow’s young up-and-coming local jazz stars.
Some Saint Lucians – like everywhere else – complain about ‘Jazz Festivals’ being wrongly-named, but 1st National Bank and the several other local sponsors that have invested in Year 2 of the Saint Lucia Junior Jazz and Arts Festival have confirmed, from what they saw and heard in the first two years, that such an investment will continue to pay first-class national dividends for young local musicians with eyes beyond near horizons.
Jazz was also back on Derek Walcott Square and the arts component also spread widely this year, as organizers did more to blend art and music though jazz.
The private sector is getting wiser to the healthy rates-of-return from investment in youth, music and culture – as a result of which, this year, there was more sponsorship for the Junior Jazz Festival – something 1st National shareholder and national musician Ronald ‘Boo’ Hinkson has always called for…
Meanwhile Sandals Resorts International (SRI) and C-Tune were 2024 Silver Sponsors, LUCELEC and Massy were Bronze Sponsors, with FLOW, WAVE, Blue Waters and Subway as Supporting Sponsors, while DOVE Productions and local media entities provided valuable additional support.
The line-up on Thursday and yesterday included 10 performing artistes, two youth bands and four steel bands – plus eight school bands from Anse La Raye, Castries, Vieux Fort, Micoud, Corinth and Soufriere, with representations too from St. Mary’s College, St. Joseph’s Convent, Leon Hess Secondary, Pantime, Stanley Jon Odlum Memorial Secondary School Band and the Boys Training Center.
Support was also provided by the Ministry of Youth Development & Sports, Department of Housing and Local Government, Cultural Development Foundation (CDF) and the Castries Constituencies Council (CCC).