Each
year since 2007, the capital city of Port-au-Prince hosts the International
Jazz Festival to a growing and diverse public. Located in the Greater Antilles,
Haiti benefits from a mild January Caribbean climate during this one-week
spectacular event.
The
Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival offers an unprecedented cultural
assembly in Haiti each year to a local and international audience as a
non-profit event in partnership with the Ministry of Culture &
Communication, the Ministry of Tourism, ten embassies, and major private and
public institutions throughout the country.
Musicians
from around the world participate in this common celebration of jazz in
Port-au-Prince. These musicians come from the United States, France, Brazil,
Mexico, Chili, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and
of course, from Haiti and its Diaspora.
Past
editions of the Festival have feature Henri Texier and Mino Cinelu from France,
Annie Poulin and Brandy Disterheft of Canada, Nono Garcia of Spain, the Sacbe
Group of Mexico, and Aaron Goldberg from the US. Despite some challenges the
tourism industry faces in Haiti, the Festival's organizers host their musical
guests in conditions comparable to many other international jazz festivals.
Every
country brings its own touch, flavor, and identity to the Port-au-Prince
International Jazz Festival, giving the event a universal dimension that only
jazz can offer its fans. Haiti also brings its own color: kreyòl jazz, a rising
movement in the international jazz scene. Pauline Jean, Beethova Obas, Meddy
Gerveille de la Réunion, Reginald Policard, Turgot Theodat, Buyu Ambroise and
Mushy Widmaier have been the ambassadors of kreyòl jazz during past editions.
For
eight days, Port-au-Prince swings with jazz rhythms. The Festival participants
pour into historic public spaces of the capital, such as the historic Sugar
Cane Park with its gardens and vestiges from the colonial era, the gardens of
the prestigious Karibe Hotel, and the FOKAL Cultural Center located in the
heart of Port-au-Prince. For the after hours jam sessions, festival-goers fill
the most attractive restaurants of Pétion-Ville, the nightlife neighborhood of
the capital.
To
achieve its mission to promote music and especially jazz around the country, the
Fondation Haiti Jazz - the Festival's primary organizers - offers free music
training workshops to young, local musicians in collaboration with the
participating international music professionals.
Haiti is
open for business and ready to receive jazz fans from around the world under
the tropical sun.
 |
| Claude Carre |
Claude
Carré was born in Port-au-Prince. Being a traditional jazz guitarist, a
researcher and a music teacher, Professor Carré is a passionate advocate of
Jazz in Haiti. A few years ago, he created the "Haiti Jazz Club"
where he inducts and teaches young musicians to jazz techniques. Co-founder of
the Natif Jazz Trio in 1998, he's also written "Les Musiques
d'Haïti", an essay on music. Finally, Claude Carré regularly lends his
talent to foreign musicians invited to Haiti.
 |
| James Germain |
During
years, James German offered ¬a universe in the confluence of his afro-Caribbean
roots. Born in Port-au-Prince, he grew on the hill of Saint-Antoine, a
working-class district of the capital. James sings with a melancholic voice,
airs of traditional voodoo songs blended with touches of opera or even gospel,
by reinventing codes. Haiti, its songs and voodoo, are at the center of its
work... His inspiration takes from classical to afro music, thus a unique world
at the crossroad of several worlds. After a third album " Kréol Mandingue
", produced in Mali, James prepares a new album which shows its deep roots
of Haitian culture and its force always renewed to impose its voice in the
world.
 |
| Luck Mervil |
In
Quebec, the Caribbean, Europe; on stage, in song, on the big screen...writer,
composer, actor and host Luck Mervil is undeniably one of the French-speaking
world's most recognizable artists.Born in
Haiti, Mervil started singing at the age of four. He grew up in New York and in
Quebec, where he founded RudeLuck, a rap-reggae fusion group that earned many
nominations, awards, radio hits, successful tours, and invitations to
Francophone festivals in Canada and Europe. The album Pour le meilleur et pour
le pire has sold more than 250,000 copies. Mervil
recently launched TI PEYI A, a strikingly authentic and disturbingly sensitive
new album blending various Creole styles in order to portray life, love and
daily struggles in his birthplace.
 |
| Reginald Policard |
Réginald
Policard is a Haitian pianist who started playing when he was 12. His
experience includes various styles such as Kompa, Jazz, Latin Jazz, Fusion,
etc... He is a founding member and director of the famous band Caribbean Sextet
with which he took part to the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Réginald Policard has
also recorded fourteen solo albums. On August the 15th 2013, Boarding Pass,
taken from his album Detour was among the Top 10 of Spotlight on Jazz.
 |
| Willerm Delisfort |
"When
words are not enough ... it is his music that speaks. "The pianist and
composer Willerm Delisfort is a messenger of life, using music as a tool. His
style extends from Jazz to Gospel or R & B. His versatility has allowed him
to become a musician very in demand by Jazz, Rap, Soul or Fusion artists, among
which Fareed Haque, Calvin Newborne, Corey Wilkes, Ernest Dawkins, T-Pain and
many others.
 |
| X-Key |
This
group from Cap Haitian sounds like a typical "Root & Jazz-Fusion"
band. All the emotion of Haitian Folk Rhythms is brought to life thanks to the
combination of Haitian traditional drums and rhythms with a touch of Jazz, Funk
and Rock. In 2012, X-Key took part in the 6th edition of the Port-au-Prince
International Jazz Festival. Their much awaited first album is programmed to be
released in 2014.
| Mushy Widmaier |
Mushy
Widmaier is a "modern jazz" piano player, but one with a certain
undertone of both Haitian folklore and European art music - but all of it as
ingredients of a digested and unified whole sounding unmistakably as Him. Mushy
is capable of fitting in with groups of almost any stylistic observance, and
takes a most active and creative part in the proceedings. He seems to master a
vast repertory, whether jazz standards, Haitian folk songs, popular dance music
or originals.
 |
| Josue Alexis |
Josué
Alexis is a young pianist, born in Port-au-Prince. He begins practicing the
piano at a very young age, exploring the classic repertoire under the
supervision of teachers such as Joseph Pierre, Loubert V. Leopold and Serge
Villedrouin. In 2003, he obtains a distinction prize in the national competition
of piano and music theory. Self-taught in jazz music, he followed with interest
the workshops of the previous editions of the Festival International de Jazz de
Port-au-Prince. Currently he collaborates actively with singer and guitarist
Hans Peters, and drummer John Bern Thomas. He will perform accompanied by
Hermand Duverne (bass), Gessoit Pierre-Louis (Saxophone) and John Bern Thomas.
Alexis is one of the great hopes of the new generation of Haitians jazz
pianists.
 |
| Nadege Bellande |
Born in
California, Nadège Bellande Robertson began playing the piano and violin as a
child, but found her true talent as a vocalist. In 1994, she moved to Haiti,
and established herself quickly. In 2002, she created the band N'Didgenous with
Gregory Vorbe. Nadège has also collaborated with Jean Pierre Grasset, Joel and
Mushy Widmaier, Strings, and performed with Boukman Eksperyans, RAM, Belo,
Fabrice Rouzier, The Fugees, The Marleys, and the Lynn University Philharmonic
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