Music fans will have heard of the New Orleans or the Montreal Jazz festivals - annual music celebrations that bring together musicians and fans from across the world for days of live entertainment. Well now, Belize has its own jazz festival and while in its first year, it might not rival those long established events, the one night event has a powerhouse line-up of Belizean and Belizean-American musicians and entertainers. The event will feature everything from ballroom dancing to drama to jazz and many other musical stylings. We caught up with organizer Lord Rhaburn as well as some of the performers today as they ate at Dit's Restaurant this afternoon.
Lord Rhaburn, Jazz Festival Organizer
"This is the first Belize Jazz Festival. It consists of some of the best musicians from the USA and the best ones that live here. This Jazz Festival is not only about jazz, they will also be playing different type of music."
Ronnie Clark, Performer
"I was looking forward to this for a while because I think we need to introduce this music to the people here. It's a very sophisticated type of music. You could just sit back and figure out what the guys are doing, improvising on the spot, so it feels great to do this and I hope that this will be a start and something we can do annually.
I'll come out and I'll play some songs that people are familiar with. I'll play some tunes they've probably never heard before and do some improvisation at my best that I could do and hopefully it comes off well and the people like it."
Janet Dyre, Performer
"In Belize we kind of grow up singing and doing all kinds of music and I am an artist that very much promotes that. I just finished recording an album with Junie Crawford and I brought some of it. I know it's a jazz show and I have a lot of original stuff."
Norman Ysaguirre, Performer
"Expect a hell of a show because we came from America there and we don't fool around. You'll hear a lot of improvising and I'll be playing tunes from my CD plus we'll do quite a bit of jazz."
Sean Moody, Perfumer
"We'll try to do some contemporary and some smooth jazz if possible because we just trying to break it in slowly for Belizeans because a lot of people are not really on the heavy jazz. So we going to take it slowly and just move on. We might put in a couple of nice ones so you can check it out and I hope everybody shows up because its going to be a nice show."
Lord Rhaburn,
"All I ask is that the Belizean public supports this thing. It's a Belizean thing and we will appreciate the turnout because the guys took time out from their work to come down to Belize to do this thing. So we have to start somewhere so this is the first one. If they come to the Bliss, they will be a part of history."
The show takes place tomorrow night at the Bliss Center. Tickets are still on sale.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
