Jazz and Blues celebrates 'The Art of Music'

After some time is spent doing something, there comes a point where the person doing it is either near perfect or totally hopeless.

It would seem that the Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival falls in the former category, as for its 2007 staging it will be celebrating 'The Art of Music', with the art being not only in the rhythms and melodies but also in the production of the festival.

Photo by Claudine Housen/Staff Photographer - Patrons chant, sing and clap to Austrian duo Air Supply during night two of the ninth annual Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, at Cinnamon Hill, in Montego Bay. The more than 12,000 strong crowd sang along to songs such as 'Making Love Out of Nothing At All', 'Just When I Thought I Was Over You' and 'All Out Love'.

That production comes with expansion, not only in the new venue at the Aqueduct at Rose Hall, Montego Bay, as the festival has outgrown its previous Cinnamon Hill location, but also the days and reach of the mega event.

a debut in the capital

The 2007 Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival runs from Sunday, January 21, to Saturday, January, January 27, playing at all of three major venues in the process, as well as making a debut in the capital.

That debut took place in the Gardens of the Jamaica Pegasus, New Kingston, on Sunday, where Yuerba Buena, Maurice Gordon, Whylie Wrhythm and Acantha dabbed the Art of Music on the ears of the listeners.

The second venue was the Half Moon Conference in Montego Bay, where first Chuck Mangione on Tuesday and then, Roy Ayers and Robin Banks on Wednesday will take the festival into the Bay. And from Thursday to Saturday, the big guns weigh in at the Aqueduct at Rose Hall for the climactic final three days.

And then when it is all over, the memories will linger much like good art, to be appreciated for a long, long time.