Written by James Henderson, Daily Mail
15:11 January 30, 2024, Updated 15:11 January 30, 2024
We all know that music is an integral part of Caribbean life. And two rhythms dominate. There’s reggae from Jamaica in the west and calypso from Trinidad in the southeast. But jazz?
Well, the St. Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival is about to turn 30, and if it’s anything like last year, I’ll do whatever it takes to be a part of it.
We unashamedly embrace broad reach in order to attract the widest possible range of visitors. Previous lineups included Santana, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, and Rihanna.
The festival runs from April 30th to May 12th, just before the winter season ends and the Caribbean gets stiflingly hot. As a result, the island is filled with music, fashion, art, and sunshine.
This year, there will be an additional night of gospel singing and two nights of pure jazz (steel band jazz, including American bassist John Patitucci and two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist Samara Joy). becomes.
The event culminates over three nights at the main venue at Pigeon Point in the far north. The first was Caribbean fusion, featuring bands and rhythms from the region. World Beats then invites artists from elsewhere (this year, the popular Afrobeats lineup includes Latin singer Jon Secada).
Finally, to the headline acts of 2023, Sting and Shaggy renew their 2018 collaboration. This year, love rock duo Air Supply will be performing in full.
A great place to stay was Windjammer Landing, from where we took the ferry to Pigeon Point, a 10 minute boat ride. If this historic site, connected to the mainland via a man-made causeway, was once a fortress, it now has a distinctly non-combatant feel. Saint Lucians and tourists of all ages flock here. And be unashamedly vibrant.
Of course, there are other reasons to visit Lucia. For example, in the capital Castries, where the chocolate-making industry is booming, we enjoyed a ‘bean-to-bar’ chocolate experience on the verandah of Victorian Howellton House, set in the heart of eight acres of leafy grounds. was guided. . Grind the cocoa beans in a heated mortar, stir in the sugar and cocoa butter, and pour the fragrant mixture into molds. While chilling, we drank fresh soursop juice and enjoyed great views of the charming town.
At just 24 miles in diameter, it’s hard to imagine a slow-flowing river in the highly mountainous St. Lucia, but we rode a bamboo raft for two miles between the forested banks of the winding Roseau River. I moved about.
On the coast, the raised sand of Roseau Beach diverts the river into a mangrove forest. We entered a cave of trees that had the feel of a green cathedral. Lunch was served on the beach under the shade between swims in the sparkling sea.
St. Lucia’s topography makes driving from one end of the island to the other a time-consuming and arduous task. So the best way to visit its iconic twin peaks, the Pitons to the south, is by boat, which takes a full day. We joined KnottyGirl Speed Boat Tours, which stopped along the way.
At Anse Chastanet we went diving to snorkel around the coral reef. And I found myself swimming among thousands of fish an inch long, shimmering around me like smoke. As I moved, they took off in disarray and quickly lined up at the school.
Around the headland, the Piton Mountains rose from the coast like giant incisors. These are some of the most impressive tourist attractions in the Caribbean and are best seen from the sea. Once upon a time, they were the walls of a volcano. Today, the underworld, which was almost dormant, is now bubbling up as sulfur springs.
We bathed in gray volcanic mud (apparently good for the skin), then rinsed off and cooled off at Traille Falls, a 60-foot-tall ice bucket challenge.
There’s a lot of talk about how AI can create music, especially jazz. But as we left the island with the gravel-voiced sounds of Shaggy’s Sting’s Roxanne and Boombastic ringing in our ears, we decided we were safe…at least for a while.