Have you been to the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival 2018?
As a professional saxophone player and big fan of Jazz music, I was waiting the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival 2018 called DR Jazz Festival, to be honest, since the 2017's occasion...
You can find many Jazz Festival across our Dominican Caribbean island, but the most important in days of performing, numbers of artists, different towns and places, quality of musicians, is the DR Jazz Festival.
This unmissable music event stopped its tour by Punta Cana first and then Santo Domingo, Santiago, Puerto Plata, Sosua, Cabarete, where you could appreciate artists as Edmar Castañeda, Pavel Nuñez, Xiomara Fortuna, Sissy Castriobani,Tutti Druyan featuring Edmar Colón,Grupo Bonyé, Luciana Souza, Berklee Global Jazz Institute, Omara Portuondo, El Prodigo & Sandy Gabriel...
This year, I had the chance to participate at the one in Punta Cana as spectator during the musical show at "Los Establos", Cap Cana and as performer at the jam session in the "Marina", Cap Cana...
DR Jazz Festival at Los Establos, Cap Cana
I'm pretty sure that the first souvenir of the 22th edition of the DR Jazz Festival in Punta Cana by anyone in the audience would be ... THE RAIN!!!
In Caribbean, it usually rains just a few minutes but this night was "all night long" ,as Lionel says...
That being said, it didn't avoid the smooth running of the festival.
Following the line-up, the Berklee Global Jazz Institute & Marc Pignataro (teacher and renowned saxophonist) opened the DR Jazz Festival 2018 with some composition of the students.
Then we had the privilege to listen "Terri Lyne Carrington" performing a tribute to Geri Allen.
We could find in this jazz quintet at the trumpet Ingrid Jensen, at the bass Kenny Davis, at the piano Ian Fink, the DJ Val Jeanty and at the drums, the great Terri Lyne.
And the last band on stage was "El Prodigio" with the special guest Sandy Gabriel. They warmed up the audience with their Dominican Jazz-Merengue that made the rain forget. People started to dance and asked the group many "encore" at the end of the appearance.
It definitely reigned a amazing mood at the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival 2018!
We could believe this was it, but the tradition of this festival is the open jam where everyone is invited to share with those artists...
That's why as professional saxophone player in Punta Cana, I could met and exchange with those talented musicians. Below I posted an extract of this Jam Session. For those who never heard about this kind of meeting, that means we don't know each others, we never played together, we just improvise on a famous standard or freely trying to communicate musically and harmoniously.
At every different song, musicians of the group can change and refund a new band. We find it essentially in Jazz culture.
Happy listening!
DR Jazz Festival Jam Session at Cap Cana
Those 3 videos below come from an other Jam Session during the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival 2018 at Cap Cana.
It happens the day before so it was the first meeting between us: the musicians of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute & Marc Pignataro, Sandy Gabriel, others Dominican Jazzman and me (Pascal AUBRION). The first song is the great standard "Softly, as in a morning sunrise", then "Blue Bossa" and the last one "Chan Chan".
Thanks to the organisation of the DR Jazz Festival to permit to live this Jazz Culture in Dominican Republic and specially in Punta Cana. It was a real pleasure for me (and my wife..) to come and participate at this great music event!
We are already waiting the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival 2019...
By the way and by this way, I'm offering my application to any planners of Jazz events, festivals, cocktails, receptions, etc... to have the opportunity to share my passion.