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HARBOURTOWN BONAIRE JAZZ FESTIVAL MAY 20 21 22 2005

A small place for great Latin and Caribbean jazz Bonaire is a small and beautiful island, well known as "divers paradise" and an excellent place for windsurfing championships and sailing regattas. But Bonaire is also a music island: a variety of folkmusic combined with reggae, salsa and tumba. Latin and Caribbean jazz can be found on a number of places as well. The Harbourtown Bonaire Jazz Festival 2005 is organized for all lovers and practitioners of that type of music. The island will host them in 2005 and years thereafter. The dates of the festival: May 20, 21 and 22 ; these days coincide with the last days of a major sport event on Bonaire: The King of the Caribbean, World Championship for Freestyle windsurfing. You can enjoy windsurfing in the day time and music at night.

Jazz all over the place

The festival is organized by the Bonaire Jazz Foundation in close cooperation with four main locations: Plaza Resort Bonaire, City Café, Bongos Beach and Kontiki Beach Apartments and of course our sponsors. The four locations can host a number of visitors ranging between 300 to 800 persons per day and are all positioned at the seaside or on the beach.
Concerts and events will be held three times a day: Sunset Jazz time, main concerts and late night jazz and jam sessions on public places and restaurants / bars.
Only for the three main concerts there is an entrance fee of 30 Antillean guilders for three concerts and all the other events are free. It is our policy to create low threshholds to generate a maximum of festivalvisitors from the island and abroad.

Caribbean and Latin Jazz is the main course Contracts have been made for the three main concerts. -Denise Jannah, a well known vocalist, performing internationally, born in Surinam and living in the Netherlands, accompanied by a trio, covering a broad repertoire of jazz standards as well as her own original compositions -The Delbert Bernabela Band from Aruba, a six man band with Kryoio Jazz -X-Hale, a group of musicians from the Netherlands -Cuban Express, a groovy latin jazz group from Curacao -Ced Ride, a vocalist with Latin jazz and Antillean, jazzy music from Curacao Freewinds Band featuring Stacey Francis and Cedric Dandaré, famous antillean guitar player and first composer of an antillean jazz repertoire All above mentioned groups and persons had a wide exposure on jazzfestivals and are excellent in their genres. The other events and concerts will be covered by three local Bonarian groups and several musicians from Curacao, Aruba, the Netherlands and the U.S.A and of course visiting jazz lovers with an interest to play, to jam or to hang around on this lovely, unspoiled island .

The Bonaire Jazz Foundation: linking musicians and listeners

The Foundation is an initiative of musicians and jazz lovers .Th e board consists of residents of the island and is independent and registered as a foundation on Bonaire (S 318 )
The Festival of 2005 is organized by the foundation in cooperation with locations and sponsors; furthermore the foundation exploits a website with all information about jazz : where to go for listening , where to go for playing or to meet other musicians.

The First Bonaire Jazzfestival is supported on the island

A group of businesspeople, private persons, musicians and organizations is supporting the Bonaire Jazz Festival:

Tickets for sale at Plaza Resort, Kontiki, City Café, Bongos Beach, TCB , Bonaire Boekhandel and at the gates of the main concer.

Background of The Harbourtown Bonaire Jazz Festival - 2005

Bonaire is a small island with a strong cultural identity. It is evident from what also can be seen by the great number of local musicians and musical groups on the island. Here, you can listen to all kinds of music; tumba, reggae, salsa, meringues and all those sounds which have a lot in common with jazz: syncopes, swinging rhythms and improvisation.
From that perspective it was not surprising that Bonaire had a blossoming jazz club for many years and a great number of good jazz musicians playing Latin and Caribbean jazz mixed with the musical spice of the island itself.
Guus Gerritsen: "The idea for a jazz festival on Bonaire developed into reality after our visit to the Surinam Jazz Festival in October 2004. We were invited to play along with local groups in pubs and bars off the side the festival stages. The city of Paramaribo was a swinging place!
We met Denise Jannah, our featured star in this first Harbourtown Bonaire Jazz Festival, and performed a wonderful "Summertime" together, never to be forgotten.
On our way home we made up our minds: let's do this also in Bonaire, we have the opportunities, the places and the island would welcome a new yearly event.
We founded the Bonaire Jazz Foundation and with Plaza Resort Bonaire, City Café, Kontiki Beach Resort and Bongos Beach we developed our festival: broad, with a low threshold by keeping entrance fees low, a variety of international and local artists and Latin and Caribbean jazz where the people of the island will feel comfortable."
Thanks to all our sponsors we will have a wonderful event to come!

Bonaire Jazz Foundation

Ben Oleana
Mirjam Geerlings
Lando Tjin Asjoe
Guus Gerritsen

More information

If you need more information call us or send an email to info@bonairejazz.com
BONAIRE JAZZ FESTIVAL
tel / fax 00 599 717 4496
www.bonairejazz.com

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