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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. 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 Naf. 45,- (US$ 25.-) 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 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 artists We did contract already a number of top musicians to the Festival   The Cubop City Big Band, a group of 20 international musicians from Holland, Surinam, USA and Venezuela. The Band is making a Caribbean tour and will visit Bonaire with Latin and Salsa Jazz of top quality   Anastacia Larmonie from St Maarten and her band with special guest Delbert Bernabela(saxes and flute) from Aruba. Anastacia is a top pianist and an international well known ladysinger   Merietza Haakmat, vocals and Hershell Rosario,guitar both from Curacao will present their interpretation of old Antillean songs and poems with jazzy music as background .   Konkie Halmeyer from Curacao and his band. Konkie is one of the best steelpan players you can find in the world of jazz. He will play Caribbean and Latin Jazz pieces.   Question Mark, a band from Surinam with leader and sax player Bud Gaddum.This band is a specialty in the "SuriJazz" , a typical mixture of Surinam rhytmes and Western jazz called Kasake jazz   Curacao Papiamentu Swing Trio olv Ced Ride from Curacao with two sidemen., Stanley Betrian and Pierre Dunker. Ced Ride will do a concert with old poems and songs in Papiamentu with jazzy backgrounds.   Ced Ride & Band Swing, standards and songs wich 6 sideman from Curacao   Zumtam-Quartet, keyboard and composer Ronchi Matthews from Curacao. Ronchi Matthews is already many years one of the best keyboard players in the Caribbean and will hold a special program inspired by his new Cd , to be released this year.   Moogie and Friends from Bonaire. Moogie is a long time resident of Bonaire and many visitors and people of the island know him as a passionate singer and percussionist. This time he will create a special performance in jazz with fellow musicians from the island   Local bands , Stingray, Latin Quartet and the Bonaire Jazz Group   Randal Corsen quartet:Randal Corsen pianist with Eric Calmes bas, meet two percussionists of the Cubop City Big Band: Lucas van Merwijk drums and Gerardo Rosales percussie.

The Bonaire Jazz Foundation: linking musicians and listeners

The Foundation is an initiative of musicians and jazz lovers. The board consists of residents of the island and is independent and registered as a foundation on Bonaire (S 318 )
The Festival of 2005 was 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 Bonaire Jazz Festival - 2006

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 2005. 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 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!

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.org
www.bonairejazz.com

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