The Goa Jazz Academy (GJA) celebrated the International Jazz Day with some high quality jazz performances on April 29 and 30.
British jazz vocalist Amber Kuti Smith lit up the evening of April 29th on the lawns of the Goa Jazz academy in Guirim village in North Goa. She was accompanied by Max O’Hara on piano, Karan Khosla on guitar, Darin De Gama on bass and Siddharth Rajmohan on drums.
Amber, who belted out some exciting, Neo-soul and rhythm and blues music had the enthusiastic audience on their feet. Earlier the same evening, the ‘Students’ Collective’ from the Goa jazz academy also gave everyone a glimpse of their immense talent.
The evening of 30th April at the Kala Academy in Panaji, saw the teenager driven “Sunshine Orchestra”, the brass band from the Chennai based AR Rahman Foundation regale audiences with some classical jazz which included popular jazz tunes like, ‘Caravan’, ‘Birdland’ and ‘Skylark’.
The evening came to a close with some very high quality jazz music, as Dutch saxophonist Ben Van Den Dungen and his quartet comprising Miguel Rodrigues ( piano), Steve Zwanink ( contra bass) and Mitchel Damen ( drums) introduced the audiences to the magic of jazz legend, John Coltrane.
The Goa Jazz Academy’s four-day festival also saw free jazz workshops conducted by Amber Kuti Smith and Ben Van Den Dungen at the GJA campus.
