IN the tradition of The Dragon — the legendary musician and band leader Byron Lee, who carved out a reputation for always doing things bigger and better — the Byron Lee Foundation will, on Saturday, April 30, pull together four of Jamaica’s top Bands to perform on a show billed Tribute to the Dragon.

Scheduled to take place in the Jamaica Pegasus Gardens, the tribute concert will see Fab 5, Errol Lee & the Bare Essentials, and Lloyd Parks & We the People bands, joining the rebranded Byron Lee’s Dragonaires to honour the big band legacy which Byron Lee helped forge.

As one of Lee’s daughters, Julianne Lee- Samuels explained, “we are staging an event which will see all of those bands coming together to celebrate the impact and contribution that dad has had on the live big band industry in Jamaica over the last 55 years. It promises to be a truly phenomenal event that The Dragon would find very gratifying,” she added.

Tribute to the Dragon is the first big entertainment event that the Byron Lee Foundation will be staging. However, it is the second major activity being undertaken by the foundation following on the April 8 dedication of the Sports Field at Hillel Academy to which the foundation donated seating for the bleachers.

Sheila Lee, Byron Lee’s widow and head of the foundation added that, in keeping with its mandate, the Byron Lee Foundation also intends to offer support for projects which record major milestones in the development of Jamaica’s music, which are dedicated to capturing archival information about the music and Jamaica’s culture.

The Lee family has also continued to keep The Dragon’s legacy alive since his passing on November 4, 2008, largely through the release and sale of several musical offerings through which financing will be sourced to help support the work of the foundation. The most recent was the release of Soft Lee v9 – the last in a series on which Byron Lee was working at the time of his passing. Since that time, also, the foundation released a compilation of Byron Lee & The Dragonaires’ Original Soca Hits, and has disclosed that activities are underway for the 2011 release of two additional albums, including a gospel music album on which Lee had been working, and a Christmas album, due for release in 2012.