After 29 years, the Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival is claiming success in bringing renewed awareness to the live music scene. Event producer Dr Myrna Hague Bradshaw noted that despite difficulties, motivation remains as high when her husband Sonny Bradshaw conceptualised the show.

“The major hurdle is always money. So when you don’t have much you have to be very creative with your planning and think outside the box. We know what we’re doing and what it is that we want to accomplish but it is always a little harder if you don’t have that money up front. We get through every year and that’s the important thing… not to quit but to keep going and find innovative ways and make the things happen,” she said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“The original motivation was to create a space for live music to exist in the face of all the other popular music that was coming on stream 29 years ago, that was crushing the space for live music,” Hague Bradshaw added. “We felt that this kind of event, even if it’s only done once a year, would create a space for the musicians who play instruments and singers who sing to have a space to play, and experience what it means to be a live music —playing musician and singer. It has worked because people look forward to it because they don’t have anywhere else to play, and that is what keeps me going.”

For Hague Bradshaw, proof the festival has met its mandate can be seen in the growth of live music, something her husband, who died in 2009, wanted to achieve.

“Have you not noticed how many live music events are around town this year? Live music has come alive again. This year also, so many live music events and spaces opening up and it is because young people are discovering that live music is not really ‘old people’ music… it’s just live. So, this means that we are winning. We’re not going to take over from dancehall, but it means that we are levelling the playing field just a little bit,” she noted.

The 2019 Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, which began last Sunday at FDR Resort in Runaway Bay, St Ann continues this week with a series of events across the Corporate Area. Action moved to Mico University College yesterday with a jazz workshop and seminar conducted by musician Grubb Cooper. Among its features is a youth panel discussion. Next stop was Terra Nova Hotel for a jam session, starting at 6:30 pm.

Tomorrow, it will be Jazz Summer School at Alpha Boys’ School where Marjorie Whylie and Hague Bradshaw will be presenters. The jam session tomorrow will be held at The Wine Shop.

“On Sunday we are at Hope Gardens, the usual closing day from 1:00 to 6:00 pm. We have a full set of performers including the Jamaica Big Band. we have an all-female drum choir and we also have a young man, Randy Corinthian, who is coming in from Florida. He plays the saxophone and is going to be our overseas interest for Sunday. Fab 5 is also going to make their presence felt. Fab 5 and I have been working together for the last two years or so on my Simply Myrna show, so they are coming on the closing day of jazz this year,” Hague Bradshaw revealed.