Blue Beat finds the right rhythm
Published:Saturday | April 9, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU: Fitzroy 'Saxy' Minott's facial muscles twitched and his lips hugged his saxophone as he played Luther Vandross' So Amazing at Montego Bay's star-studded 'Jazz under the Stars' at Blue Beat last Sunday night.
There are few artistes capable of commanding a saxophone like Minott, and there are very few venues in the Second City that sit on the ocean, pay homage to the sky, while boasting a garden setting that says 'You have so much to choose from'.
Blue Beat's black, white and red décor was perfect, and so was Kenny G's Silhouette that Minott selected from a catalogue that had the ability to make love to the women in the audience. Instead, he made sweet music with the instrument that has become a second skin.
Two weeks of planning, with little promotion behind the event, if the promoters weren't careful, Blue Beat would have been empty, robbing those who ventured out last Sunday night of masterful performances that had Andre Dixon, general manager of Margaritaville, Montego Bay, literally jumping out of his skin with excitement.
filling the gap
"This is what this venue has been missing," he declared.
"This event will take place once per month. This time around, we are paying tribute to Gladys Knight, next time it could be Aretha Franklin," he promised.
Yes, 'Gladys Knight and her Pips' were alive and well at Blue Beat in the form of the incredibly talented cabaret giant Alicia Flemming-Shaw and her backup singers, Garth Jobson and Nerada Brissett, who delivered a scintillating revue of the American R&B singer.
But Flemming-Shaw and her crew can wait for now.
Jazz under the Stars was rich music, filling that hunger for wholesome entertainment.
Fitzroy Minott went uptempo with Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al, making way for former Chalice member Dean Stevens and bass guitarist 'Taddy P' who created a jam session with the Stylistics' God Bless You before the artiste with the power of sex appeal, Evin Lake, drove the women wild with his latest cover of Teddy Prendergrass's Come on Over To My Place.
Lake created the stage for an inferno that didn't need much fuelling, and as the woman of the evening, Alicia Flemming-Shaw immaculately adorned in white, opened her larynx with Gladys Knight's Love Overboard. The backing band, Scotch, responded with precision and the audience listened in awe.
Flemming-Shaw, now a veteran on the cabaret scene, has literally rebranded her image, chopping some unnecessary weight where possible and dressing the part beautifully.
Fitting the Gladys Knight stature, she drew for Neither One of Us, and was almost clipped by the band, which went off-key, while singing the crowd favourite Memories, but rewound to the beginning.
"A true professional," said a member of the audience. "You wouldn't even have known that the band was at fault."
With Memories, Alicia Flemming-Shaw had the venue on high alert, and by now they were all savouring the hit after hit that she pulled from Knight's impressive compilation.
With her husband Shermaine Shaw in the audience, Flemming-Shaw drew for Hero, and appointed her man the one.
The song It Takes A Fool brought Flemming-Shaw an encore at 1 a.m. The event, which was scheduled to start at 10:30 p.m., commenced about 45 minutes late, but those who turned out on Sunday night had no beef with the time.