Lavish! How else jazz and blues lovers on Kauai would describe being treated to a week of this raw, independent and straight-to-the-soul all-American music? Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers closed this year’s Red Clay Jazz Festival at
Lavish! How else jazz and blues lovers on Kauai would describe being treated to a week of this raw, independent and straight-to-the-soul all-American music?
Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers closed this year’s Red Clay Jazz Festival at Kauai Lagoons Sunday evening with a performance that will be hard to match when Kauai again becomes all that jazz and blues next summer.
“I’ve got the best band in the world,” Smith said after her show, while signing CDs of her band.
The Red Hot Skillet Lickers lift Smith’s bluesy voice to a higher level, with a natural, unprocessed sound that would stand on its own in any venue in the world, be it in the iconic Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland to the nostalgic Free Jazz Festival in Rio de Janeiro, which from 1985 to 2001 featured legends such as Miles Davis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, BB King, Al Green, James Brown, Etta James, Nina Simone, Chick Corea, Sarah Vaughan and Stanley Jordan.
The performance from Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers was nothing short of extraordinary.
The San Francisco-based musicians put on the Ritz on the 6th edition of the Red Clay Jazz Festival, with a repertoire that took the audience on an imaginary trip to obscure basement bars, lively dance halls and backyard parties around the United States.
“Let’s go to Kansas City,” she told the crowd, which included Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. and his wife, Regina Carvalho.
But Smith’s music didn’t stop in Kansas; it went to Tennessee, New Orleans and also to the heart of many who love the music of the late Patsy Cline. Smith performed at least five versions from the 30-year-old singer, who died in a plane crash in 1963.
Most in the audience chose to lounge on the grass, laying on beach towels or chairs, or sitting under a large tent. But a few uninhibited people took the grass as a dance floor and let it all out.
Smith’s show was more than an ordinary concert. It was a treat to those who may now follow her career, as she sang many songs she hasn’t released yet. She and her band’s next album, featuring Cline’s songs, should be released later this year, she said.
And to the new Lavay lovers, all three past albums from Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers can be found at www.lavaysmith.com.
Sunday’s open air concert at Kauai Lagoons also featured Kauai Pro-Am Show Band, which opened the show, and the Maui Jazz Quartet. Both bands put an impressive performance to the crowd, priming them to Smith’s show.
Prior to Sunday’s concert, the Red Clay Jazz Festival featured performances in different venues around the island, including Ron Margolis & Keoni Loa Jazz Quartet, The David Braun Group, Amit Heri Trio and Kirk Smart Quartet.
