Tony Grandberry?s set at the Festival on Friday evening lent an appropriate touch of ?retro? to an affair looking back over its ten-year existence.

Gifted with a smooth baritone, and able to move into a tenor?s range with ease ,this crooner gave us The World Is A Ghetto, the Marvin Gaye classic, What?s Going On, and the first of two versions of My Funny Valentine we were to hear during the evening.

He was backed by a group consisting of piano, bass, drums, and alto saxophone. They gave the impression of being an up-scale lounge band, very good, and a bit surprised to find them in a festival. They took their opportunity, and certainly turned out to be crowd -pleasers.

Tony dedicated One in A Million, to Premier Alex Scott and his wife, and followed with that gem Living for the Love of You.

Whoever had the idea to place a real Fender Rhodes on stage was inspired. So much of what was recorded in the 70?s and later bore this trade-mark sound.

The first two chords of the subsequent number, dedicated to the recently deceased master crooner Luther Vandross, was all that was needed to bring a squeal of delighted recognition from the crowd: House is Not a Home.

A whole generation?s come along identifying that tune with Vandross, but older heads might remember a certain Dionne Warwick launching the Bacharach/ David classic. But such was Luther?s power to stamp what ever he did as his very own.

Sturgis Griffin was the MC. We were really being ?back-in-the-day?. What a pleasure it was to hear this stylish performer in his own right, back from his adopted home in New York.

When we were growing up many of us thought the letters D J were part of Sturgis?s name!

Griffin promised us a man with one of the coolest horns in jazz, and after the requisite time for changing the stage, the side men were on and playing.

Once again we were being taken back, this time to the Miles Davis era with Chris Botti, one or the more commercially successful trumpeters navigating Miles? considerable wake.

Essentially a balladeer, Botti never played anything straight ahead and so we never really got to know much about that side of him, technically.

He spoke articulately and passionately about about growing up in what he called jokingly ?the jazz capital of the world? ? Portland, Oregon ? listening to (here he was deadly serious) the greatest jazzman ever: Miles Davis. He gets no argument from me on that.

On Fender Rhodes and grand piano was an Argentinean, Federico Pena, (phonetically Penya) who sounded uncannily like former Davis sideman, Joe Zawinul, and on drums an outrageously gifted drummer, Billy Chisholm.

Another keyboardist on a Korg played strings and organ sounds. We got When I Fall In Love, Someone to Watch Over Me?, and an original called ?Miami Overnight that sounded like something from Miles? Bitches Brew with the bitches taken out.

Then we heard for the second time during the evening My Funny Valentine.

Botti ranges the whole of the horn, secure in the highest register, and warm in the lowest.

He used to be Sting?s trumpet player, earlier in his career.

Something that added a lot of dignity to the evening was a presentation made by the Minister of Tourism to the spouses of the late Steve Dupres and Kingsley Swan Jr., and to the brother of pianist Darrell Fubler; Mrs. June Dupres, Mrs. Suzanne Swan, and Mr. Glen Fubler, respectively. Mrs. Dupres voiced privately what several musicians felt; that it is good to know that these musicians? contributions though the years were appreciated and that they were not forgotten. Griffin announced Angie Stone, and on came the artist. Her fans in the house let her know that they were there. She was supported by a vocal trio, keyboards, bass, guitar, and drums and opened with Sade?s Sweetest Taboo. Then came Are You Kind.

She had her audience singing along, ?Yeah, yeah, yeah?, and moving to her rhythms, before going into a song dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This was an a cappella gospel item with her back up chorus, very repetitive, short phrases that, for my taste lacked real melodic interest; harmonically a dressed up, with no where to go, melodically.

In her next number she got the audience on their feet to sing along: I Wish I Didn?t Miss You Anymore. More audience participation, and fun while she stop/started the band, followed. Say My Name, was next.

She herself is a ?big, beautiful, black woman?, and she invited the people who looked like her to stand up proud. Some did. Rub It In followed.

Ms Stone gives the impression of an out of place, manic gospel director; but it was entertaining.

By now it was quite late. We were waiting for the Groove for Groover; Kirk Whalum, Richard Elliot and Jeff Lauber. To be brief, it didn?t live up to its hype.

Richard Elliot was grandstanding, his body doing more than his saxophone, and Jeff Lorber was often repetitive. The opening number Knuckle Head was interesting.

So was People Make The World Go Round. It was on Soulful Strut that things took a downturn. I suspect that the players sensed that the were playing to a sated, tired audience and kept overreaching for some connection.

The evening had begun with Bermuda?s Gita Blakeney, backed by the Bermuda Festival Orchestra, led by Robert Edwards.

They didn?t quite match the polish of the previous night, but they were by no means bad. Gita sang well ,but some one needs to step forward with some original material for singers like her.

Now that there is a BFO, maybe some of the scores of aspiring songwriter out there will do just that.