The blues will waft over Annie's Bay in St. David's when the Bermuda Jazz Ensemble play on Sunday.

The Blue over Blue show is part of Butterfield Bank's 'Round de Rock with Concerts in the Park' and this time the setting is Clearwater Beach.

Besides the Bermuda Jazz Ensemble the line-up includes Spirit and The Life Sentence Band.

Members of the Bermuda Jazz Ensemble took time out to speak to about what they planned to play for the free concert.

Bandleader Wendell (Shine) Hayward will take a bit of a backseat while he allows 18-year-old alto sax player Justin Brangman to be bandleader.

"It lends itself to the opportunity for one of them to demonstrate leadership," said Mr. Hayward. "So, more than likely, the performance will be recorded and later critiqued.

"Mr. Brangman has demonstrated strong leadership skills and he has the potential to be a really good arranger. He is very talented and his first instrument is really the keyboard and later the saxophone."

Mr. Hayward said the group will be playing a selection of jazz pieces. "They will probably do one or two blues pieces, 'Chameleon' by Herbie Hancock and two different arrangements of 'Blue Bossa'. They will probably do the Cuban version which they adopted two years ago when they went to Cuba," he said.

"They have 20 minutes to perform and with jazz it is very easy to produce 20 minutes of music. It can be one song or four or five songs, but they will probably do four or five pieces."

The Bermuda Jazz Ensemble has been around since 1998 and during that time bandleaders have seen numerous groups of young jazz musicians come and go, but Mr. Hayward had plenty to say about this group.

"It varies and I've had some units that have blossomed quickly and then I have had some units that were more of a challenge," he said.

"There was a particular unit that I almost gave up on and then all of a sudden it was like they got it. Their sound was there and their energy level was there ? but these guys are probably the most aggressive ones than in any other unit that I have ever had.

"More of them are improvising and they are not afraid to take a chance. I have had units where I couldn't get them to take a chance on improvisation ? they were strong readers and not improvisers and I spent a lot of time teaching improvisation, where these guys have done minimal reading this year.

"For them it has been memorising songs, improvising and creating their own solos."

Mr. Hayward said that the members change every year and they lose one or two and gain one or two with most members sticking around for three to four years. "Some have been here for a while, but I think the longest serving member right now is Aaron Daniels if my memory serves me correctly," he said.

"And we always seem to have one and or sometimes two females, but we have never had more than that.

"And then we have Alex Gibbs who is a strong trumpeter, but unfortunately this will probably be his last performance with us since he is going off to university." The youngest member ever to join the Bermuda Jazz Ensemble was nine, said Mr. Hayward. "But one thing that I can say, they all love music and there is a good camaraderie among them." Sunday's concert begins at 6.30 p.m. and ends at 8.30 p.m.