Fireworks signalled the close of the tenth Bermuda Musical Festival at Dockyard, Saturday evening. And how apt a symbol they were.

Because on there stage there had been fireworks all evening. It started with three young women; Twane Butterfield and Sia Spence performing to the sounds of the Bermuda Festival Orchestra, who were back to their first night best, and the beautiful sound of Joy Barnum singing her own composition, accompanied by Mathew Joseph.

Bootsie was on for the major part of the evening. Sturgis Griffin did the final honours.

The musical fireworks intensified with the appearance of Regina Carter and her ?family? on stage. This group opened with Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, a la salsa, with Cuban female percussionist Myra Caceres on congas.

This was a treat for all lovers of jazz, a classic worked through with intelligent, swinging improvisation. Carter has a warm sound on her electric violin, and manages to make this instrument come as close to the human voice as you can imagine.

Cook?s Bay, by Kenny Barron followed, a lovely samba with a fine piano solo by a player whose name I regrettably did not catch. (It would be great to have all the side men?s names available, if not in the programme, though that would be ideal, at least on hand outs for the press. They deserve recognition too.)

Then the quirky Ella Fitzgerald hit, A Tisket, A Tasket. This originally was a novelty song that Ella recorded, and became a huge hit.

Carter treated it lovingly. One of the interesting things she likes to do is quote other standards in the middle of a solo. It is a delightful display of musical wit, and Regina, revels in it. I heard, among others, English Country Garden.

What a great outfit, all of them. For me the outstanding piece of the night, and maybe of the whole festival was the group?s rendition of Mandingo Street, by a Cameroonian composer.

It opened with atmospheric sound of the forest and moved into a melodic theme, against shifting rhythms, six-eight, against two/four time; and Myra?s solo on the jembe was astonishing.

The piece ended with the leader breathing rhythmically into the mike, after everyone but the bassist, who didn?t have a vocal mike had joined in the vocal harmonies. Fireworks!

More fireworks exploded in the form of dreadlocked Courtney Pine. A maestro and a showboater, he thrilled everybody with some superb.

We heard him before we saw him, playing as he was from behind the stage. And at the end of his incredible set he marched off stage, through the audience, to the Premier?s enclosure, and down to the curtain of the stage, like some latter day New Orleans bandsman, revving the audience up to the heights of his own unbelievable energy level.

He is unmistakably in the Sonny Rollins mould, and like sonny has Caribbean Roots. This he acknowledged with a moving rendition of Redemption Song.

He is a shameless showboater, standing, for example, arms out stretched, his saxophone supported only by his firm embouchure, playing through four whole choruses of a blue, sustaining the one note by his mastery of circular -breathing. It left us breathless.

His message, that music has the power to bring all kinds of people together, had been demonstrated throughout this festival and just needed some to articulate it.

More Fireworks. The outrageous, libidinous Ms Patti LaBelle was introduced by the ever smooth Sturgis Griffin, and she entered wearing a Japanese silk robe, with huge white dragons on the back, which she discarded dramatically to reveal her body clad in a bum hugging short red skirt, and matching red top. She wore red shoes, of course.

This was my first LaBelle experience. I shared my thoughts with my daughter Jessica.

?Dad, if she doesn?t kick off her shoes, and fall down prostrate, it?s not a Patti LaBelle show!? she explained.

Who knew? But she did kick off her shoes, and did end up on the floor, to be aided to her feet again by two of the young men in her band.

It was a rambling, improvised, formless set. One of the back up singers, Mary Griffiths, is a Katrina survivor, and Ms Labelle introduced her.

One assumes she is an heir apparent; she called Ms LaBelle mentor. This young woman has a voice of similar quality and range, except whom but Patti these days has that piercing falsetto?

Fireworks! Sybil Bermuda?s female impersonator of, yes, Patti herself, walks brown the slope with a bouquet of flowers for the Diva. Even the real Patti has to admit that Sibyl is gorgeous.

And Patti found out that Sybil really is from Bermuda, as she?d been telling an incredulous Patti for years; in Las Vegas, in L.A. Wherever. It seems Sybil has the habit of showing up.

There was some audience participation fun, with a group of men vying for the Diva?s approval by singing and dancing. Of course the star milked it.

One over enthusiastic soul actually lifted the star off her feet. Ms LaBelle had to command the bodyguard not to harm this man, saying: ?He can pick me up anytime.?

The women sing along to: I?m Every Woman. We get a story about her dogs and her neighbours. Life is tough. At 61, diabetic and a survivor of a family plagued with cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer?s disease, Patti LaBelle doesn?t hold back.

The crown was beginning to leave, the ferries were restless, and the fireworks, the ones that light up the sky were going off.

I took a last look at the huge screen. Patti LaBelle was still on. You go on, girl.