Inaugural St. Martin Gourmet-Jazz Festival Scheduled

  I  

The first St. Martin Gourmet-Jazz Festival will celebrate music and the culinary arts in a uniquely St. Martin fashion from Dec. 1-8. For a week, the Caribbean island will be transformed into a fabulous gourmet celebration where the local gastronomy professionals and their friends—chefs and wine growers from France and elsewhere—will compete to delight and surprise with sophisticated and creative cuisine.

Complementing the food will be a marvelous lineup of Latin jazz, headlined by the great Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. In all, 14 groups from the Caribbean and beyond will share the stage, including Pupy y Los Que Son, Habana All Stars, Orlando Sanchez Soto & the Cuba Jazz, El Greco & Top Secret (Cuba), Alfio Origlio Quartet (France), Ernan Lopez-Nussa Quintet (Cuba), Paco Charlery Quintet (Martinique), Mezcla (Cuba) and Maracud’Jazz Quartet (Guadeloupe). For jazz fans in the United States, this festival provides an opportunity to hear marvelous Cuban musicians who have been unable to play in the States since Homeland Security initiatives have made security clearance nearly impossible for them.

This fusion of musical and culinary arts should become a St. Martin tradition and a rendezvous for the musicians and gastronomy professionals.

For more information on this exciting new festival, go to its web site at www.sxmjazzfestival.net.



  • Buster_Williams_by_Jimmy_Katz_copy.jpg

    “What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.

  • Don_and_Maureen_Sickler_by_Richard_Halterman_copy_2.jpg

    Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.

  • 241e91ef-80d3-7409-17b8-d66ab05d21a1_EE.jpg

    ​The Free Slave, Cosmos Nucleus and Sunset To Dawn: three classic Muse albums being reissued this fall by Timer Traveler Recordings.

  • Darius_Jones_JazzEmAgosto_2025_By_Petra_Cvelbar.jpg

    ​This year’s Jazz em Agosto set by the Darius Jones Trio captured the titular alto saxophonist at his most ferocious.

  • Trio_aRT_courtesy_Trio_aRT_copy_3.jpg

    Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.