Reggae and All That Jazz

Friday night Woodrow and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a music and art event at the Reserve Cigar and Wine Bar. Our friend Stacy has a promotions company called King Leo Promotions, and is involved with various artistic events in the area. She currently promotes mainly reggae and soca artists.

The Reggae and All That Jazz event (brought to us by King Leo Promotions, Jazz on the Green, WZJZ 100.1 Smooth Jazz, Ontonio Designs, The Reserve Cigar and Wine Bar, and The Children's Charities of Southwest Florida) was featuring reggae artist Kehv and New York Latin Jazz artist Tony Pastrana. They also had the artwork of Ontonio Christie on display.

The event was to begin at 8 PM, so we arrived a little early to get a good seat. However since I forgot to get photos of the outside of the building, these were taken when we were leaving at the end of the night.





We went inside and saw our friend Stacy, who had gotten us on the guest list. I got a shot of Stacy and Kim Giles of Beyond One Entertainment.



I asked Stacy whether it would be okay if I took some pictures of the cigar bar, and she said that there would be no problem. Here is a shot of the unbelievable chandelier in the entrance foyer...



...and of the stage area.



I think that some members of the latin jazz band were a little late getting there, so the show wound up not starting until around 9 PM. But once they got going, they really got the place jumping.



While the jazz band played and we watched some bad dancers enjoy themselves on the dance floor, we relaxed on a leather couch, had a drink and ate some chicken quesadillas (I was starved!)

Artist Ontonio Christie was gracious enough to permit me to photograph some of his artwork for you today. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the photos, but I was trying to be unobtrusive to others who were enjoying the music and art.

This one was by far my favorite:




Beautiful!

Here are some other great pieces:













This was another favorite of mine...




...and this was lovely.






I snuck a shot of the artist Ontonio near another one of my favorites.




Unfortunately I couldn't get pictures of the labels on all of the paintings, so I don't know the names of them all, but here is Woodrow's favorite piece.



Ontonio doesn't just paint stirringly, but he also does many of the graphics and ads for King Leo Promotions. He is a very talented and surprisingly humble and gentle-natured young man. Here is a link I found to some of his other artwork .

I kept shooting pictures of the bar interior and decorating, while we waited for Kehv to take the floor.

I also loved the pendant lighting used throughout the bar.









There were also some interesting statues throughout the bar.


They had some really nice decor.

Finally Kehv performed about 10 PM. He was very good! Very entertaining! He has a beautiful voice and a lot of personality. Although my videos don't do him justice, here are a couple of quick ones. This one doesn't really show Kehv, but you can hear him singing behind the sound of the customers chattering.





In this last video, Kehv was posing for me. Sorry. I couldn't do anything about how dark it was in the bar, so you can barely see Kehv.



We really enjoyed watching Kehv perform. Woodrow bought his CD, and the two of them talked for a bit in front of the Reserve along with artist Ontonio...



...and Woodrow and Kehv posed for a photo together. However Woodrow likes his privacy and doesn't really like when I post his photo on my blog, so I am not uploading the photo here.

I've already mentioned what a humble and polite man Ontonio is. During Woodrow's conversation with Kehv, we found that he is quite the philosopher and very passionate about what he does. Woodrow found a kinship with him, and really enjoyed their conversation.

However I would like to point out that while Kehv was talking about all of the beauty and art to be found in the world, and pointed to so many things surrounding us, he failed to mention this:



...and I thought THAT was a beautiful piece of art!

It was a great night! Woodrow and I really enjoyed ourselves, despite the fact that all of the cigar and cigarette smoke really got my asthma going and had me coughing and my eyes burning. It was worth it to have gotten to see the talent of Ontonio, Kehv and the latin jazz band.

Our thanks to Ontonio, Kehv, the Reserve, and most especially to Stacy of King Leo Promotions!