Jazz in the Gardens music festival.....needs a Three day Weekend!

    Over the weekend I spent a couple of days covering arguably the biggest “Outdoor Party” in the country, “Jazz in the Gardens music festival.”  For six years, the city of Miami Gardens, home to Sunlife Stadium, which is home to the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins, and University of Miami Hurricanes, have hosted this magnanimous national event.  It’s a two day party that showcases new talent on the come up, as well as “throwback Giants” we once grooved to on wax records and cassettes.  

Oh, it’s big time ladies and gentlemen---and as someone privileged to cover the event from a media perspective, I’m sorry that I was unable to get “my party on” with the thousands of booty shaking folks in attendance. As a matter of fact, this event should be coinciding with one of our three day holiday weekends. It’s that big…..Seriously.

      Miami Gardens is a suburban city located in Miami Dade- County Florida. It’s also the largest city in Florida that has a majority of black residents.  For most outsiders, when thinking about Miami, they often mention the “Shine and Sand” associated with South Beach or the regal elegance of the Brickell business district. Moreover, since the arrival of Lebron James, “Downtown Miami” is more fertile than a rabbit on Easter Sunday.  But it’s more to Miami—heading north, and the “Jazz in the Gardens music festival” does a damn good job in removing the curtains, and revealing Miami Gardens to the rest of the country, while  providing a major economic injection into the arm of the community.

 In as much as I would like to write about who tore it up on stage Sunday, and who received implicit “Sandman” hate from the audience, I'll leave that to the haters. As a matter of fact, log into Twitter for the dish. However, I will say this…I was beyond thrilled to see EnVogue on stage and at the Q&A press session.  After the presser the damn video camera  I lugged around, lost its weight. From that moment on it felt like 5lbs on my shoulder. I floated away feeling very warm and fuzzy inside. Humming to the tune of "Giving him something he can feel."     

All Photographs Courtesy of Terry Smart Jr.