Honey Jazz Barbados Festival Feature

There are not many places you’ll find a performer confident and skilled enough to follow in the footsteps of the first lady of song. But at the Hilton on Thursday night, Kellie Cadogan proved Barbados was just that. Her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, part of the Honey Jazz Festival, showed the island’s talent is rich and deep. Cadogan’s love of music percolated through the night air. Like Fitzgerald, her performance is exuberant, uplifting and very smooth. She took on some of Fitzgerald’s best known songs, as well as an outstanding rendition of Sunshine of Your Love, the rocky blues number originally by British rock group Cream.

All of Me and the Gershwin number Summertime were given the Ella Fitzgerald treatment.  The latter was elevated from a jazz standard to something out of the ordinary.