Preserving History While Building a Legacy…
St. Lucie Tropical Jazz is an exciting Latin Jazz Big Band from St. Lucie County, Florida. It is a diverse band looking to provide high-quality and challenging musical experiences for its members. Their focus is to blend the joyful, grooving Latin styles and musical traditions with the richness of jazz harmonies to forge a vibrant sound that just sizzles.
This pool of impressive and talented musicians always thrills audiences with their infectious polyrhythmic grooves, harmonic colorings, and improvisational flights. The voracious drive of the band fuels the thrilling, surprising arrangements by mixing modern and traditional grooves with fluid ease.
We seek to create opportunities for life-long musical expression and enjoyment. More importantly, we formed in order to promote artistic enrichment in our community and preserve the rich repertoire and cultural history of jazz and Afro-Caribbean rhythms.
The band’s influences come from the musical styles of the many different cultures that come together under the umbrella of Afro-Caribbean music. Tropical Jazz is the only band in Saint Lucie that has incorporated a bebop foundation into their playing and expounded on the Latin jazz vocabulary with modern sensibility and style. The group is led by Grammy Award-winning pianist Robert Navarro and trumpeter Orlando Haddock.
Fulfilling A Mision…
Meet The Team
Robert Navarro is an accomplished New York City performer with more than 25 years of experience as a professional pianist, teacher, arranger and producer. Mr. Navarro holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from The City College of New York and a Master of Arts (MA) from New York University. He has also studied at Mannes College The New School for Music (Extension Division for Jazz Studies), and Manhattan School of Music (Classical Studies).
On September 2004 he produced a Grammy winning album for Conjunto Clasico. On December 2007 he received a Grammy as an arranger with Bobby Cruz Romanticos de Ayer, Hoy y Siempre Song Envidia. On April 2011 he received an award from the Treasure Coast International Film Festival for the musical arrangement of the song City Within a Dream for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture.
Orlando Haddock has been a lead trumpet player and soloist for more than a decade. Raised and educated in New York City, Mr. Haddock received a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York. Most recently, he completed two Master’s degree programs at Florida International University.
Passionate about inspiring others and making a contribution to the world with his music, Mr. Haddock, along with Robert Navarro, founded the community band with the goal of preserving the rich repertoire and cultural history of jazz and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Mr. Haddock can often be found donating his time and talent by mentoring up-and-coming musicians and playing with local community bands.
For more information please visit: http://music.ohaddock.com
Inspiring creativity through music.…
St. Lucie Tropical Jazz is a driving 18 members Latin Jazz Big Band lead by pianist, composer/arranger, and educator Robert Navarro.The ensemble, with its home base at Port St. Lucie Civic Center, brings a group of Treasure Coast professional musicians with a wide variety of experience in the music and education field.
The band's strength and identity lies within its contemporary sound and its commitment to maintain the authenticity of the harmonic blend of jazz and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The band serves to enrich, educate and entertain the general public through live performances. It also serves to provide a source of cultural pride for music lovers around the world and in particular South Florida and the Treasure Coast.