Inez Barlatier, JazzReach, at ZunZún Children’s Fest, play music for discovery and fun

In her show “Love is a Verb,” Inez Barlatier, as Tati Nuzi, will perform “a collection of songs that speak of the different ways we’ve given, give and show love” at ZunZún Children’s Fest on Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Miami Beach Bandshell. (Photo courtesy of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts)

Haitian-American singer and songwriter Inez Barlatier never imagined becoming a children’s artist with many talents and decades of performance history. Yet, that is where the Miami musician’s career has taken her.

“But they are a major part of my life now. I’m so very grateful to have this in my life so I can remember who I was and who I am,” says Barlatier.

Singer, songwriter and actor Inez Barlatier never imagined that she would be a children’s artist. “But these performances are a major part of my life now,” she says. (Photo courtesy of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts)

The success of her “AYITI: Stories & Songs from Haiti,” a 2019 interactive concert developed at Miami Theater Center, introduces young audiences to Haitian culture through singing, drumming and storytelling. Barlatier will perform her new work, “Love Is a Verb,” at the ZunZún Children’s Fest at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Miami Beach Bandshell. The event is presented by FUNDarte and the Miami-Dade County Auditorium Away from Home series.

In “Love Is a Verb,” Barlatier reprises her character, Tati Nuzi, the persona she created for her children’s music performances, accompanied by a trio featuring Matt Sonata on flute and keyboard, J. A. Joseph on bass, and Nabedy Osorio on drums.

It’s a show that features “a collection of songs that speak of the different ways we’ve given, give and show love,” explains Barlatier. “We learn love from our family first. Then we learn love from our friends, and then we look out and learn what love means in the world. We get into self-love, and we end with a communal love song, a universal call for love, love in action.”

The Metta Quintet, part of the JazzReach organization, will present “Con Alma y Fuego,” a show with narration, videos, and live jazz tracing the evolution of the Latin/Afro-Caribbean Jazz tradition at ZunZún Children’s Fest on Sunday, Oct. 18. (Photo courtesy of JazzReach)

The second half of Sunday’s program will take the audience to a different musical place, filled with the sound of jazz.

“Con Alma y Fuego” (“With Soul and Fire”) combines narration, video and live jazz performed by the Metta Quintet. The show was created by Jazz Reach, a New York-based nonprofit focused on jazz education.

“Each of our programs has a very specific theme or subject matter,” explains drummer Hans Schuman, who is also the founder, executive and artistic director of JazzReach. “ ‘Con Alma y Fuego’ celebrates and promotes the history of Afro-Caribbean / Latin jazz. We go all the way back to the slave trade, talk about Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Spanish influence on the indigenous cultures, and bring it all the way to these virtuoso Latin musicians creating.”

The show highlights musicians including Mario Bauzá, Machito, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, the Cuban group Irakere, brothers Jerry and Andy Gonzalez and the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove.

“With a show like ‘Love Is a Verb,’ I had a moment to think about love, and kindness, and compassion, and community,” says Inez Barlatier who will perform at ZunZún Children’s Fest on Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Miami Beach Bandshell. (Photo courtesy of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts)

“It’s an abbreviated history, of course,” says Schuman, “but we get a lot in in a short time.”

While their music differs, Barlatier and Schuman share a concern: how to make their music and ideas accessible to young audiences.

While creating “Love Is a Verb,” Barlatier worked with the early education team at Virginia’s Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, which commissioned the piece. The team helped her choose language and explore ways to explain love to children ages 2 to 8.

Schuman was a working musician just a few years out of music school when he founded JazzReach in 1994. Concerned about the future of jazz, he wanted to find a way to connect young audiences with the music.

“It’s not a subject taught in schools. It’s not included in American history curriculums. And my point was that kids needed to know what else was possible in the realm of musical expression and learn about these remarkable virtuosos we have in jazz,” says Schuman. “I knew nothing about what it meant to start or run a not-for-profit organization — but I knew I wanted to do something. So, I started JazzReach . . . out of a concern and to be of service.”

Since launching it first educational program in 1997, JazzReach “has served over a million students nationwide,” says Schuman. But statistics never tell the whole story.

The Metta Quintet is part of the New York-based nonprofit JazzReach organization, dedicated to promoting, performing, creating, and teaching jazz music. (Photo courtesy of JazzReach)

He recalls working with youth string ensembles in a performing arts center in Colorado, “maybe 10, 12 years ago,” he says. “The children were from first to fourth grade maybe, very young, and they all had their violins and we were playing an arrangement of a piece from ‘Charlie Parker with Strings’,” he recalls.

He describes the room as “quite small” with the children gathered around his drums.

“And I remember we were playing this song and I looked at this little girl standing next to my hi hat, and she was playing, but her eyes were closed, and she had the biggest, most pure smile on her face. And it was just so precious. I’ll never forget the look on her because it was just the joy of music, as pure as it gets.”

As Schuman and Barlatier discuss their experiences, it becomes clear that they believe the rewards from playing for children’s audiences goes well beyond the stage, the applause or economics.

“Working with children has changed my life for the better,” says Barlatier.

“They teach me; they remind me of my childlike self, my inner child, and they inspire me to play, just play, play.”

Making “Love Is a Verb” gave her that same freedom.

“I was back to being a child.”

WHAT: ZunZún Children’s Fest featuring “Love Is a Verb” with Tati Nuzi and Friends (Inez Barlatier), and “Con Alma y Fuego” by JazzReach, featuring the Metta Quintet.

WHERE: The Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach

WHEN: 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18

COST: $7.71

INFORMATION: (786) 348-0789 and  zunzun-childrens-fest

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