By Barbara Corbellini Duarte—

When Jamaican jazz singer Myrna Hague steps onstage, she always tries to tell a story.

“I want to pass a lot of emotion, and I want the audience to get that from me. That I am not there just to be there,” says Hague, also known as Jamaica’s first lady of jazz. “It’s not about the money. It’s about having a connection with people.”

Hague is one of the artists who will perform June 8 at the Caribbean Jazz Matazz concert at the Broward Center. Jamaican musicians Richie Stephens and Eugene Grey will join Hague in a show that fuses jazz with reggae, Calypso and rhythm and blues.

“Jazz from the Caribbean has a lot of flavor,” says Eddy Edwards, the show’s producer.

The concert is a fundraiser for the University of the West Indies, which will provide scholarships to students with financial needs, and a celebration of Caribbean American Heritage Month.

“It’s important that all ethnic groups in America celebrate their past, their reason for being and the journey that brought them here,” Hague says. “As Caribbean people, we come from different islands and different places in the Caribbean, but we are all on the same journey.”

Caribbean Jazz Matazz will take place 7 p.m. Sunday, June 8, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $40-$60. Call 954-462-0222 or go to BrowardCenter.org.