Category: Music

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Film and Art Music

Major Caribbean Films to Premiere In Toronto

The international curtain goes up in Toronto for the premiere of three significant Caribbean films at the 2011 CaribbeanTales Toronto Film Showcase.

The trio of major Caribbean cinematic offerings will be screened during the sixth annual action-packed Showcase set for “Hollywood North” at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto from September 7 to 17, 2011.

“Calypso Rose: The Lioness of the Jungle”, a documentary about the impact of the Trinidadian queen of soca music; “Ghett’a Life”, a new Jamaican film with positive messages of overcoming adversity and ignorance; and Antigua’s “The Skin”, a film on Caribbean mythology, will play in Toronto.
“We are overjoyed to present the North American premiere of not just the latest Caribbean films, but the best of the brightest of Caribbean filmmakers at our September 2011 showcase,” said Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution. She added that many other exciting films will be screened during the 10-day showcase which also features a market access incubator for Caribbean filmmakers.

Following the opening reception at Lakeshore Terrace on Wednesday, September 7, patrons will screen the Pascale Obolo-directed documentary about Calypso Rose, which will be followed by a live question and answer session with the uncontested diva of calypso music.

Living Legend, Calypso Rose

Calypso Rose, the “Mother of Calypso”, is a living legend, and the documentary features the many faces and facets of her life, including her reflective moments, a great passion for fishing and spirituality. It is a film not only about her vision and ancestral history, but also recounts the journey of a militant and impassioned woman, an Afro-Caribbean soul, and an exemplary artiste, who has touched the life of her people at home and many others in distant lands.

Watch a preview of Calypso Rose:
www.sflcn.com/multimedia.php?id=YtzCPDBA3So

On Tuesday, September 13, “Ghett’a Life”, by respected director Chris Browne of “Third World Cop”, premieres at the Studio Theatre. Ten years in the making, the wholly Jamaican film – funded by local investors and featuring indigenous talent and music – is a depiction of what life can be like in inner city Kingston. The “against the odds” drama – set in a politically turbulent community – tells the story of Derrick, a determined teenager, struggling to realize his dream of becoming a champion boxer despite a country, community and family riven by divisive politics.

On Friday, September 16, “The Skin”, a mythological thriller set in Antigua and Barbuda, will have its Red Carpet launch. A young couple encounters strange occurrences when they unearth and try to sell an ancient artifact. This is the fourth feature film by the husband and wife team of Howard and Mitzi Allen whose work is widely celebrated in Antigua.

The Toronto Showcase, among other goals, aims to raise the international profile of Caribbean film, support the growth of a vibrant world-class Caribbean film and television industry, and serve as a platform for promoting the Caribbean as a premier warm weather travel destination and location for film production.

The Showcase is co-produced with the Harbourfront Centre, and partners include Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival, The Consulate General for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in Toronto, First Fridays, Green Light Artist Management, the International Development Research Centre, Pennant Media Group, Planet 3 Entertainment, Taffe Entertainment, Toon Boom Animation, the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services at the University of the West Indies, and WHATZHAPPNG. For tickets, the schedule and general information about the CaribbeanTales Film Showcase and Market Incubator, visit www.caribbeantales-events.com.

For original article: Major Caribbean Films to Premiere In Toronto « Repeating Islands.

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Dance Music

Afro-Caribbean Dance Rhythms

In the following video, Trinidadian dancer and choreographer, Gene Toney, demonstrates short examples of various Caribbean dance rhythms and songs. He is accompanied in these illustrations by his wife, Rosanna, herself a dancer, and Billy Sammy, who has been associated with Gene since his early teenage life.

Gene’s explication of the different dance genres show the continued impact of drumming, dancing, and singing of the different West African ethnic groups that populated the islands of the Caribbean during the colonial period, through slavery and post Emancipation. The first dance he speaks about is the yanvalou, an Afro-religious ritual dance of Haiti; one of the dances experienced and written about by the late Katrine Dunham during her research trips to Haiti in the 1920s and 30s.

The yanvolou is dealt with in some detail by Gerdes Fleurant in his 1996 book, Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Haitian Vodun, the Rada Rite. Trinidad has had its own Rada community, in Belmont for example, (see Andrew Carr’s A Rada Community in Trinidad, 1989), through which dances such as the yanvalou would become incorporated into the repertoire of dance companies.

Gene identifies the mandjani as another of the Afro-Caribbean dances and describes this dance as a “feat dance” traditionally performed during the initiation rituals to mark the passage youth into adulthood. In a comparative study of the performance of this dance in the United States and the African continent, Mark Sunkett (1995) noted that the mandiani (Sunkett) significantly influenced djimbe drumming and its style of performance in North America from the 1950s onwards.

Next Gene deals with the bele. He points out that there are different types of bele dances through out the Caribbean. This dance was observed and written about by anthropologists researching the culture of the Caribbean during the first half of the 20th century. Melville Herskovits spoke about the bele being performed at wakes as part of the burial rites for the deceased in the village of Toco, in his Trinidad Village, 1947.

bele

Cowley (1996) speaks of the bele being performed in a completely different setting for the opening of official functions of the colonial authorities in the late 19th to early 20th century. Authors on the Big Drum Dance of Grenada and Carriacou, such as Pearse (1955) and McDaniel (1998), have identified the bele as one of the dance performed in this festival.

The bele is categorized among the creole dances as opposed to opening dances of the Big Drum, which are performed in homage to the African ancestors and in memory the different West African ethnic groups from which the enslaved came. Gene’s demonstration of this revered Caribbean dance highlights these contrasting contexts within which scholars have situated it.

The Grand Bele is described by Gene as having derived from the appropriation of the French minuet by enslaved Africans, who infused it with their aesthetics. In contrast with this, Gene notes that the accompanying drum rhythms of the Congo Bele are derived from the drumming played as part of the rituals associated with Shango Orisha practice. Additionally, with the title Congo, this bele can align with those Big Drum dances that honored the African ethnicities, and the refrain “rere, rere, Congo,” which is sung, suggest the calling of a Congo ancestral spirit into the performance.

Gene give some brief examples of Orisha dances; specifically the dances of the deities Ogun and Shakpana. These present further evidence of how the religious ritual practices of West Africa in general, and those of the Yoruba in particular, have informed the artistic creation of dance in the Caribbean.

Categories
Music

Archie: An outstanding, unparalled contribution

Pat Bishop Dies:

Chief Justice Ivor Archie, centre, performs with the Lydian Singers under the leadership of Pat Bishop, during the opening of the law term on September 16, 2009 at the Trinity Cathedral in Port of Spain. —Photo: JERMAINE CRUICKSHANK

Chief Justice Ivor Archie last night hailed the “outstanding and unparalleled contribution” of renowned composer, arranger, artist and cultural icon the late Pat Bishop, to the world of culture and the arts.
Manager of the Information and Protocol Division of the Judiciary, Jones P Madeira said Archie, a member of the Lydian Singers of which Bishop was the musical director, expressed shock and was “quite distraught” on hearing of Bishop’s death.
Archie was overseas and returned late last night, but spoke with Madeira just before boarding the return flight.
Madeira said the Chief Justice said the best way to honour Bishop’s “tremendous legacy” was to continue to advocate for the things she stood for and expressed so well in her various fields of work.
“The Chief Justice looked back on Bishop’s achievement in art, music, the development of steelband (through her affiliation firstly with Birdsong, Pandemonium, Phase II Pan Groove and most notably Desperadoes), her work with the Lydian Singers and other fields of culture,” Madeira said.
“And the Chief Justice said it was difficult to pay tribute in just a few words to Bishop. He extended condolences to all those who knew her and benefitted from her contribution.”
Bishop, who underwent triple bypass surgery in 1994 and suffered a mild heart attack in 2007, took ill yesterday while attending a meeting at the Ministry of Planning.
Well-known for her accomplishments as a pan arranger and musical director, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 1994 and the nation’s highest honour, the Trinity Cross in 1995.

For original article: Archie: An outstanding, unparalled contribution | Trinidad Express Newspaper | News.

Categories
Dance Music

Clarence Curvan: Living the Love of Dance

Clarence Curvan on drums

His love for dance led Clarence Curvan from dancer to dance band leader. His entry into the world of music performance was unplanned, and may be described as accidental, but it opened the doors to an illustrious career. Following his passion for dancing, a teenage Curvan accompanied his mother and her friends to a party, which featured the Sonny Lewis Orchestra. Feeling out of place among the older crowd, he entertained himself by playing the cowbell along with the band. When he received the princely sum of $1 for his unsolicited night’s effort, he was encouraged to participate in subsequent engagements of the band on the invitation of Lewis, eventually becoming exceedingly proficient on the bongos.

His development as a bongo player sparked the interests of other bandleaders, and he was invited to join the Phil Britto Orchestra.  Part of this band engagement schedule included weekly radio appearances, and many of the arrangements highlighted the bongos. This further enhanced Curvan’s reputation as a player, and he subsequently received an invitation from famed Calypso bandleader, Cyril Diaz, to play on recordings of Slinger Francisco, the Mighty Sparrow. A tour to the French Caribbean Isles afforded him additional opportunity to showcase his skills in a production entitled “Les Bongo Nuits.”

Having acquired this respect and reputation as a percussionist in his teenage years, Curvan jumped at the chance to put together a group of young musicians to fill a performance slot on a local radio station. This led to  the formation of the Clarence Curvan Orchestra. He recalls the circumstances surrounding the band’s birth, and the musicians involved. Among them were Beverly Griffith, who played the piano and served as the band musical arranger, Stan Shaman on guitar, Kenrick George on bass, Philbert Cumminngs on percussion, and Curvan himself on drums. In early 1960, the group made its debut on the Teen Dance Party hosted in the studios of Radio Trinidad, and proved to be an instant hit, laying the foundation for the popularity and success of the band on the Trinidad dance music scene throughout the decade of the ’60s.

This engagement at Radio Trinidad was extended from a single session on Saturday morning with the addition of another in the early afternoon. A testimony to the great popularity of the radio broadcast and studio party, it also reflected the increasing admiration for the Clarence Clarence Orchestra, and fueled demand for the band at fairs and dances, almost immediately following its emergence in 1960. In the early months of the band’s entry into the musical life and psyche of the Trinidad’s dancing fraternity, Curvan solicited Emory Cook, then operating a recording studio in the Mt. Hope area of Trinidad, to record some of the band arrangements.  With the success of the the initial recording, an arrangement of Teensville that captured the imagination of the local youth, Cook recorded and released the band music regularly. Some of the tunes from these Cook sessions include:

610 Saga  (listen)Note: The title is taken from the track listing for the album, Belly to Belly: Dancing Calypso, on the Smithsonian Folkways website. However, this is erroneous. This correct title should be Royal Jail, which is given to another track on the Smithsonian’s list.

Rip Van Winkle (listen)

Portrait of My Love (listen)

Clair de Lune (listen)

In this early stage of the band’s existence, its composition included two saxes playing harmony, along with the piano, guitar, bass, drums, and percussion. Curvan notes that this sound was influenced, in part,  by the Sel Duncan band, which also incorporated two saxes and was exceedingly popular in dances at the time. The Curvan band played varied styles of music but emphasized calypsos, boleros, rhumba, and other Caribbean styles, along with the fox trot and waltz.  The different melodic instruments alternated in taking the lead, and while the saxes dominated in this regard, many of the arrangements featured the piano or guitar for extended solos.

Eventually, the band’s composition was changed to included the brass instruments. This saw the entry into the band of trumpeter, Ron Berridge, who would eventually become a respected and famed bandleader in his own right. The period of the sixties saw other young musicians, such as now-deceased Clive Bradley and Roy Cape, serve as members of the Clarence Curvan Orchestra. Saxophonist Cape eventually left to join Berridge’s band, and has led his own exceedingly successful aggregation, Roy Cape and the Calypso All Stars, for last three decades. Bradley became the pianist and arranger of the band after Griffith migrated. He too led his own unit, the Esquires, and became internationally renowned for his arrangements of steelband music.

The Clarence Curvan Orchestra has since survived some hiccups, but it still thrives in New York City and performs at balls and function across the United States.

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Music

Jamaica Ska Legend Eric “Monty” Morris

Jamaican ska music legend Eric “Monty” Morris will return to the Southland on August 27th for what will be his fifth ever show in the City of Angeles. Monty will be honored in a very special Tribute To A Living Legend showcase inside the popular new reggae night spot, The Joint.

Fresh from his debut European tour and in support of his first full-length album entitled The Living Legends Collection, Monty will be backed by an all-star cast of L.A. based musicians for this one night only. Also on the bill will be L.A.’s reggae rising stars Penny Reel (named after Monty’s hit song), popular San Diego ska outfit The Amalgamated, deejay Ras Sal and emcee Junor Francis (of KXLU radio). Monty’s fans can expect a high energy set that will include his hits “Humpty Dumpty,” “Strongman Sampson,” “Penny Reel” and “Oil In My Lamp.” http://www.myspace.com/officialericmontymorris

Eric “Monty” Morris

Monty Morris, who has outlived many of his contemporaries, is recognized and considered one of the founding fathers of ska music. As early as 1961, prior to Jamaica gaining its independence from Great Britain, he had several hit songs such as “I’ve Tried,” “Me & My Forty Five,” “Say That You Love Me,” “Search the World” and the chart topping, “Humpty Dumpty” for singer/producer Prince Buster. Also in 1961, he recorded “To Be or Not to Be” for producer Coxsone Dodd.

That same year Monty teamed up with Jamaican expatriate who now resides in Canada, Roy Panton. The duo released several unique and brilliant cuts “In & Out the Window,” Oh Little Honey” and Sweetie Pie,” all of which made cash registers ring for producer Duke Reid. Along with giants of the ska epoch, Alton Ellis, Stranger Cole and Ken Boothe, Morris grew up in the Trench Town area of Kingston, Jamaica. His big opportunity came when he competed in the ever so popular Vere Johns’ Opportunity Hour.


Monty Morris

From there Monty went on to make hit songs for every Kingston producer of the day. With his popularity at an all time high, having placed multiple tunes such as “Strongman Sampson,” “Humpty Dumpty,” “Drop Your Sword,” “Penny Reel” and “Oil in My Lamp,” on the top ten charts on both Jamaican radio stations, JBC and RJR, Monty could do no wrong. He was commissioned to perform in the United States at the highly prestigious 1964 New York World’s Fair.

The fabulous cast of Jamaican musicians that rocked the foundation of New York City included Millie Small, Jimmy Cliff, and Byron Lee & the Dragonaires. The Fair’s theme was “Peace through Understanding,” dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.”

By 1966, Jamaica’s first indigenous music had evolved into the short lived but glorious rocksteady and Monty was back in the spotlight with his last major contribution to the Jamaican music charts “Say What You’re Saying” for producer/singer Clancy Eccles in 1968.

The following year, Monty migrated to the United States where he has been residing ever since. To date, his songs have been included in numerous ska, rocksteady and reggae compilations. Much to his delight, in the 2003 Jim Jarmusch directed film “Coffee and Cigarettes,” used his song “Enna Bella” as one of soundtrack numbers.

In March of 2011 Monty released his first full-length album “The Living Legends Collection – Eric Monty Morris (Buckley Records).” http://www.facebook.com/ericmontymorris / http://www.myspace.com/officialericmontymorris

For original article: http://www.sflcn.com/story.php?id=10654

Categories
Music

Lord Kitchener steps off the Empire Windrush

Lord Kitchener. Photograph: Popperfoto

When the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, a new Britain was born. On board was the first wave of West Indian guest workers, answering a British government advertisement for cheap transport to the mother country to fill the postwar labour shortage.

The seeds of multicultural Britain were duly sown. Further down the line lay the Notting Hill riots of 1958, Joe Harriott at Ronnie Scott’s, the Notting Hill street carnival, the Equals singing Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys, the Clash singing Police and Thieves, football fans throwing bananas at black players, black players becoming international captains, Lenny Henry offering to be repatriated to Dudley, Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, the Brixton and Toxteth riots of 1981, Janet Kay trilling Silly Games on Top of the Pops, Courtney Pine’s Jazz Warriors, the London Community Gospel Choir, the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra, Benjamin Zephaniah turning down an MBE, pirate radio, natty dread, funki dred, drum’n’bass, dubstep, grime, Dizzie Rascal. All this was to come.

First, though, first came Kitchener. The Windrush, a former German liner popular with the Nazi naval elite, included onboard Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner, Trinidad’s top calypsonians. Remarkably, when Kitchener disembarked, Pathe News caught the “king of calypso” on camera. Pathe was documenting “The Great British Black Invasion”. Asked to sing, Kitchener didn’t miss a beat. “London is the place for me,” he crooned, “London, this lovely city …” He had yet to experience smog-bound austerity Brixton, whose labour exchange was first port of call for many of Kitchener’s 500 fellow travellers.

“Kitch” worked his own passage, in clubs and pubs. Soon he, Beginner and others were passing comment on national life on record; the 1950 England-West Indies test match was celebrated on Cricket, Lovely Cricket. The 1951 general election and the 1953 coronation followed while closer to home was My Landlady and her demands for rent. With its wit and side order of double entendre – “Oh mister, don’t touch me tomatoes” – calypso fitted easily into the national psyche.

The musical history of multi-racial Britain is usually elided to omit the 50s, jumping to the Jamaican insurgency of the 60s, but in London at least there was a vibrant scene, ranging from the big band swing of Jamaica’s Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson to the steel band of Trinidadian Russ Henderson. It was a diverse, global mix drawn to the mother country from different parts of the Empire, with jazz providing the lingua franca.

Little documented, the scene was caught by Colin MacInnes in his 1957 novel City of Spades, whose hero is a West African hustler called Johnny Fortune. MacInnes gives us a glimpse of a secret London of nightclubs and shebeens, petty criminals, prostitutes, corrupt cops, outsiders by race, sexuality or choice. It’s a parallel world to the starchy conformism of drab, respectable Britain.

Black America, of course, played its part, but a new, cosmopolitan fusion that spoke specifically to black Britons was under way. More than bananas had come off the banana boats in London’s docks. It was The Banana Boat Song, a Jamaican work chant, that broke calypso to an international audience.

As the 50s teetered into the 60s, calypso was still popular. Like much else, it would be swept aside by pop, R&B, and folk. In particular, there was soul, whose confident, civil rights-tinged modernism offered a new model to black people across the globe. When Sam Cooke sang A Change is Gonna Come, the racial rulebook changed.

Jamaican music was quickest to pick up the new mood of black America, and add its own innovatory ideas to create reggae. When the Notting Hill carnival moved onto the streets in 1966, it was a Trinidadian, calypsonian celebration, though reggae and its sound systems would come to define the event in the 1970s, when the story of Reggae Britannica takes off. First, though, there was Kitch.

For original article:  Lord Kitchener steps off the Empire Windrush | Music | The Guardian.

Categories
Music

Marvin Gaye- What’s Going On: 40th Anniversary

The following is a review, published in Black Grooves, of the Universal Music Group 40th anniversary release of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On album.

album cover:

Marvin Gaye wrote and produced the suite of songs that make up What’s Going On out of what he called a religious motivation to speak truth to troubled people in a troubled time.  That was back in 1971.  Men were coming home from an unpopular war, their bodies and souls in tatters, and they couldn’t find jobs. The natural environment was threatened.  Hopelessness, drug addiction and violence dominated life in the inner cities.  It’s a sad commentary on American society that so many of these beautiful and deeply disturbing songs still ring as true in 2011 as they did in 1971.

Despite that depressing perspective, this deluxe reissue (a gatefold LP with 2 CDs inserted in the back cover) is a joyous occasion for fans of great soul music. Universal Music Group has remastered the original album (CD 1), with resulting punchier sound.  Also included on the first CD are the original mono single versions of several songs plus some unreleased demos and mixes.

CD 2, called “The Detroit Instrumental Sessions and More” is, first of all, a sampler’s delight as well as college-level schooling on how great funk beats and hooks are laid into coherent grooves.  The tracks also provide a window into Gaye’s creative process right after What’s Going On exploded on the scene and raced up the charts, showing what sorts of musical ideas he contemplated exploring and exploiting.  Judging from many of the hard-funk grooves, he was headed where Jimi Hendrix had gone in the last year of his life, toward a meeting of rock and soul with a funk beat that included layers of rock-style distorted guitars and heavy electric bass.

The main feature of the set is an LP of the original “Detroit” mix from April 1971.  What was actually issued as Tamla TS 310 in May 1971 was a remix and revision done in Los Angeles, just weeks before the final release date (the new LP was not previewed for this review).

What’s Going On represented a new direction at Motown.  With this album, Marvin Gaye moved Motown into the ‘70s and moved his music into a new, serious and thoughtful, realm. But it was a struggle to get it released. According to the liner notes, Gaye put his career on the line with Motown founder Berry Gordy, who was also his brother-in-law.  After Gordy delayed putting out the single of “What’s Going On,” Gaye threatened to “never record for (Gordy) again.”  In a recent interview with Marc Myers, published in the Wall Street Journal and also on Myers’ Jazzwax blog, Gordy denied there was that much drama but admitted that he had strong reservations about an album he considered commercially questionable and potentially very controversial and divisive.  The album did succeed in the marketplace and its prominence grew with time, causing Gordy to later admit that “Marvin was right.”

According to Ben Edmonds’ liner notes, the album was produced and overseen by Gaye, but many others played key parts.  The title track was conceived by Obie Benson (of the Four Tops) and Al Cleveland, and then embraced, altered and re-worked by Gaye and the “Funk Brothers” (Motown’s studio musicians).  Gaye’s wife, Anna Gordy Gaye, helped with lyrics to “Flying High.”  Motown elevator operator James Nyx came up with the lyrics used in “What’s Happening Brother,” “God Is Love,” and “Inner City Blues.”  Gaye was solely responsible for “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Gaye also added outside musicians, including jazz drummer Chet Forest and saxman Wild Bill Moore, plus lush instrumentations by David Van DePitte (who was given a credit on the front cover of the LP).

Following is a clip from the DVD Marvin Gaye: Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981:

What’s Going On was also the last major Motown album recorded and produced in Detroit; the company completed its move to Los Angeles while the album was still on the Billboard charts.  The new, complex and mature music style that Gaye pioneered was immediately embraced by Stevie Wonder and other Motown artists, and the days of “hit factory machine” pop ditties were over. In that same era, Motown had success with Rare Earth, an all-white rock band.

Marvin Gaye went on to other great successes, but What’s Going On will always stand as his deepest and broadest statement, a suite of music that was very bold and new in its time and still sounds fresh and relevant today.  The facts of Gaye’s later life and death, and the fact that his songs still ring true 40 years later, add a poignancy to this new reissue.  In the tradition of well-done deluxe reissues, this set augments the great album at its core with good liner notes and artwork, related musical perspective and something new and collectable with the alternate-mix LP.

Reviewed by Tom Fine

 

For the original review: Marvin Gaye- What’s Going On: 40th Anniversary | blackgrooves.org.

Categories
Music

Reimagining Jazz in Africa.

It’s no secret that the distant roots of American jazz lay in Africa. But how did Afro-America’s revolutionary sound reshape African music? On this Hip Deep edition, we examine how African artists found a modern, global voice using jazz as inspiration. Author Carol Muller tells the story of Abdullah Ibrahim, whose prolific career was launched with “Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio” followed by “Anatomy of a South African Village Suite.” We dig into the political significance of the U.S. State Department tours of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and how their visit to Africa underscored the greater fight for social justice for blacks around the world. Senegalese music scholar Timothy Mangin explains West Africa’s attraction to American big band music. Finally, jazz and African music scholar Ingrid Monson tells the story of jazz in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and how this American tradition sculpted the sounds of such luminaries as Mulatu Astatke and Fela Kuti.

Reimagining Jazz in Africa: Cape Town Cosmopolitans and Beyond by Afropop Worldwide