| Charles H.E. Campbell Sunday, February 05, 2006 |
Do you know what I love about Jamaicans? They refuse to be left behind in any way, shape or form. On Thursday, January 26, opening night of the Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, a lady sitting to my left commented, "Look at all these 'wannabes', dem not the usual jazz and blues crowd at all. This whole affair has been spoilt!" I estimate that this was the largest opening night to date for the nine-year-old festival.
There were lots of first-time black, working class patrons mingling freely with the aristocrats, captains of industry, senior politicians and sundry others. By the way, the commentator above was also black, but she was being squired by a red skin, 'soft haired' (Lebanese-type) Jamaican Don Quixote. Her girlfriend, who sported braided natural hair, did not speak one single sentence of proper English, but.
The point is, the flood gates opened on that Thursday night for Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Fest and I bet the organisers ain't feelin' no pain. The winning formula that began two years ago with country music star Kenny Rogers and Alicia Keys and continued last year with Dionne Warwick, Roberta Flack, Norah Jones and Toots and the Maytals, has this year paid off handsomely for Walter Elmore and his team.
Even while provoking the ire of jazz purists, without the infusion of the pop genre, this festival would not today be the tremendous success that it has become since Walter took control of the project. This is a commercial reality that the minority in the audience who do not welcome the broader class mix and the participation of these and others like Bounty Killer's cameo, will simply have to live with.
For instance, on Thursday night, with about 7,000 patrons present, Morgan Heritage proved their 'meckle' that they are right up there in terms of showmanship, stage craft and musical genius with people like Puerto Rican jazz flautist, Nestor Torres and R&B sensation John Legend. These three shared the limelight on this the opening night of the three day long festival, and the audience showed equal appreciation. Another great performance, Morgan Heritage! Your act gets better every time.
Many Montegonians who had stayed away in previous years were out in their numbers, lapping up the sophisticated atmosphere which before had only attracted an almost 'purely' exclusive middle-class audience. In my estimation, that is one thing about good music and a good blend of all classes, united in love and appreciation of excellent performances, spanning multiple genres, the vibe was exhilarating and left us all on a high.
As my classmate and lifelong friend C P Henriques commented, "When Marguerittaville close down, den yuh know su'mn a draw de crowd." The organisers deserve high praise for delivering a first class international production.
On Friday night, R&B crooner turned reverend, Al Green who closed the evening's offerings, was great, but maybe should have performed before Air Supply. An artiste of his experience should not have started his set with two largely unknown songs.
Air Supply, however, did not waste time in rocking the estimated 12,000 persons present. From their first song, they served up hit after hit non-stop. The ladies were rushing to the front of the stage, some in joyous tears - when lead singer Graham Russell came into the audience, the place literally erupted.
Bo Diddley was very much in the vein of Monty Alexander and taught the youth present the history of world music. Did you know that this is what inspired Elvis Presley's Rock and Roll phenomenon? However, at the time, only White artistes could sell its records so Elvis' success also spelt the eventual success of people like Bo Diddley.
UB40 has done a very similar thing for Reggae music, using their international visibility and success to gain a wider audience for Reggae with their hit covers of Jamaican classics like Wear You To The Ball, Many Rivers To Cross and Eric Donaldson's Cherry Oh Baby. Lord Creator, who penned and was the original performer of Kingston Town, possibly UB40's most popular cover to date, has always maintained that he has been living from the royalties that UB40 has generated. All the same, it's now safe to say that we have come along a far way in terms of racial acceptance and tolerance.
Saturday, which featured a mass audience of approximately 15,000 people and the closing night of the festival, belonged to Patti LaBelle. Her precursors Maxi Priest and James Ingram did themselves well, but the obvious taker was Ms LaBelle whose commanding stage presence, rich sonorous voice, drama and string of hits had every member of the audience standing and singing along. It was a tremendous feeling to be in the audience sharing that sea of human emotions and harmony. kinda like Reggae Sunsplash, huh?
By far, the most interesting feature of the festival this year was the impressive stage, with new intelligent lights and state-of-the art Meyer front-of-house system. The personnel enhanced this with their relatively speedy set changes.
I was particularly impressed with the electronic backdrop which continually projected images of the performances as well as still images such as Al Green's infamous shirtless album cover for his Greatest Hits Volume One. This has certainly lifted the level of technical production locally.
With the recent mass introduction of personal folding chairs, promoters will have to find a solution to maintaining pathways for crowd flow. The tussle to move around at the festival was unbearable.
In fact, during their performance on Friday night it was obvious that Russell of Air Supply, feeding off the audience wanted to penetrate deeper, however, because there was no unimpeded pathway, he did not come.
Thank God we did not have a medical emergency or an occurrence like last year when the public address stack began to come down. This could have created a serious crisis. The narrow pathway leading from the gate to the amphitheatre was a bottleneck of bodies and proved a recurring nightmare throughout the event.
One of the spin-offs of being a public figure is that you suddenly get voluntary spokespersons telling people your views of them, or on issues discussed privately. They of course, are free to quote you completely out of context. On the upside, it certainly gets the word out of FOC and sometimes saves a lot of unproductive time.
They say that in show business "any publicity is good publicity". For those people who really want to know my views about the social responsibility of the artiste fraternity, please read my published articles, Self-Regulate or Perish (The Sunday Observer, June 12, 2005) and TOK TKO'd (The Sunday Observer, January 8, 2006). The owners of the past plantation system continue to delude themselves and have not yet realised that the 'animals' have taken over.
Ronnie. I shall always respect and honour your contribution. Furthermore, you remain my older brother and mentor and deserve the highest praise and an appropriate tribute, never mind your reticence.
Wayne Murray, owner/operator of True Tone, tells me that nothing was wrong with the public address system at Third World's 'Committed', held at King's House on December 27 and Smirnoff Experience, headlined by Sean Paul, held on December 23 - it was the engineers provided by the artistes to mix the house system that produced the poor sound. John gives me the same reason for the sound at Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues on Friday night.
Meanwhile, the personnel responsible for refuelling the generator at Rebel Salute fell asleep during Burning Spear's performance, causing the stage lights to go out on him before he finished his set.
Aaah. the vagaries of this business. Come on guys, sound engineers employed to international artistes must keep up with the new technical advances in public address systems, especially the features of mixing boards which you may be required to use at first class events.
While you may know the various songs and intonations of them and therefore hold exclusive authority when your artiste is on stage, you have to polish up your act and not make your audiences continue to suffer. As is now the case and in most instances, the providers of the systems take the flak for your inefficiencies,
In my view, there has to be a re-balancing of the ownership of this area of production on these large events. The promoter's/supplier's engineers must have at least equal authority in such a scenario because ultimately, they are responsible for all aspects of the production. In the end, it is really all about what you hear.
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