Last week Friday, (May 16) Red Bones Blues Café and the Griot Music outfit, presented another in their series of live sessions. The featured singers were Janine Cunningham, Bijean Gayle and Della Manley, in that order. They were backed by Seretse Small on lead guitar, Aeion Hoilett on bass, Denver Smith on percussions and Sheldon Bernard on flute.
It was an impromptu decision to attend the session and I am glad that I did. I had previously become acquainted with Janine personally and found her to be introspective, meditative and culturally inquisitive. I concluded that she was a serene soul sista, exploring her roots but quite comfortable within her own skin. I did not even know then that she was a singer. This was the first time I would be seeing her perform and I did not know what to expect.
Fortunately, we walked in, literally on her first note, because by the end of her set, she had totally enthralled me and I would have long regretted it if I had missed any of her performance that night. Janine's style reminded me in some songs of a young Billie Holliday and in the more up-tempo ones, of Gladys Knight, as she blended her obvious influences of jazz, blues and soul. I was genuinely impressed with her on-stage charisma - she is beautiful and elegant to begin with - her range and unique interpretations. Janine also seems to have a knack for songwriting, demonstrated by her beautiful original ballad, called Parasite and the witty, unfinished (?) ditty, Time. bong, bong, bong. The structure of her songs allowed us to appreciate Bernard's sensitive flute stylings, wafting in and around, as if an extension of her voice.
Janine set the standard for the rest of an enriching evening, filled with excellent performances. Bijean Gayle, amply displayed a more soulful, pensive side to his artistry. His set was made all the more satisfying as it allowed space for us to enjoy Smith's skill on drums and percussions, as well as the versatility of Small's fret work on the guitar.
Some time before, I had seen Bijean perform with his group, Hush, at Christopher's and had given them very high marks, as a budding new group. This time around, performing solo, in a more laid back setting, gave me renewed respect for this young man's growing mastery of a variety of musical idioms.
Della, was the final act of the evening. By then, the conversation level in Red Bones, had raised a decibel or two (liquor does do that to you), so her voice was too often drowned out. Still, we enjoyed the blend of urban folk infused with jazz and blues, which is the bedrock of her music. As they had been doing all night, the complementing musicians did her proud. I had gone to the session, in a melancholy mood, but left singing Bob Marley's line, "one good thing about (good) music, when it hits you feel no pain."
In search of solutions to our persistent crime problem, might I suggest that if some good corporate sponsor wishes to make an invaluable contribution to reducing the crime rate in the country, this would be an excellent type musical programme for cultural enlightenment to finance and take around the country. While I spoke in my last commentary about us being a cosmopolitan people historically, we are fast losing that redeeming trait.
A programme like this, however, may not be commercially viable in the average township in Jamaica. In large segments of the Jamaican population, the musical options over nearly a generation has been vastly depleted - reduced only to sound systems playing a steady diet of almost exclusively dancehall and hip hop. Thus, firstly, you may not get enough people paying the minimum $500 entry fee, then, many who might attend, may not come away feeling as spiritually lifted as I did, because their ears are unaccustomed to such diverse musical offerings and lyrical stylings. I submit that over time, it may well have a soothing effect on patrons.
There are many other groups and bands capable of playing this quality and type of music. They are also interpreting and updating our reggae and traditional music, infusing it with jazz. Sunday night at Gran Bahia Principe, Everton Gaynor's band Signature, put on a show that sounded like an orchestra was on the bandstand. With Michelle Black on lead vocals backed by three musicians, they thrilled the mostly Spanish and American audience and had them all singing the world anthem, One Love (Bob Marley). Hats off to them, I was duly proud.
We need to reactivate the police and military bands, the scout, cadets and other uniform bands, marching bands, school choirs and folk groups, so that this again becomes commonplace within our urban and rural communities, thereby expanding the musical horizons of our youth and population at large, as well as injecting some positive vibrations.
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