Caribbean Beat — September/October 2017 (#147)

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playlist Pan Roots Culture Kareem Thompson (self-released) Brooklyn-born pannist Kareem Thompson revels in his Trinidadian heritage on his debut album as a leader away from his band K.I.T. Caribbean Connection, fully exploring more complex jazz harmonies. The continued fusion of Caribbean rhythms and melodic phrases makes the listener recognise Thompson’s roots, and he has not strayed too far from those early cultural influences. The title track with its percussive voicing gives credence to the idea that steelpan jazz is wide open to further evolution, as those sonic cues that define the sub-genre are subtly pushed aside for an exploration of the broader range of harmonies and rhythms. “The Sun Will Shine Today” is a standout track that has the players on this album skilfully soloing. With five out of seven tracks composed by Thompson, this album is a showcase for a rising talent in pan jazz, hopeful to maintain the Caribbean variation of jazz music in the Americas. Electro Sax Elan Trotman (Island Muzik Productions) Bajan saxman Elan Trotman keeps churning out new albums at a rapid pace, as if to suggest the uptake of his new music is effective and guaranteed to be popular. With this, his seventh fulllength album since 2001, he keeps evolving his style around his smooth jazz base to eke out new niches. Utilising the electronic dance music drum elements so popular in recent times, Electro Sax redefines what is possible with Caribbean music. Aware that this album will “definitely ruffle feathers” for its modern production aesthetic — he assembled a creative team of up-and-coming producers, all Berklee College of Music alumni: Spardakis, P-Nut, Dr O, and Da Troof — Trotman is persevering in his push to promote the tropicality elements along with just great music for dancing. Debut single “Island Gyal” percolates with a sexy reggae vibe, keeping hope alive that this experiment in EDM fusion remains grounded in his Bajan roots. Cé Biguine! Charlie Halloran (Twerk-o-Phonic) This album represents, in the twenty-first century, a kind of harking back to the music and technology of a bygone era. New Orleans trombonist Charlie Halloran and his band have recorded an album of orchestrated biguine — the music of the French Antilles created in the early twentieth century as a creole stew of Afro-Caribbean and European musical tropes — straight to 78 rpm acetate disc master, to create a modern artefact of music history. Pops and clicks like an old vinyl record give this recording a nostalgic ambience, while the music has a quality that makes you want to grab a partner and dance the night away under tropical stars. It eschews the kitsch of 1950s American tourist views of the Antilles as a playground, for a re-awakening of the musical distinctiveness and inventiveness of the creole musician. Novelty aside, this album is a keepsake for listeners wanting to understand the Caribbean’s role in the evolution of jazz. Jazz, then and now, is rewarded. Single Spotlight Say Yeah/Baila Mami Preedy/Nailah Blackman (Anson Productions) Riddim is king in both dancehall and soca music in the Caribbean. Multiple songs sharing the identical musical accompaniment would be a nightmare for a modern copyright lawyer seeking originality, but here in the Caribbean it is the fortunate fate of the music producer, who can milk as much life out of a song as can earn multiples in royalties and airplay. We like it so! “Parallel Riddim” producer Anson Soverall shares his music with fellow Trinidadians soca artist Preedy (“Say Yeah”) and rising star Nailah Blackman (“Baila Mami”), for a pair of songs with a smooth modern dancehall vibe, exploring parallel emotions that never intersect or mix. Simply, this is a groove mover with lyrics that address love, regret, and second chances (“Say Yeah”), and lust, excitement, and naïve hedonism (“Baila Mami”) — both destined to make you dance close to a partner. Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell 34 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
SCREENSHOTS Moko Jumbie Directed by Vashti Anderson, 2017, 93 minutes The farther we get from where we once were, the more we yearn for that place and those we associate with it. Forget that we weren’t actually born there, or that the souls we most identify with the place no longer walk its earth. Passports may tell us we are citizens of a particular country, but what are such dictates when stacked against the affinities of the heart? What if home is elsewhere? Such anxieties of being and belonging thread their way through Moko Jumbie, the first feature by Vashti Anderson, a Wisconsin-born, New York-based filmmaker, the daughter of a Trinidadian mother and a father from the United States. A supernatural search for the self as well as a tremulous, moonlit romance, Moko Jumbie is both haunting and haunted, a palpably realised fever-dream of a film. At the film’s centre is Asha (Vanna Vee Girod), a young British woman of Trinidadian parentage and Indian ethnicity. A “Paki” in England, Asha is, with her studied goth persona, no less an outsider in Trinidad, where she arrives in the summer of 1990. Staying with her watchful aunt Mary (Sharda Maharaj) on the family’s run-down coconut estate, Asha realises that all isn’t as it seems here, including her enigmatic uncle Jagessar (a scene-stealing Dinesh Maharaj). Along comes Roger (Jeremy Thomas), a pan-playing, crabcatching neighbour, one of “them Africans” in Mary’s phrase. Insouciant in his manner, with a cutlass trailing from his hand, Roger instantly catches Asha’s eye. The youngsters begin a secret affair. In lesser hands such a setup might have been steered towards more obvious ends, but Anderson — buoyed by Shlomo Godder’s lambent cinematography — elegantly sidesteps the ordinary, imbuing her heartfelt island love letter with visual wonder, lyrical depth, and an invigorating sense of the fantastic. This is a glimmering, memorable film. For more information, visit mokojumbiethefilm.com Sambá Directed by Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, 2017, 90 minutes From their first feature, Cochochi (2007), to their acclaimed drama Sand Dollars (2014), the directing duo of Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán have inched their films away from a loosely plotted, quasidocumentary form towards a more narratively traditional style. Sambá is the apotheosis of this development. Deported from the United States, Cisco (Algenis Perez Soto) takes to fighting for money on Santo Domingo’s streets. He catches the eye of the Italian Nichi (Ettore D’Alessandro, the film’s writer), a once-promising pugilist who sees coaching Cisco as a shortcut to erasing his debts. Add a romantic interest, Luna (Laura Gómez), and a subplot featuring Cisco’s estranged son Leury (Ricardo Ariel Toribio), and Sambá hits most of the boxing picture’s storytelling beats (there’s even a Rocky-style training montage). A winsomely melancholic tone, however, saves Sambá from clichéd triumphalism — except in its final moments, when Cárdenas and Guzmán wisely give in to convention. For more information, visit facebook.com/sambafilm The Watchman Directed by Alejandro Andújar, 2017, 87 minutes Ugly events unfold in beautiful surroundings in The Watchman, Alejandro Andújar’s patiently observed debut feature, about class exploitation and the insuperable divide between races in the Dominican Republic. Once a fisherman, Juan (Héctor Aníbal) now makes a lonely living as caretaker of a beach house owned by Don Victor (Archie López). Victor’s feckless son, Rich (Yasser Michelén), shows up unannounced one day for a short holiday with friends: parasitic lothario Alex (Héctor Medina), naïve village girl Karen (Julietta Rodríguez), and coy, wealthy neighbour Belissa (Paula Ferry). The elements are in place for an increasingly tense and eventually explosive chamber piece. Unlike The Maid or The Second Mother — recent Latin American cinematic portraits of domestic servitude — The Watchman isn’t interested in subverting the master-servant relationship, which adds an element of dourness to the proceedings. Aníbal gives a grimly stolid performance to match, Juan helpless and humiliated to the bitter end. For more information, visit facebook.com/ elhombrequecuida Reviews by Jonathan Ali WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 35
Page 2 and 3: Is your Lady Luck a princess? Princ
Page 12 and 13: Contents No. 147 September/October
Page 14 and 15: AdvertoriAl Gareth Jenkins and Petr
Page 16 and 17: A MESSAGE From THE CARIBBEAN AIRLIN
Page 20 and 21: Escape the ordinary. Discover Hyatt
Page 22 and 23: datebook If you’re in . . . NEW Y
Page 24 and 25: datebook Sweet September Antigua Wa
Page 26 and 27: datebook Obsessed with October Miam
Page 28: word of mouth Dispatches from our c
Page 31 and 32: have made it a kind of transport hu
Page 33 and 34: It’s a bold evolution of the Swif
Page 35: Trinidad Noir: The Classics, edited
Page 39 and 40: In Japan, a cup of Blue Mountain co
Page 41 and 42: Immerse courtesy third horizon 40 S
Page 43 and 44: “ Caribbean history is more impor
Page 45 and 46: “Before the film took off, we got
Page 47 and 48: WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 45
Page 49 and 50: WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 47
Page 51 and 52: ARRIVE mbrand85/shutterstock.com 50
Page 53 and 54: Protected by a marine park, the uni
Page 55 and 56: For generations fishing was the mai
Page 57 and 58: In a chain of islands with no short
Page 59 and 60: kay wilson St Vincent’s volcanic
Page 61 and 62: pete oxford amanda richards Shelter
Page 63 and 64: An archipelago diary In the blazing
Page 65 and 66: RAndre/shutterstock.comi to Naxos,
Page 67 and 68: Greece Athens Mykonos Delos Paros N
Page 69 and 70: ENGAGE Martin Michael Rudlof/shutte
Page 71 and 72: Two animal species have apparently
Page 73 and 74: Nor were the French, the former col
Page 75 and 76: WORD SEARCH bay bean Bequia brew Ca
Page 77: Caribbean Airlines / Across the Wor
Page 82: parting shot A cave with a view Hig

Caribbean Beat — September/October 2017 (#147)

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