Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine in 2007 June is jazz month in Jamaica, with the 17th Ocho Rios Jazz Festival continuing this year as the main attraction, running June 9-17. Founded back in 1991 by Sonny Bradshaw, the festival started as an experimental one-day event they called the Ocho Rios “Mini” Jazz …
Category: music
You fraid de weather?
An ode to my favourite soca mondegreens MONDEGREEN (mŏn'də-grēn): A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric. e.g.: Find a place, make dis Bajan move for Find a place, make a stage and move (Fay-Ann Lyons-Alvarez' M.A.S. or Make A Stage). A stringband of soca mondegreens …
No Licks Sharin’
I was in a car last year, stuck in a traffic jam somewhere just beyond West Mall en route to Mobs2 having jes left the Savannah, when I heard the Panorama '06 results. Phase II had beat out my All Stars by 1.5 points. Me and de friend in de car cuss all de way …
These are the Monarchs of Soca??
International Power Soca Monarch Results: 1. The artist formerly known as Iwer George ("Fete After Fete") 2. Nadia Batson featuring KES ("My Land") 3. Shurwayne Winchester ("Open D Gate") 4. Patrice Roberts ("Sugar Boy") International Groovy Soca Monarch Results: 1. Biggie Irie ("Nah Goin' Home") 2. Chucky ("Turn Around") 3. Nadia Batson ("Caribbean Girl") 4. …
Fete after fete after fete after fete?
Where I live, I am strategically positioned to get the doo-doop from a plethora of Carnival fetes. Ambassador up one side, Country Club down another, PTSC Grounds behind, Savannah over yonder, with a view of the Stadium flood lights from my room. But daz all I can do. Watch de lights from afar and take …
Bird of Night (2006) takes flight | Caribbean Review of Books
Originally written for and published in the Caribbean Review of Books (CRB), November 2006. There is a sketch next to Trinidadian Dominique Le Gendre’s Bird of Night programme note which captures graphically her own complex identity: individual, peer, family, national, collective, Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Martinique, and Trinidad. As is perhaps the case with every Caribbean artist, the …
Continue reading Bird of Night (2006) takes flight | Caribbean Review of Books
Review: Carnival Messiah (2004)
I had heard all the buzz, and I’d read the awful deconstructions in the press, and was eager to see how I felt about Carnival Messiah. As I expected, I could see where the strong feelings for and against the production had originated. The programme described it as a ‘two-hour spectacular’, but in reality, it was some three and a …
Branford Marsalis in concert (2003)
This was written as an assignment for a jazz music class while studying at Williams College in 2003 The Branford Marsalis concert, which went up in Chapin Hall on Friday November 14th, was one of the most varied concerts I have had the benefit of attending at Williams, bridging the gap between two forms of music I …
Caroline Taylor 