Dal­ton Nar­ine

A re­view of Oui Ma Ch�rie! by Andy Narell

Andy Narell's new al­bum, Oui ma Ch�rie!, has ar­rived with nerve and soul, and pac­ing and pas­sion. And its mys­tery and mas­tery make it all the more en­gag­ing.

Judg­ing by the CD's volup­tuous heft, Narell doesn't ap­pear to be on a mis­sion im­pos­si­ble–an angst to grind, old ma­te­r­i­al or clich­es to dig out from un­der the Panora­ma; or left­over im­puls­es from his Sa­van­nah ex­pe­ri­ence to ad­dress. No dark rum from which to take a swig over slights, re­al or imag­ined.

In­stead, he de­liv­ers an op­er­at­ic per­for­mance primed with a Caribbean col­oratu­ra.

The fas­tid­i­ous pan­nist em­ploys colours that are for­got­ten, re­fract­ed; even rent­ed from the imag­i­na­tion, to fash­ion a mo­sa­ic of ideas and sounds.

That the pan-ca­lyp­so al­bum comes pack­aged as the­atre is noth­ing new. But its spe­cial­ness is clear­ly formed in large part by the bravu­ra of the per­former/pro­duc­er, and, to much less­er ex­tent, the brava­do of Kitch­en­er as reprised by ca­lyp­son­ian Re­la­tor. Though the mer­cu­r­ial tal­ents of Narell's en­sem­ble al­so bring down the house.

Each side­man gets his due. Trum­peter Eti­enne Charles, gui­tarist Mike Stern, Guade­lou­pean drum­mer Gre­go­ry Louis and Cuban con­ga play­er and per­cus­sion­ist In­or So­to­lon­go per­form their roles at full stretch. Their co­he­sion ex­alts the sens­es and tele­ports us through provoca­tive themes as sol­id as pieces of Swiss choco­late that match mood and elic­it emo­tion.

There are mo­ments on Oui ma Ch�rie! that may take the top off your head, as po­et Emi­ly Dick­in­son would ver­si­fy. They emerge from un­bri­dled ren­di­tions on the pans that at the very least dig­ni­fy Narell as a sa­vant of mu­sic, pe­ri­od.

Take the open­ing cut, For­ward Home (arranged by Narell and Raf Robert­son), fea­tur­ing Thomas Dyani on djem­be (a West African drum). It is evoca­tive of com­pos­er An­dr� Tanker's quest to shine a light on roots mu­sic, pulling strands of African rhythm and sto­ry from the guts of the earth. At one point, Narell ap­pears to flick his sticks with per­cep­tive play­ful­ness dur­ing an elo­quent pas­sage in trib­ute to Tanker, as if to say, "This one's for you."

The Amer­i­can ex­pa­tri­ate who re­sides in France, and, some be­lieve, fre­quents Trinidad as a third home, turns all this vir­tu­os­i­ty in­to an ex­tra­or­di­nary work about vi­sion, des­tiny, iden­ti­ty, and light; though telling­ly coun­ter­point­ed by the crys­tal lines he im­bues his pan fam­i­ly.

A to­tal of 25 pan parts, au­thored by the mae­stro him­self, in­form the ba­sic sound of the al­bum, each hatch­ing the per­fect note.

The in­stru­ments are some­thing else.

Imag­ine the play­er be­hind the pans, his phleg­mat­ic de­meanor doused in sparkling wa­ter. The 21-minute track, Vis­i­bly Ab­sent, an ex­per­i­men­tal work for steel band that smells the mu­sic of oth­er coun­tries, get­ting its groove on by in­tro­duc­ing a sooth­ing af­fect, soft as teardrops that fall like bead­ed petals on notes fash­ioned by El­lie Man­nette; then bur­bling through the crevices of a com­po­si­tion awash with raw sen­si­bil­i­ties of Mid­dle East­ern and North African cul­ture. And, just so, in mid-stream, Narell starts a tin­kle on the iron; as if ca­ress­ing the m�tier of a slow jam from the en­gine room of Trinidad All Stars, a band with which he once col­lab­o­rat­ed on a con­cert at Queen's Hall.

Come to think of it, per­haps in a paean tothe Stars' vaunt­ed 'Ch­aguara­mas' bass­es of yore, vis­i­bly present are a few throw-back lines Narell em­ploys to com­ple­ment this mag­nif­i­cent opus.

Oh, his segue to the next track may be a tad jar­ring to some, but it's all right now as Re­la­tor hi­lar­i­ous­ly chimes in with an in­ter­mez­zo, char­ac­terised by a dou­ble en­ten­dre about Lenore, a Kitch­en­er jamette, whose well the dirty dit­ty is about. Such is Re­la­tor's charis­mat­ic voice - as im­pos­ing as ca­lyp­so's Grand­mas­ter - you find your­self long­ing for an en­core.

Narell then swings in­to the penul­ti­mate cut, The Last Word, his sparse but ef­fi­cient Panora­ma com­po­si­tion that could well be ring­ing in the ears of Panoramaphiles (as does 1999's Cof­fee Street to this day) had Bird­song ad­vanced to the 2014 fi­nals. Per­haps if on­ly the au­di­ence was ac­quaint­ed with the song ti­tle's pos­i­tive con­no­ta­tion: The sto­ry of a guy who says, "with my wife I al­ways have the last word, which is 'oui ma ch�rie' (yes dar­ling)."

Notwith­stand­ing the clas­sic Man­nette touch (at 87, he's still on his game, hav­ing tuned a dozen pans for the al­bum), Narell phras­es and strikes the mus­cu­lar in­stru­ments in a soft style, pro­duc­ing an oth­er­world­ly tim­bre that re­minds of the un­mis­tak­able am­bi­ence of To­ba­go, far from the madding crowd of a world that is rac­ing at break­neck speed.

Thus has the mem­o­ry of his stel­lar work on, for ex­am­ple, The Song­lines (Lit­tle Se­crets, 1989) and Tatoom (2007), be­come sub­li­mat­ed by this lat­est, sur­re­al oeu­vre in which he nev­er ap­pears to jus­ti­fy him­self. No in­di­ca­tion of old wounds to lick - no, you don't get that vibe here, not when he's fla­vor­ing the work with ex­ot­ic salts, mak­ing oc­ca­sion­al for­ays in­to our pri­vate uni­verse and prob­ing be­neath emo­tions that range from ad­mi­ra­tion to de­light.

From the ex­tend­ed dal­liance of the open­ing state­ment to the sen­ti­men­tal co­da, One More Touch, al­so fea­tur­ing Charles and Stern, Narell's ob­ser­va­tions of his own cre­ative land­scape - a whole life spent in its con­struc­tion - seem to be sift­ed through a keen mind that very well may be cyn­i­cal about the ro­man­tic pa­tois of the genre. Tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that the in­stru­ment, while evolv­ing, con­tin­ues to grow blessed and cursed alike, de­spite em­i­nence la­bo­ri­ous­ly gained around the world.

Clos­er to home, in the um­bil­i­cal re­gion, it is the ro­man­tic ide­al that shines through. You get that in Oui ma Ch�rie!, which makes for good the­atre and great lis­ten­ing. As for trans­mis­sion on ra­dio, there should be plen­ty to ex­tol about the al­bum's ca­su­al, jazzy tone and spec­u­la­tive arc.

Hear French philoso­pher Gas­ton Bachelard: "The sub­con­scious is cease­less­ly mur­mur­ing, and it is by lis­ten­ing to these mur­murs that one hears the truth."

Well, then, let's pon­der an im­pon­der­able. Is Narell's CD a con­fes­sion of sorts, giv­en the ti­tle is the sub­ti­tle of The Last Word, and For­ward Home the first cut?

And will "Dar­ling" age well?

You know what they say. The longer the rum is aged in the bar­rel the dark­er the rum will be­come.

IN­FO

Oui ma Ch�rie! is avail­able at Sanch Elec­tron­ix, Cleve's, Cros­by's, Kam's, Pa­per Based Book Store at the Nor­mandie and air­port out­lets M and To­tal Lo­cal.