Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were ho­n­oured last week Wednes­day night when the South Cen­tral Re­gion of Tu­co host­ed Free­dom Road 3, at the City Hall Au­di­to­ri­um, Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do. The show was up to the high stan­dards set by this arm of Tu­co for its every pro­duc­tion and the an­nu­al suc­cess of its Kaiso Showkase ca­lyp­so show.

Danc­ing to save a na­tion

Not too far back, around 40 years ago, one of the ac­tiv­i­ties that kept youths oc­cu­pied was dance. Aside from your bal­let, mod­ern con­tem­po­rary, folk and jazz com­pa­nies na­tion­wide, many a youth of the day im­mersed them­selves in dis­co danc­ing, the craze of the 80s.

With dis­cothe­ques sprout­ing up across the land, some of the pop­u­lar ones, be­ing Palavar Place, Rolls Royce In­ter­na­tion­al, Im­pact, Fortress, Her­itage ‘67 and Leo Toro, young dancers would spend hours em­u­lat­ing the moves of US dancers seen on pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion show Soul Train, and in videos from New York’s Stu­dio 54.

At Im­pact, lo­cat­ed op­po­site Port-of-Spain City Hall, on Fred­er­ick Street, we held a unique com­pe­ti­tion billed as Dis­co­ma­nia. Af­ter some gru­elling elim­i­na­tions, be­gin­ning around the Christ­mas of 1980, the grand fi­nal was held on Jan­u­ary 10, 1980. Dancers from every nook and cran­ny of the coun­try, but in the end the over­all cham­pi­on was the team of Or­chid Tay­lor and An­tho­ny St Vin­cent.

Tay­lor and Vin­cent danced for 13 hours non-stop, with­out a break, go­ing through a se­ries of dance styles, in­clud­ing Cha Cha Cha, Bolero, Rock­ers, Hus­tle, East In­di­an, Chi­nese and of course ca­lyp­so. Dancers were al­lowed two-minute bath­room breaks every two hours.

Ex­cite­ment was ripe and in­tense that fi­nal night at Im­pact. Some of the en­trants faint­ed through ex­haus­tion, a cou­ple suf­fered sprained an­kles and oth­ers who had tak­en off their shoes to dance couldn’t get them back on when they left the dance floor. But, all in all, it was a night of clean, whole­some fun.

The com­pe­ti­tion be­gan at 4.27 pm on a Sat­ur­day and end­ed at 5.27 am the next morn­ing.

Tay­lor is now the moth­er of three grown chil­dren and still loves danc­ing, while Vin­cent, who had a dance school in Wood­brook, mi­grat­ed to the US and re­sides in Nashville, Ten­nessee.

Maybe, there’s a pro­mot­er out there, per­haps Randy Glas­gow or Ger­ald Yorke, who will reprise Dis­co­ma­nia, of­fer­ing a new chal­lenge for the youths of to­day.

Pan, Jazz and So­ca!

World renowned sax­o­phon­ist Ar­turo Tap­pin will be re­turn­ing to Trinidad this Sat­ur­day 10th Au­gust and Sun­day 11th Au­gust at St Do­minic’s Pas­toral Cen­tre and Na­pari­ma Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um re­spec­tive­ly for Ar­turo Tap­pin & Friends at To­geth­er in Mu­sic.

The first melo­di­ous­ly and charis­mat­ic con­cert will be held at the lux­u­ri­ous St Do­minic’s Pas­toral Cen­tre, Morne Co­co Road, Diego Mar­tin with dy­nam­ic vo­cal­ist and song­writer Tri­cia Lee Kelshall, world class pan­nist Jo­hann Chucka­ree and sul­try voice Kevon Carter, Sat­ur­day 10th Au­gust at 7.30 PM.

Tri­cia Lee be­gan her singing ca­reer at 19 when she au­di­tioned for the then new So­ca band, Sec­ond Im­ij. She be­came an icon in the So­ca are­na with her voice, tal­ent and live­ly per­for­mances and was dubbed ‘The So­ca Di­va. As a so­lo artiste she has done sev­er­al com­mand per­for­mances for His Roy­al High­ness Prince Charles, the Pres­i­dent of In­dia and Heads of CARI­COM States, to name a few. Tri­cia was a main­stay at the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence, per­form­ing for many of its state func­tions at home and abroad.

As a re­cip­i­ent of the 2014 Na­tion­al Youth Award for Arts and Cul­ture, Jo­hann Chucka­ree has en­joyed tour­ing the globe as part of cul­tur­al con­tin­gents rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. In 2013, he trav­elled to Berlin, Ger­many to take part in the ITB Tourism Con­fer­ence; he has en­ter­tained at the T&T Olympic Cul­tur­al Vil­lage and the World Trav­el Mar­ket in Lon­don (2012); and for the FI­FA World Cup in 2006, he ac­com­pa­nied Phase II Pan Groove to Ger­many. Jo­hann lists one of his most mem­o­rable per­for­mances as shar­ing the stage with Tri­ni-born Gram­my award-win­ning record­ing artiste Heather Headley dur­ing her first lo­cal con­cert at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts in 2011. 

Kevon Carter’s sound can most ac­cu­rate­ly be de­scribed as that of ‘World Mu­sic’, a dis­tinc­tion based al­most en­tire­ly on the blend­ing of his cul­tur­al in­flu­ences. The smooth melod­ic tex­ture of his voice has the mark­ings of his mu­sic men­tors such as El De­barge, Smokey Robin­son, Bob Mar­ley and Michael Jack­son. Kevon is cer­tain­ly ex­cit­ed to share his mu­si­cal ven­ture with the world one tune at a time.

The sec­ond show on Sun­day 11th will held at Na­pari­ma Boys’ Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um along with the en­ter­tain­ing and sub­lime Vaugh­nette Big­ford, ace pan­nist Dar­ren Shep­herd and the ever pop­u­lar Ken­ny J.

With her un­usu­al name, her sig­na­ture look, and a voice like the rus­tle of a vel­vet skirt, Vaugh­nette Big­ford is hard to for­get; and she is on a mis­sion to re­mind us that lo­cal mu­sic does not be­gin and end with Ca­lyp­so and So­ca. Ac­cord­ing to Vaugh­nette, she wants to delve in­to the mu­sic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and bring to life the kind of mu­sic peo­ple are not hear­ing now, like mu­sic from Car­ol Ad­di­son and Mavis John. “That’s our mu­sic, too!”

Mul­ti-tal­ent­ed pan­nist and per­cus­sion­ist Dar­ren Shep­pard, has been recog­nised as the on­ly stu­dent to per­form in school steel­band com­pe­ti­tion as an arranger, cap­tain, soloist and drum­mer. He has al­so per­formed at the du­Mau­ri­er Toron­to Jazz Fes­ti­val, Beach­es Jazz Fes­ti­val and the an­nu­al Jazz on Steel con­cert se­ries.

Al­though he is fa­mous­ly known for Parang So­ca and con­sid­ered to be the King of Parang So­ca, Ken­ny J (Ken­neth Joseph), is an all round Trinida­di­an en­ter­tain­er with re­leas­es in Ca­lyp­so and So­ca love songs too and is ex­cit­ed to ren­der his melo­di­ous reper­toire to the au­di­ence.

Tick­ets for Ar­turo Tap­pin & Friends at To­geth­er in Mu­sic are priced at $300 (Gen­er­al Ad­mis­sion) and $350 (Spe­cial Re­served) and can be pur­chased at Cros­by’s – St James, Richard’s –West Mall, The Do­mini­can Book Store – St Fin­bar’s, Liv­ing Wa­ters – Fred­er­ick Street, Massy Stores – Pe­tit Val­ley, Four Road & West Mall, Seon’s Bar – Roy­al Road, both Ather­ley’s lo­ca­tions, Na­pari­ma Col­lege, all NL­CB Lot­to out­lets; and on­line at sun­tixx.com.

Part pro­ceeds will go to The Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty and Na­pari­ma Boys’ Col­lege.

For more in­for­ma­tion, call 708 8794.