Pe­ter Ray Blood

Robert Greenidge took Caribbean Night to an­oth­er lev­el last Thurs­day night.Ini­ti­at­ed over two decades ago at Up­per Lev­el Club in West Mall, the week­ly Thurs­day night spe­cial is be­ing reprised at Wood­brook's pop­u­lar De Nu Pub, fea­tur­ing Pel­ham God­dard and Roots, with hand­picked guest artistes.

Guest­ing with Roots, Greenidge turned the venue in­side out play­ing four of his orig­i­nal se­lec­tions, in­clud­ing Par­adise Gar­dens. How­ev­er, it was the ag­gre­ga­tion's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy that re­al­ly had the crowd wak­ing up and set­ting the place alight. Em­bell­ish­ing the Bun­ji Gar­lin hit sin­gle with horns, with solo­ing by sax­o­phon­ist Mal­colm Boyce and trum­peter Clyde Mitchell, and Greenidge on pan, Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy was pre­sent­ed, and wel­comed, with new gus­to and rel­ish. This cov­er is cry­ing out for en­try to the stu­dio, to add to the song's al­ready im­pres­sive rat­ings and just re­leased video.

Greenidge's set on the night al­so in­clud­ed Blue Bossa, If I nev­er see you again, Par­adise Gar­den and From the heart. At the end of his per­for­mance, Boyce pre­sent­ed Greenidge with a to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the col­lab­o­ra­tion Greenidge af­ford­ed the Roots' mu­si­cians at the just con­clud­ed St Lu­cia Jazz Fes­ti­val.Caribbean Night is well on its way to re­ceiv­ing the pub­lic sup­port and pop­u­lar­i­ty it en­joyed back in the day and Thurs­day night's edi­tion saw an au­di­ence that was "ready," mak­ing an en­e­my of chairs, and danc­ing to al­most every se­lec­tion per­formed by the band, led by vo­cal­ists Mori­cia Ca­gan and Nigel O'Con­nor.

Seen at Thurs­day's show were for­mer Bar­ba­dos Road March cham­pi­on Ras Iley; top lo­cal mu­si­cian/arranger Le­ston Paul; Paraguay band Sem­brador; Wood­brook coun­cil­lor Cleve­land Gar­cia and his wife Al­li­ma; Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az; vice pres­i­dent Bry­on Ser­rette; for­mer pres­i­dent Owen Ser­rette; Pan Trin­ba­go zon­al of­fi­cial Di­ane Dupre; Tu­co chair­man Lu­ta­lo "Bro Re­sis­tance" Masim­ba; Wit­co Des­per­a­does man­ag­er Dr Fin­bar Fletch­er; Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus di­rec­tor Ainsworth Mo­hammed; for­mer Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions di­rec­tor Lennox Tou­s­saint; ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty John Benoit; Gram­my Award song­writer Anslem Dou­glas; and Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re-foresta­tion Project head Ak­i­lah Jaramo­gi.

Roots thrilled its cap­tive au­di­ence with a num­ber of past hits by for­mer vo­cal­ists David Rud­der and Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert, in­clud­ing Yes Dar­ling, Per­mis­sion to Mash Up the Place, Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic and Bac­cha­nal La­dy. Its reper­toire al­so in­clud­ed hits by Su­perBlue, Mer­chant, Ar­row, Kitch­en­er, GB and Blaxx.The next in­stal­ment of Caribbean Night will be held on June 6.