Nigel A Camp­bell

On a pic­turesque plateau above Ari­ma over­look­ing the dis­tant Ca­roni plains, the Holy Cross Alum­ni pro­duced a jazz event for the ages–Jazz on D Hill–fea­tur­ing an All Star Trib­ute to Ralph Mac­Don­ald on Moth­er's Day, May 11. The mu­sic of the late Tri­ni-by-blood mu­si­cian, com­pos­er and pro­duc­er res­onat­ed in the night as some of the best and most fa­mous mu­si­cians in jazz cov­ered the songs span­ning Mac­Don­ald's so­lo ca­reer from the 1970s to his un­time­ly death in 2011 and be­yond.

Led by trum­peter, Eti­enne Charles, this ag­gre­ga­tion of su­per­stars of jazz in­clud­ed mul­ti­ple Gram­my award win­ner Mar­cus Miller on bass gui­tar, Bud­dy Williams, one of the most record­ed drum­mers of all time, pan­nist ex­tra­or­di­naire Robert Greenidge along with oth­er Mac­Don­ald al­bum alum­nae, vo­cal­ists Nadi­rah Shakoor and Den­nis Collins, Bar­ba­di­an stars Ar­turo Tap­pin on sax­o­phone and Nicholas Branker on key­boards, and Charles' Cre­ole Soul band mates Alex Wintz and Kris Bow­ers on gui­tar and key­boards re­spec­tive­ly.

The most sig­nif­i­cant in­clu­sion in this All Star group­ing was Gary Fritz, Mac­Don­ald's cousin who had the joy­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of recre­at­ing the per­cus­sion parts that au­di­ences have grown ac­cus­tomed to over the years from Mac­Don­ald. The clas­sic Jam on the Groove has a per­cus­sion break that utilised toy ham­mers that ex­em­pli­fied how the mun­dane can be­come ex­tra­or­di­nary in the hands of a mas­ter. For the dis­co hit, Ca­lyp­so Break­down, Mac­Don­ald's son At­i­ba joined the All Stars to play the iron and en­hance the "en­gine room" to joy­ous ova­tion. At that point the rains came down, but the mag­ic lin­gered.

The au­di­ence that evening were en­joy­ing a world class per­for­mance of great mu­sic at a pre­mi­um val­ue. Mar­cus Miller and Bud­dy Williams ex­em­pli­fied su­pe­ri­or stan­dards of per­for­mance that show­cased their abil­i­ty to stay in the back­ground and pro­vide sol­id rhythm, but when called up­on to so­lo, as Miller was on Mr Mag­ic, to do so with skill and au­di­ence-tin­gling en­er­gy. The sound of his bass was clear and de­fined and stood out among the oth­er in­stru­ments in the band that was un­der­served by poor sound re­in­force­ment.

In this mu­sic mem­o­ry-fest of im­por­tant cov­ers, Ar­turo Tap­pin's tenor sax­o­phone per­formed the role Grover Wash­ing­ton flesh­ing out the melodies on songs like Wine­light, Just The Two Of Us and Mr Mag­ic, while Alex Wintz played the fa­mil­iar rhythm gui­tar grooves of Er­ic Gale on these songs and blaz­ing through a sear­ing so­lo on the Rober­ta Flack-Don­ny Hath­away hit Where is the Love. Tap­pin and Charles trad­ed licks on most tunes em­pha­sis­ing that the Caribbean groove ex­tend­ed be­yond per­cus­sion and rhythm in­to melody and jam.

Nadi­rah Shakoor and Den­nis Collins reprised their roles from the Mac­Don­ald CDs as vo­cal­ists on the lat­ter hits Kiss Kiss Kiss and Trip­pin' as well as those sem­i­nal songs as Re­mem­ber Kitch­en­er and Just the Two of Us. Shakoor's take on the slow bal­lad Gen­er­a­tions from his posthu­mous­ly re­leased CD of the same name was new to lo­cal ears, and ham­pered by the rains that were a fre­quent in­ter­rupter to an un­cov­ered au­di­ence. Charles re­mind­ed his au­di­ence that night: "Rain was Ralph cry­ing tears of joy."

Eti­enne Charles had craft­ed this trib­ute band and the idea of a trib­ute band tour pri­or to the pass­ing of Mac­Don­ald. Says Charles: "Some years ago, I was in­vit­ed to do the Co­ca-Co­la Gen­er­a­tions in Jazz Fes­ti­val cov­er­ing the mu­sic of Ralph, and the idea that Den­nis Collins and I had be­fore Ralph's pass­ing be­came re­al as we moved to­wards do­ing the trib­ute with those great mu­si­cians who worked with him." Charles' con­nec­tions in the US mu­sic in­dus­try and Mac­Don­ald's lega­cy helped to co­a­lesce this band, and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form in the land of hiss her­itage was not to be avoid­ed.

Mac­Don­ald was de­scribed by Min­is­ter of Arts, Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, ear­li­er in the evening as "... a true am­bas­sador of things Caribbean."

Those melodies and per­cus­sion breaks over the decades have thrilled and en­ter­tained au­di­ences here and abroad.

Moth­er's Day was an evening of mem­o­ries of the songs and rhythms that de­fine Caribbean peo­ple, and on a week­end that al­so host­ed South African mu­sic icon Hugh Masakela in con­cert, this is­land was a mec­ca for mas­ter­ful mu­sic.