Si­mon Lee

The fourth an­nu­al Bird­song ben­e­fit con­cert was ap­pro­pri­ate­ly held in the Lord Kitch­en­er au­di­to­ri­um at Na­pa on June 22. As an icon of T&T's mu­si­cal pat­ri­mo­ny, Kitch would sure­ly have ap­proved of the pro­ceed­ings: Com­po­si­tions in­spired by pan; a new gen­er­a­tion of mu­si­cians shaped and nur­tured by some of our ex­tant mae­stros and the sheer ebul­lience that goes with vi­brant, live per­for­mance.

De­spite its sta­tus as pre­mier per­for­mance venue, nei­ther Na­pa it­self or Kitch's au­di­to­ri­um is au­di­ence- or per­former-friend­ly. The open­ing seg­ment was per­formed by the Bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra, aug­ment­ed by a brass and wood­wind sec­tion com­posed of stu­dents and fac­ul­ty, po­si­tioned at the back of a cav­ernous stage, too far from the au­di­ence to es­tab­lish the kind of in­ti­mate rap­port nec­es­sary for a siz­zling col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Ini­tial wob­bles were com­pound­ed by sound sys­tem prob­lems: Dis­tor­tion, pans and per­cus­sion drown­ing out oth­er in­stru­ments.

But un­der Richard Quar­les' di­rec­tion, the Bird­song fledg­lings found their wings, as Na­pa sound en­gi­neers re­fined the mix.

Their set was am­bi­tious and chal­leng­ing, be­gin­ning with the syn­co­pat­ed rhythms of Perez Pra­do's Mam­bo Num­ber 8 and in­tro­duc­ing a Latin-jazz theme of­ten re­turned to through­out the evening. The vibe mel­lowed with Jo­bim's lan­guorous One Note Sam­ba Cor­co­v­a­do and be­gan to swing state­side with the Neal Hefti stan­dard Cute, a fix­ture in Count Basie's reper­toire.

Kitch got his due with The Car­ni­val is Over, which could have done with some more brass but by now the lit­tle birds were cook­ing with gas, con­fi­dent­ly hit­ting their Latin jazz stride with Celia Cruz's La Vi­da es un Car­ni­val. On this num­ber the rhythm sec­tion came in­to their own, with drums and con­gas out­stand­ing.

Af­ter this sweep through the Amer­i­c­as, the or­ches­tra flew home on the wings of Shad­ow's trib­ute to mu­sic, Din­go­lay, dur­ing which, amid the pan ex­u­ber­ance, there were lulls fea­tur­ing a fleet­ing but per­fect­ly ex­e­cut­ed flute riff.

Next up was blind vo­cal­ist Ny­ol Man­swell, the first re­cip­i­ent of a Bird­song schol­ar­ship, which has fund­ed his near­ly com­plet­ed de­gree at the pres­ti­gious Berklee School of Mu­sic. If any en­dorse­ment is need­ed for Bird­song, lis­ten no fur­ther than Man­swell, whose blos­som­ing in five short years is tran­si­tion­ing in­to full bloom. This year he has demon­strat­ed both ma­tu­ri­ty and ver­sa­til­i­ty: Win­ning the Stars of To­mor­row con­test, plac­ing sec­ond in the Young Kings ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion and fea­tur­ing in the an­nu­al Jazz on the Greens con­cert. Now he can add la­con­ic MC to his cred­its. Af­ter gen­er­ous­ly shar­ing his set with stu­dents in a se­ries of duets, he in­tro­duced with pi­cong panache and praise, set­ting the young singers at their ease.

Backed by the Bird­song Voic­es and ac­com­pa­nied by fel­low Berklee stu­dents Noe Socha on gui­tar and An­dre Jack on bass, with lo­cal Ra­jesh Mo­hammed on a mean key­boards, Man­swell opened with a soul­ful so­lo: the jazz stan­dard My Fun­ny Valen­tine. Af­ter end­ing in falset­to he called on­stage "One of the big-mouthed stu­dents"–Jas­mine Adams–for a stir­ring ren­di­tion of the Ste­vie Won­der Shel­ter through the Rain, de­liv­ered with gospel punch, and then segued in­to the David Fos­ter com­po­si­tion Through the Fire, with Kay­la Per­sad re­mind­ing us of a youth­ful Cha­ka Khan at her belt­ing R&B best.

Join­ing Man­swell for his own soul com­po­si­tion I Win (ded­i­cat­ed to his can­cer-sur­vivor sis­ter) was Jabar­ry Nar­ine, whose emo­tive de­liv­ery re­called the young Michael Jack­son and whose pal­pa­ble de­light and con­fi­dence in per­form­ing, are all the trib­ute Bird­song could ever need.

Rud­der's Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic in­tro­duced an­oth­er com­ing star in the shape of Ani­ka Ed­wards, with both the voice and moves to fly high. This num­ber was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Man­swell's gift­ed class­mate Socha to add har­mon­i­ca riffs and new colour to a re­gion­al an­them. The fi­nal Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller song, Live Your Life, brought Dion Mans­ingh on­stage for a fit­ting boys-to-men fi­nale.

Rais­ing cur­tain and pores for the sec­ond half was the sec­ond Bird­song schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent, pan­nist Der­ri­anne Dyett, cur­rent­ly study­ing in Hol­land. Her diminu­tive form be­lied her ma­jor tal­ent and while it was im­me­di­ate­ly pos­si­ble to hear the hand of Andy Narell in her tech­nique, it took sharp­er ears to pick out the sub­tle­ty of her har­mon­ics, which some have com­pared with Rudy "Two Left" Smith. Backed by the Bird­song Small En­sem­ble, she played her own arrange­ments of such de­mand­ing jazz com­po­si­tions as Ore­gon's Creep­er, Eti­enne Charles' Kaiso (with Daniel Ryan on tenor sax), Dave Hol­land's Con­fer­ence of Birds (fea­tur­ing Katie Gain­ham on flute), con­clud­ing with mae­stro Chu­cho Valdes' Mam­bo In­flu­en­ci­a­do. Once again we have the Bird­song Mu­sic Acad­e­my to thank for nur­tur­ing and fund­ing this bud­ding vir­tu­oso.

Wrap­ping up and gift­ing the en­tire per­for­mance came the Bird­song Small En­sem­ble, led by the in­es­timable duke of the ivories and "per­haps the great­est liv­ing ex­po­nent of ca­lyp­so jazz," Raf Robert­son.

Stu­dents can on­ly tru­ly ex­cel when ex­posed to the best prac­tice, and the ex­cel­lence the au­di­ence en­joyed that night be­came self-ex­plana­to­ry as the mas­ters played for their stu­dents. Repris­ing an ear­li­er Brazil­ian theme the en­sem­ble set out to se­duce with a sun­ni­ly sin­u­ous sam­ba-So Nice, with Theron Shaw's gui­tar at its mel­liflu­ent best. While the au­di­ence basked in the mu­si­cal sun­shine of the Susaye Greene and Ste­vie Won­der Can't Help It, Raf re­mind­ed them that this was a free gig (as in, no loot for the mu­si­cians) and queried whether it was pos­si­ble to put a price on the hap­pi­ness and joy mu­sic brings.

He an­swered his own rhetor­i­cal ques­tion with the Dizzy Gille­spie scorcher Con Al­ma and the beau­ti­ful­ly arranged and bal­anced Prince Clemen­dore, with Shaw show­ing all the signs of be­ing a wor­thy suc­ces­sor to Trinidad's and the one of the world's great­est jazz gui­tarists, Fitzroy Cole­man, in this ec­sta­t­ic, free-flow­ing pan-in­spired take on kaiso. Con­clud­ing with ho­n­our and re­spect, the huge but Small En­sem­ble paid trib­ute to ca­lyp­so jazz pi­o­neer Clive Zan­da, with their fi­nal num­ber, and his clas­sic Fan­cy Sailor, a favourite wher­ev­er Caribbean jazz finds an au­di­ence.

It seems un­gra­cious to end this re­view on a down­beat, but it is nec­es­sary to point out that the whole Bird­song project strug­gles along woe­ful­ly un­der­fund­ed, while ridicu­lous sums of mon­ey go un­ac­count­ed for or are wast­ed on in­ef­fec­tive cos­met­ic ex­er­cis­es. The fac­ul­ty of gift­ed and ex­pe­ri­enced mu­si­cian/tu­tors are no longer state-fund­ed, mak­ing a mock­ery of what all who have ex­pe­ri­enced Bird­song re­alise is pre­cise­ly the kind of com­mu­ni­ty ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­gramme T&T so des­per­ate­ly needs.

Every com­mu­ni­ty needs its Bird­song, not least to res­cue youth from crime, dis­ease, ear­ly death and wast­ed life, but al­so to give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come as con­fi­dent, tal­ent­ed and so­cial­ly con­scious as the Bird­song­sters.

What a shame not a sin­gle gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, MP, of­fi­cial from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion or Cul­ture of­fi­cial saw fit to at­tend this con­cert and dis­cov­er a ready-made an­swer to so many of the prob­lems they seem com­mit­ted to com­pound­ing rather than solv­ing.