Pe­ter Ray Blood

As a born and bred son of Laven­tille, pride filled my chest last week­end as I at­tend­ed two of three stag­ings of Laven­tille Will Rise Again, pro­duced by the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion and Laven­tille Wit­co Des­per­a­does, with as­sis­tance from An­gos­tu­ra. The feel­ing of pride wasn't be­cause it was some­thing pos­i­tive com­ing out of a com­mu­ni­ty be­sieged by crime and neg­a­tiv­i­ty, but be­cause the soul and heart of the com­mu­ni­ty was be­ing pre­sent­ed in a ma­jes­tic, so­phis­ti­cat­ed and sin­cere fash­ion.

The Fri­day night pre­miere of the pro­duc­tion saw a packed Rudolph Charles-Clive Bradley Per­form­ing Arts The­atre at the top of Laven­tille Hill filled with res­i­dents and ar­dent sup­port­ers of cul­ture and Des­per­a­does. Seen were par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary Ni Le­ung Hy­po­lite, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Bridgid An­nisette-George, Law As­so­ci­a­tion head Mar­tin Daly, for­mer Cli­co ex­ec­u­tive An­dre Mon­teil, Fr Clyde Har­vey, ACP Ray­mond Craig, and "the women of Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders," Liz Nam­soo and De­siree May­ers.

Be­fore the start of the ac­tu­al show, Des­per­a­does man­ag­er Dr Fin­bar Fletch­er said, "Des­per­a­does is de­ter­mined to change the face of Laven­tille." His poignant and mov­ing ad­dress was punc­tu­at­ed with spon­ta­neous ap­plause from those gath­ered. Laven­tille will rise again was di­rect­ed by Pat Bish­op, Des­per­a­does' long-serv­ing mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, and in­clud­ed home-grown guest per­form­ers like so­ca di­va De­stra, rap­so gri­ot Broth­er Re­sis­tance, North West Laven­tille Per­form­ers, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Singing San­dra, Karene As­che and Con­tender. Af­ter the pre­miere, the pro­duc­tion was re­peat­ed on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day at the St James Am­phithe­atre, with Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion join­ing its cast.

Voic­es from the Hill

The tone quick­ly turned to one of ster­ling per­for­mances, as Con­tender per­formed East­moor­ings, one of the best com­posed so­cial com­men­taries of last year, and Yuh Cyar Buy One. Young, gift­ed and beau­ti­ful Karene As­che main­tained the stan­dard by ren­der­ing two equal­ly out­stand­ing so­cial com­men­taries, name­ly Baby­lon and Friend­ly So­ci­ety. Singing San­dra (Toll for Thee/Voic­es from the Ghet­to), Re­sis­tance and De­stra were in a class by them­selves, with the lat­ter all ex­cit­ed, point­ing out a house she fre­quent­ed as a child, lodged al­most in­side the Des­per­a­does pa­n­yard.

North West Laven­tille showed why it is con­sis­tent­ly a cham­pi­on at the an­nu­al Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion. The group did two en­thralling items but its sec­ond was the re­al clinch­er. The group danced the hu­man and flam­ing lim­bo to the strains of Des­per­a­does ac­tu­al­ly play­ing Bradley's 1983 Na­tion­al Panora­ma win­ner Re­bec­ca, with ad­di­tion­al drums of North West. Each au­di­ence on the three nights ac­tu­al­ly had its breath tak­en by the lim­bo rou­tine, which saw three dancers si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly go­ing un­der the flam­ing bar. Ded­i­cat­ed to the mem­o­ry of Clive Bradley, Des­per­a­does' reper­toire was al­most en­tire­ly of arrange­ments by this gift­ed mu­si­cian, the first three se­lec­tions by the band be­ing Let the mu­sic play, Tan­ger­ine and Or­di­nary Peo­ple.

Pat Bish­op con­ducts Laven­tille Wit­co Des­per­a­does on Fri­day night at the Rudolph Charles-Clive Bradley Per­form­ing Arts The­atre. Pho­to: Gre­go­ry Per­rotte

The band re­sumed its play­ing af­ter the guest artistes, its sec­ond ap­pear­ance fea­tur­ing Don't Cry For Me Ar­genti­na, Love Is a Many Splen­doured Thing, Theme from Ti­tan­ic, Michael Jack­son's We Are The World, In My House and Pic­ture On My Wall. On Sun­day at the Am­phithe­atre, af­ter the lat­ter item, Bish­op, who seemed buoyed to lofty heights by the mu­sic and the ac­com­plish­ment by Des­pers, em­phat­i­cal­ly of­fered the view that Bradley was bet­ter than the more revered clas­si­cal mu­si­cians, like Herold. As if to prove her point, Bish­op con­duct­ed the band play­ing Re­li­caro and Herold's Zam­pa. On each evening, at the end of Of­fen­bach's Or­pheus in the Un­der­world, Bish­op and Des­per­a­does were re­ward­ed with stand­ing ova­tions and thun­der­ous ap­plause, not un­like when the band per­formed this piece to a packed Carnegie Hall.

Of course, no pro­duc­tion pay­ing trib­ute to the ge­nius and mu­sic of Clive Bradley is com­plete with­out three of his sweet­est and most in­fec­tious arrange­ments–Jam­mer, This Melody Sweet and Re­bec­ca. On the night of the 1984 Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal, be­fore Des­pers per­formed Jam­mer, show host Phill "The Thrill from Laven­tille" Sim­mons rem­i­nisced that the late Rudolph Charles, hav­ing sus­tained a bro­ken leg in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent days be­fore, was wheeled on­to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage by "Thun­der­bolt Williams."

Wind­ing up

In her thank- you speech, Bish­op urged the cor­po­rate world to show its sup­port for Des­per­a­does and its mis­sion of chang­ing the face of Laven­tille by spon­sor­ing Laven­tille Will Rise Again and tak­ing the pro­duc­tion to oth­er dis­tricts na­tion­wide, in­clud­ing To­ba­go.