Glenville Ash­by

From the rough and tum­ble, of­ten times dan­ger­ous world of the in­ner city, a tal­ent fre­quent­ly emerges with uni­ver­sal ap­peal. It's no dif­fer­ent, whether that place is Brownsville, Brook­lyn or Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille. It is the lat­ter where Ri­car­do Jerome first honed his mu­si­cal skills. Ri­car­do's im­pres­sive mu­si­cal ap­peal and com­mer­cial suc­cess in New York was not hand­ed to him. "Back home was re­al­ly hard. I had to make a move...I had to get out," he re­calls, re­fer­ring to life in Laven­tille. But life in Brook­lyn was equal­ly chal­leng­ing. "I worked odd jobs to make it un­til I start­ed teach­ing pan on a part-time ba­sis in schools." This was?his big break, for through this pro­gramme he reg­u­larised his im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus and re­al­ly be­gan con­cen­trat­ing on his God-giv­en mu­si­cal tal­ents.

As bizarre as it may sound, Ri­car­do cred­its?a can­celled crick­et match at the Sa­van­nah as the piv­otal mo­ment in his ca­reer. "I al­ways re­mem­ber leav­ing the Sa­van­nah dis­ap­point­ed and stop­ping at Pan­de­mo­ni­um pa­n­yard on Jern­ing­ham Av­enue (Bel­mont). I re­al­ly had noth­ing to do, so why not?" he?smiles. And it was?there that he dis­cov­ered that play­ing pan came nat­u­ral­ly to him. With fur­ther guid­ance from Mer­le Al­bi­no-de Coteau, Ri­car­do was on his way. To­day, Ri­car­do is an ac­com­plished pan­nist. Whether the tenor or gui­tar pan, dou­ble sec­ond or bass, this?out­spo­ken Trinida­di­an is at ease. Throw in his vo­cal tal­ents, and an eclec­tic mix of jazz, so­ca and bossa, and you have an artiste who can woo an au­di­ence as a soloist or part of his quar­tet–Pan­fu­sion. Ri­car­do, with or with­out his band, has been a fix­ture at key Caribbean-re­lat­ed func­tions through­out New York. He's been seen in full flight at events or­gan­ised by the Con­sulates of T&T, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos. The tourist boards of An­tigua-Bar­bu­da and St Mar­tin have al­so sought his ser­vices.

Ri­car­do may just be the most rec­om­mend­ed pan­nist around. "I be­lieve it is my abil­i­ty to sing that has giv­en me greater ap­peal," he states, and adds: "There are lots of op­por­tu­ni­ties in New York, but it all de­pends on the type of in­stru­ment you are good at. It's eas­i­er for a pan­nist and key­board play­er." But suc­cess al­ways comes with a price–a hefty one at times. Ri­car­do has not re­turned home in some 12 years. "I am do­ing this full time and busiest dur­ing Feb­ru­ary, when An­guil­la and An­tigua Tourist Board do ma­jor pro­mo­tions." That's un­for­tu­nate be­cause at that very time his coun­try un­leash­es its great­est spec­ta­cle, T&T Car­ni­val. Yet, the fire of pa­tri­o­tism burns bright­ly. "I am a cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, but I need help," he says. "There is no rea­son why I should not be do­ing more work for the T&T Tourist Board. We have the mon­ey to do more for our cul­ture abroad." Ri­car­do has al­so set his sights on be­com­ing an arranger at the "high­est lev­el," mean­ing in his na­tive land.

As if to punc­tu­ate his worth, he has just com­plet­ed?mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment?for Mu­sic in My Ears, with De­sign­er on vo­cals. Based on what I heard...the first gaunt­let has been laid down.?The CD will al­so fea­ture tracks by Tu­na­puna Scanty and Frosty Brooks and will be re­leased in No­vem­ber. "They gonna be jump­ing," he says with an air of con­fi­dence. Mean­while, I am head­ing to Brook­lyn to take in Pan­fu­sion, a spe­cial in­vi­ta­tion by Ri­car­do. He is tak­ing time from his sched­ule to per­form at his best friend's birth­day par­ty. "Tri­ni style, Tri­ni style," he says. He didn't need to say it twice...I will not miss it for the world!

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Glenville Ash­by is a New York-based jour­nal­ist)

e-mail: glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com