Coral King

Do­mini­ca, or the Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca, to use its of­fi­cial name, was once more host to one of the world's most ex­cit­ing mu­sic fes­ti­vals from Oc­to­ber 29 to 31. Now in its 14th year, the An­nu­al World Cre­ole Mu­sic Fes­ti­val–orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for three nights un­til hur­ri­cane Tomas can­celled the show sched­uled for the sec­ond night–brought to­geth­er artistes rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous mu­si­cal gen­res, such as zouk, kom­pas, ca­dence-lyp­so, and oth­er in­dige­nous styles from East and West Africa, which are in­ter­twined with oth­er sounds of the Caribbean, name­ly: reg­gae, so­ca, ca­lyp­so and rhythms. For the na­ture lover, Do­mini­ca is the ide­al lo­ca­tion. When you add more than an am­ple dose of the best mu­sic in the world, the na­ture is­land per­son­i­fies the word, par­adise. Be­fore the start of the mu­si­cal fare, at­ten­dees at the fes­ti­val were able to take ad­van­tage of some of the most nat­ur­al and un­touched sites to be found any­where in the world.

The is­land, not to be con­fused with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, is sit­u­at­ed be­tween Mar­tinique and Guade­loupe in the arc of is­lands called the Less­er An­tilles. It is the youngest is­land in the Caribbean, where ero­sion has yet to dull the sharp­ness of her ter­rain. A vis­it to the coun­try­side is breath­tak­ing. One im­me­di­ate­ly be­comes cap­ti­vat­ed by the rolling hills, se­clud­ed coast­lines, and vir­gin forests. For the most dar­ing of trav­ellers, a vis­it to moun­tains' peaks, reach­ing as highs as 5000 feet, would pro­vide an amaz­ing view of en­er­getic rivers run­ning vig­or­ous­ly to the sea.

The land­scape is al­so punc­tu­at­ed by 12 ma­jor wa­ter­falls, which ex­ist in har­mo­ny with six va­ri­eties of trop­i­cal for­est. In­ter­min­gled with this fas­ci­nat­ing land­scape is some of the most var­ied fau­na to be found in the Caribbean. But vis­i­tors were amazed to find out that Do­mini­cans, while cher­ish­ing and pro­tect­ing the serene en­vi­ron­ment sur­round­ing them, were equal­ly adept at par­ty­ing.

The mu­sic fes­ti­val pro­vid­ed the re­quired respite for this pur­pose. Pa­trons re­ceived with tremen­dous ap­pre­ci­a­tion the per­for­mance of one of reg­gae mu­sic's icons, the ven­er­a­ble Lu­ciano, who was part of the Fri­day night line-up. This ever­green per­former had pa­trons eat­ing out of his hands with such mem­o­rable hits as Lord Give Me Strength, Over the Hills, and It's me Again Jah. In keep­ing with its theme of pre­sent­ing cre­ole mu­sic to this fran­co-phone in­flu­enced is­land, Les Aiglons, a clas­sic Guade­lou­pi­an band of the 70's ca­dence era, en­ter­tained the au­di­ence with hit songs like Bidim­bol, Mes Il­lu­sions, and Le Cerveau. This band from the French An­tilles, bor­rows heav­i­ly from pop­u­lar Hait­ian mu­sic from the 1950s to the ear­ly 1980s. If Lu­ciano pro­vid­ed spir­i­tu­al in­spi­ra­tion and philo­soph­i­cal guid­ance to his fans, Jah Cure in his own style, in­fused a touch of ro­mance to the pro­ceed­ings. He caused the ladies in the au­di­ence to call his name with each note that he sang, ever so sweet­ly.

From the in­vi­ta­tion to Call on Me, he went on to en­tice with oth­er sooth­ing songs such as, Nev­er Find and To Your Arms of Love, which won him crit­i­cal and pop­u­lar ac­claim. It was not lost on him that he left one of his fans breath­less, and de­cid­ed to quench her thirst by of­fer­ing her his bot­tle of wa­ter. Such was his ef­fect on the women. The or­gan­is­ers were out to please the dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal tastes and moods of those who jour­neyed to Do­mini­ca, as well as those who called the is­land their home. They did not dis­ap­point, as Triple Kay, the band known as the Lit­tle Band, had the au­di­ence go­ing wild with its burst of en­er­gy mu­sic, and WCK had every­one gy­rat­ing to the hot tem­po. Like wine which gets bet­ter with age, British reg­gae group, Steel Pulse, lived up to its rep­u­ta­tion as a crowd pleas­er. The morn­ing af­ter each late night of im­bib­ing sweet world mu­sic pro­vid­ed pa­trons with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­new and rein­vig­o­rate them­selves by tak­ing a plunge in­to Screw's Sul­phur Spa, one of the most fa­mous hot wa­ter springs on the is­land. If you ask any of the lo­cals what to do while you are on the is­land, a trip to Screw's is like­ly to be first on the list.