DAVID CUFFY

Guests took part in a joy­ful sing along to Charm­ing Trinidad, the ti­tle track from Ger­maine Scott's newest CD, Charm­ing Trinidad-Hap­py Times Three, at the launch held at The Atri­um, Don Miguel Road Ex­ten­sion, San Juan, on Sat­ur­day evening.

Charm­ing Trinidad's reper­toire is "a gourmet se­lec­tion of time­less melodies-vo­cals and in­stru­men­tals in swing, bolero, coun­try and west­ern and honky tonk modes with ole time ca­lyp­so jam ses­sions rip­pling with end­less nos­tal­gia. Tico Tico, C'est si Bon, Be­witched Both­ered and Be­wil­dered, Dan­ny Boy and Blue Bay­ou fit cosi­ly in­to Scott's 16 track, con­cert length eclec­tic brew that al­so in­cludes six tan­ta­lis­ing med­leys.

Tri­ni hits of yes­ter­year-The Mighty Ter­ror's The Mon­key and Lord Kitch­en­er's Ol' La­dy-blend har­mo­nious­ly with one of the world's great ca­lyp­so bards, An­drew "Lord Su­pe­ri­or" Mar­cano's ren­di­tion of an orig­i­nal ti­tled Charm­ing Trinidad.

"This song is a na­tion build­ing song even be­fore we be­came a na­tion," said Su­pe­ri­or. "It was com­posed by a for­mer may­or of Port-of-Spain from a promi­nent fam­i­ly of Por­tuguese ex­tract. It re­minds one that ca­lyp­so mu­sic tran­scends so­cial, re­li­gious, racial and po­lit­i­cal lines while doc­u­ment­ing our colour­ful and vi­brant his­to­ry."

The may­or was George Cabral Sr, Scott's late grand­fa­ther in whose ho­n­our the CD was named. "There are three new songs in­clud­ed in the CD com­posed by grand­fa­ther George Cabral Sr who was may­or of Port-of-Spain in 1947-48 and 1951-53," said Scott. "My grand­fa­ther lost his wife in child­birth with their ninth child.

"He sin­gle-hand­ed­ly brought up eight young chil­dren, one son be­ing George de Cabral who was a mag­is­trate in Trinidad, and a daugh­ter Is­abel­la who was the first woman pi­lot in the Caribbean. Af­ter his wife's death he wrote two songs that re­flect­ed his love for her and the pain he felt at her death. They are ti­tled The Sto­ry of Love and A Mil­lion Mem­o­ries. They are in­clud­ed in the al­bum and sung by my broth­er Louis.

"Hav­ing made two pre­vi­ous suc­cess­ful CDs-Hap­py Times One and Two-I have de­cid­ed to forge ahead with Hap­py Times Three. Once again I have brought in a group of won­der­ful tal­ent­ed Trinidad artistes and mu­si­cians who gave of them­selves self­less­ly, and I be­lieve this is where the mu­sic lies. The pro­ceeds go to all and any de­nom­i­na­tion, colour, creed or race."

In ad­di­tion to Scott, oth­er artistes con­tribut­ing to the al­bum are Orville Roach, Louis Del­mas, Mau­rice Brash, Stan­ley Roach, An­tho­ny "Jug­gy" Rose, Jen­ny Dick­in­son, Kathy El­la, Patrick Bren­nan, Boscoe Hold­er, and four of Scott's 12 grand­chil­dren-Gilla Saman­tha, Raquel and Ste­fanie.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Jer­ry Med­ford, trea­sur­er of the UWI Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion not­ed: "At a time in our his­to­ry when ex­pe­di­en­cy and a fast-food/quick-fix men­tal­i­ty ap­pear to be read­i­ly ac­cept­ed as the sta­tus quo; when stan­dards and once ac­cept­able mores are van­ish­ing and quick­ly be­com­ing things of the past, it is in­deed en­cour­ag­ing and grat­i­fy­ing to be as­so­ci­at­ed with an ef­fort that em­braces ex­cel­lence at its core whilst at the same time pay­ing homage to the rich his­to­ry of our past."

The CD will be show­cased at the as­so­ci­a­tion's up­com­ing wine and cheese fes­ti­val next month. Scott, who is chair­man of the An­tho­ny P Scott group of com­pa­nies, has deemed that pro­ceeds from sales of the prod­uct will be used ex­clu­sive­ly for char­i­ta­ble and ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives.