SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dal@ya­hoo.com

Donned in fes­tive shirts, an en­sem­ble of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) Mu­sic Band (TTF­SMB) led by AD­FO Noel Stew­art, de­cid­ed to help quell the COVID-19, Delta and Omi­cron fires of fear, stress and grief, by care­ful­ly spread­ing yule­tide joy to the na­tion, and world, via their mi­ni Christ­mas mu­sic se­ries, A Christ­mas Gift to the Na­tion.

Com­prised of four videos which is tra­di­tion­al­ly re­leased in De­cem­ber on so­cial me­dia, the project which was ful­ly en­dorsed by their Chief, Arnold Bris­to, co­or­di­nat­ed by FS/O Roy Frank, and has al­ready racked up 29 thou­sand-plus views as at De­cem­ber 30.

Trinci­ty Mall, Mt Saint Bene­dict and Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion (PFS) ben­e­fit­ed from the rich­ly-pre­sent­ed pro­duc­tion. Trinci­ty was first, with Fire fight­er Alethea Hink­son-As­son— who se­lect­ed the uni­form, de­vour a David Fos­ter-com­posed song, My Grown-Up Christ­mas List.

On De­cem­ber 14 at the Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion, AFF Shini­qua Williams de­liv­ered So This is Christ­mas; and on De­cem­ber 21, at Trinci­ty, Mt Saint Bene­dict and Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion, re­spec­tive­ly, AFFs Jonathan Charles, Justin Phillip and Jamie Ghany crushed the gold­en-voice so­ca-parang king, Baron’s med­ley of Cam­i­nante, Come Go and Span­ish Woman, and on the 28 at Mt Saint Bene­dict, sax­o­phon­ist, AFF Jamie Ghany’s ren­di­tion Luther Van­dross’ Every Year, Every Christ­mas, pleas­ing­ly-re­ver­ber­at­ed through the Abbey’s com­mu­ni­ty.

Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment in­clud­ed FSO Mar­cus Steele and FF Reynold Tang­way on key­boards; AF Em­mer­son Dy­er, elec­tric gui­tar; AFF An­del Clarke, bass; FF Kail Thomas, drums; Ag FSO Kern Kiez­er, con­gas; Ag FSO Roy Frank and AFF Joseph Melville, trum­pet; AFF Joy-elle Oliviere, al­to sax; AFF Ti­tus Tan­nis, tenor sax; AFF Aaron Blen­man, trom­bone; and steel panists, Ag FSO Adana Pom­pey and AFF Garth Sin­nette.

Frank and his co­or­di­nat­ing team – Fire of­fi­cer Robert Bur­ton, AFF Jo­hann An­drews and FSO Year­wood, ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion to record­ing en­gi­neer AFF Kevin In­nis, mix­er and mas­ter Ag, FSO Mar­cus Steele, video pro­duc­er TTFS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, ed­i­tor AFF Jo­hann An­drews, and pro­duc­tion as­sis­tants FFs Kail Thomas and Odelle Daniel, and AFFs Kevin Joseph and Nisha Ram­sook.

The co­or­di­nat­ing team and mu­si­cians ex­tend­ed a mes­sage of love as the hol­i­day sea­son closed. Thank­ing their view­ers and oth­er sup­port­ers for join­ing them in cel­e­brat­ing with them their Christ­mas gift—the Mi­ni Se­ries amidst these try­ing times of un­cer­tain­ty.

“You looked out every Tues­day in De­cem­ber for the mu­sic videos pub­lished for your lis­ten­ing and view­ing plea­sure on our so­cial me­dia pages. These videos em­bod­ied the na­tion’s cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and al­lowed us to share our mo­ments with you through song….”

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds, ex­tend­ed words of “sin­cere ap­pre­ci­a­tion,” stat­ing, “There is so much to be thank­ful for. The mere fact that the mu­si­cians con­tin­ue to sur­vive the rough chal­lenges of the COVID-19 ex­pe­ri­ence and its im­pli­ca­tions, is tes­ta­ment to their strength and loy­al­ty, so much so, that they are able to the share good tid­ings through their mu­sic with the na­tion and world.”

The Fire Ser­vice wish­es all a hap­py, safe and pros­per­ous New Year, and al­so, a fire-ed­u­cat­ed and fire-safe dry sea­son 2022.