All That Jazz: Time To Lime On Farley Hill

The Barbados Jazz Festival is an annual event that I now look forward to immensely. When we landed on this blessed isle in January 2007, it was too late to enjoy a day on 'The Hill'. We wondered what hill this could be because Barbados was supposedly flat. But, with the help of my wife's future driver, we found the heights known as Farley Hill, and for me it has been a great place to visit regularly--with or without music. Along with Bathsheba, it is one of my 'must see' places for visitors. It has a fabulous view that makes me pine a little for Jamaica. But, enough of that. I found the next year that the 'best lime of the year' was on Farley Hill on the last Saturday of the festival. People whom I had met independently all seemed to join together in groups and surprised me with their interconnections, some as friends, some as family. I just kept on being amazed that the strands were tightly woven. It's been that way each year that I have been on 'The Hill'. Now, I know more people, but they mainly seem to be offshoots of a core group that I first met; I'm newly known to them but they are quite familiar with each other. Maybe that is a real part of living in this lovely region of far-flung islands, but closely knit communities: birds of a feather, flock together, indeed.

This year, I decided to take my little daughter so that she could hang out: no dolls, no games, no books, no fixed bedtime, just freedom. She loved being able to roam around the grassy hill and find seeds to fill a plastic bottle and make her own shak-shak; or talk to some friends we knew as I let her wander around between groups of adults. She loved hanging on the barrier by the stage, with some young friends, acting like a real concert goer, but also enjoying seeing musicians actually playing: in her case, watching Karen Briggs on violin, should have inspired my daughter with her Suzuki lessons.

But, much as I enjoyed myself, I could not help but reflect on some wider issues.

The PM said this weekend that Bajans need to stop belly aching (see Advocate article), and adopt a positive attitude, especially when putting things into context of the tragedies now hitting Haiti. Well, I'm not Bajan, and I am going to have a belly ache. Image is very important, and as I have written before, Barbados has done much to concoct a very good image of itself. But, when it comes to 'sitting above the rest', I'm not slow to say that I find the reality wanting. Take this week's jazz festival, one of the pinnacles of the tourism calendar for Barbados. What would be one of the over riding memories that I will hold, apart from the good music and the good vibes? It will be that there seems to be no regard to how people can feel abused when they have paid good money for an event and then one hour, or even two hours after the allotted start time, people are still futzing about and we have not yet had a bar of music.

It happened midweek with the Smokey Robinson concert at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium: billed for 8pm, but not getting underway until 9pm, and made worse by the fact that when the MC came out and warmed up the crowd he did not say a word for the delay up to that point or about the delay that was to follow. Why did the musicians get on stage and find that the mikes were not working? All that "Check, check. 1-2-3." that we know should have been done. This is not my teenage garage band at work now. Sure, when Smokey glided on to the stage everyone was pleased, but the slow hand clapping that had broken out sporadically during the preceding hour was a sign of clear displeasure. This did not escape comment in the press the next day, but we mover right along. This is the Caribbean, and time doesn't mean anything, right. Wrong!

It happened again at Farley Hill, when the noon start time just morphed into 2pm. No real sweat on a beautifully pleasant sunny day, with not a care in the world, as people sidled in and looked for places to sit and food to eat and drink to quaff. That is until you push on to the end of the day, which presumably was running two hours later than previewed. Now, I am not thick with Robin Thicke, but even my six year old daughter was ready to swoon when he came on stage at 8pm. The problem for her was that she was also ready to swoon from fatigue.

So, what would be a visitor's take away? I ask because I was sitting near to a phalanx of foreign media on Saturday, guests of the Barbados Tourism Authority. I did not hear what they said and I could not see what they wrote, but I say their faces, and as they wandered around for things to note while not having any live music to hear, I'm sure they were trying to paint the best picture possible. Would they have loved the coolness and relaxed attitudes of the people and the fact that, in keeping with stereotypes of Caribbean island life, time does not matter? We may have to scour the press in coming days to get a real idea.

So, done with that gripe now, I will be glad that I took my time to pass some time on 'The Hill'. Sure, the cooked ackee and salmon that a Jamaican friend proffered made it sweeter. So, too did the barbecued chicken necks. No less so, the hugs and smiles exchanged every five yards.

I Spy Strangers

You know that you have an audience when one of the readers complains that you have not written about their latest doings. Well, blow me down if this morning I did not get a nice rollicking from an unexpected quarter, when my older daughter asked "Why have you not featured my pending visit to Barbados on your blog?"

Well, consider it done, dear, as you now wing your way from the ice pack known as Canada, through the new promised land of Washington DC, and on again via the Big Apple. You're coming for 'study leave'? I am not sure what you will study in the few days here.

When you arrive you will get a swell welcome: there are high winds and red flags have been posted on many beaches to tell us that it is not safe for swimming or bathing. Surfers
are coming out of the woodwork like skiers in Washington when there is an inch of snow. "Hang ten, dude!" When I talk about "flipping Barbados" I will mean for the next few days the topsy-turvy life of riding the waves not a new set of angst about life here.

The plans for the visit are my usual seat of the pants affair. You can have Jamaican patties for lunch--chicken, as the beef variety have to be registered or left at customs. Don't ask me why US raw beef can be imported and Jamaican cooked beef cannot. We will plan to have pudding and souse
and a nice lime later today. That should set you straight for the night. On Sunday we will try for jazz brunch at Naniki,which will make you feel that you are in the land of your grandfather in the Jamaican hills. Monday we will have lunch at Apsara--Thai or Indian, as suits your palette. As your other parental unit is off in the land of conch salad and sky juice, you will have to imagine her and that.

After that you will be ready to fly off again, like the other snow birds and get back to the hard grind of your degree.

Your little sister has decided that she cannot wait for your arrival so has gone off to play with a friend and will find you later this afternoon. She sends her kisses and wishes you a safe flight.

See you soon, Chick.
******
Editor's Note: The picture of souse is credited to Tarik Browne (see link back to the source page(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarikb/36289445/).

Jazzing It Up In Barbados

A Bajan expatriate living in London, England, John Stevenson, was made aware of this ‘informative’ blog by one of his Bajan mates and former classmates at UWI Cave Hill. John is a music journalist among other things. He was in Barbados last month for the jazz festival and thought that readers might want to have access to links to his articles on the festival.

The first piece, in the Daily Express, entitled 'Blunt Rocks Barbados!' (see http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/83356/REVIEW-Blunt-rocks-Barbados-)is a brief general overview of the festival showing the Bajan audience reaction to British 'pop sensation', James Blunt.

The second article is part of his blog contribution to the 'excellent' Caribbean jazz blog, "The Woodshed" (see http://woodshedec.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/barbados-jazz-festival-2009-%e2%80%93-jazz-and). It argues, by way of a more detailed review, that festival organisers exposed the audience to the best of Bajan and West Indian musical talent this year.

I asked John to let us have an idea of his experiences as a Bajan living in Britain. He divides his time between freelance writing mainly about music for the Daily Express, eJazzNews.com, and Middle East magazine and occasionally broadcasting for the BBC World Service among others. He has been living in England since 2000 after stints as a radio show host, music journalist, and public relations associate in Barbados.

He also has a review piece coming out shortly on the memoir of Cuban American, Carlos Moore. He and his book 'Pichon' are now doing the rounds in the US press. The book argues that Cuban society is and has been institutionally racist toward its African-derived majority, and that for true transformation to take place there, the Castro administration must acknowledge this fact and institute genuine structures that establish racial democracy.

John is also doing a BBC Caribbean interview with Moore next week. In the 50th anniversary year of the Cuban revolution such a book is not only timely but quite sobering indeed.