Glenville Ash­by

It be­gan as a pri­vate event, ex­clu­sive–a cel­e­bra­tion of Michael Jack­son, who, since his death a year ago, looms larg­er than life. De­vot­ed fans packed in­to the world fa­mous Sylvia's Restau­rant in Harlem, a lo­ca­tion be­fit­ting a man wide­ly con­sid­ered the most in­flu­en­tial mu­si­cal artist of the mod­ern era. They dined, laughed, rem­i­nisced and cried. Sure Michael Joe Jack­son was unique–blend­ing the flu­id­i­ty of Fred As­taire and the pre­ci­sion of Gene Kel­ly with the raw soul of James Brown. His cross-gen­er­a­tional and mul­ti-eth­nic ap­peal so ev­i­dent that evening; and his mu­sic touched so many lives in every cor­ner of the globe.

Glow­ing trib­utes

Krys­tique Ec­tor of Diego Mar­tin, Trinidad, re­called watch­ing her idol on VH1. "His mu­sic helped me when I need­ed to be com­fort­ed," she said, touch­ing up­on a per­son­al mat­ter. She con­tin­ued: "His mu­sic is clean, noth­ing to be cen­sored, and as a Chris­t­ian, I can re­late to that."

Such were sen­ti­ments shared by Ydal­izaTaveras, 19, of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, who was ac­com­pa­nied by her moth­er. Adri­an Japang­ie, 20, of Brazil, who donned a black glove and Fe­do­ra, freeze-framed for the cam­era, but quick­ly turned in­tro­spec­tive when asked about Jack­son.

"I have grown over the years to love him..so many dif­fer­ent mes­sages in his mu­sic that I can re­late to." And Andy An­der­son, who is in his 60s, smiled as he re­mem­bered watch­ing Jack­son as a child star. "I am a Coun­try and West­ern kin­da guy, but got­ta tell ya, I got to tip my hat to him."

Fe­male Michael

As the evening pro­gressed, Jack­son mu­sic blared with a mon­tage of his fa­mous videos in the back­ground. But on­ly for a mo­ment. A hushed si­lence be­fell on­ly to be punc­tured by the sud­den ap­pear­ance of Moses Harp­er, a fe­male Jack­son im­per­son­ator. "Michael, Michael," many screamed, as Moses shy­ly ac­knowl­edged the adu­la­tion. As "he" popped, spun, locked and moon­walked to Smooth Crim­i­nal, it was more than en­ter­tain­ment–bor­der­ing on a near necro­man­tic rit­u­al. Jack­son seemed to come alive in flesh and spir­it. Moses was that con­vinc­ing, that good.

"Michael's tal­ents were su­per­nat­ur­al," "he" said lat­er.

It was a tri­umphant event for or­gan­is­er Ama­da An­der­son who viewed Jack­son as a builder of com­mu­ni­ties. Black or White tells the whole sto­ry of Michael. He was a world heal­er. As dusk laboured in, these Jack­son devo­tees filed out­side, can­dle in hand, en route to the "hal­lowed" Apol­lo The­atre–a pil­grim­age of sorts. Hun­dreds of oth­er Jack­son devo­tees await­ed their ar­rival. Their idol en­ter­tained there when he was just a kid. But the can­dle­light vig­il was any­thing but solemn.

At every cor­ner boom-box­es boomed; drum­mers drummed; and street dancers danced–Jack­son ma­nia grip­ping Harlem with an over­whelm­ing grip!

Not an ut­ter of the singer's sup­posed body dys­mor­phic dis­or­der, or worse, pae­dophil­ia al­le­ga­tions. In a life as com­plex and trou­bled as Jack­son's, there will con­tin­ue to be tra­duc­ers, but on this spe­cial day, he was cleansed of all hu­man frail­ties and im­per­fec­tions–trans­formed in­to a cult hero, a myth­i­cal fig­ure–a leg­end.

Tru­ly, big­ger in death than life.

Glenville Ash­by is a New York

cor­re­spon­dent for the

Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian.

Email: glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com.