Pe­ter Ray Blood

Amongst the very few Christ­mas gifts I re­ceived, one that I in­tend to cher­ish is the copy of David Rud­der's new CD-Ran­dom Notes. The 12-track item is yet an­oth­er of the many in­spi­ra­tional works by this gift­ed and pro­lif­ic song­writer. It's the start of a new decade and those of you with good mem­o­ries can prob­a­bly re­call some en­dur­ing com­po­si­tions of 2001. The two that stand out in my mind are Nah Leav­in', done by Denyse Plum­mer, the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch that year, and Stranger by 2001 Road March champ Shad­ow, who was al­so crowned In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch that year.

For over two decades, the New Year's Day Yorke Inc par­ty has been my barom­e­ter on choos­ing what new mu­sic is hot and what is not, even what will win the Road March, as I eas­i­ly pre­dict­ed in 2002 with Naya George's Trinidad, and in 2007 with Machel Mon­tano's Jumbie. As of last Sat­ur­day, my ear­ly mon­ey is on Tri­ni, one of three ear­ly mon­ster tracks un­leashed by Ben­jai. Tri­ni is ac­tu­al­ly done on an old Ed Wat­son rhythm, orig­i­nal­ly the melody of Singing Di­ane's You got to give away.

I must say that it's been years since I've heard so many good se­lec­tions this ear­ly in a Car­ni­val sea­son. Like two wicked groovy so­ca items I heard from Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter and Bar­ba­di­an Ed­win Year­wood and which, for the life of me, I am un­able to re­call their ti­tles as I write this. As far as ear­ly re­leased al­bums go, aside from Rud­der's, there're two good ones in De Fos­to's 14-track CD-Clo­sure; and, Alvin Daniell's 17-track pan com­po­si­tions CD-Show­time.

It's a groove thang

This year's In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch promis­es to be a re­al humdinger and fierce­ly con­test­ed af­fair giv­en the abun­dance of good laid back songs al­ready re­leased. The el­ders are hold­ing their own amongst the young­sters, es­pe­cial­ly Ca­lyp­so Rose (Feel like danc­ing); Black Stal­in (Skull­dug­gery); Ken­ny J (Dis­count and Cyar Say No Woman); and Elsworth James (Tak­ing Back de Stage). Among my favourite groovy stuff I've heard thus far are, Come Again (Machel); Sweet­ness (Lil Bits); Wut­less (Kees); My Girl (Pre­ston); It's Par­ty Time (Big­gie Irie); Prop­er (Feel Like Wukking), Mid­dle of the Road and Cool It Down (De­stra); Any Day (Swap­pi); Mas and Wine (Patrice Roberts); and, Good Times by Blaxx and Ker­win Dubois.

Pick up de pace

There's some scorch­ing hot stuff out there al­ready and my choic­es this week in­clude Obeah (Pelf); Burn­ing Calo­ries (KMC); Dance and Din­go­lay (Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon); Come to Me (Iw­er); and, the in­fec­tious Co­ca Co­la Rhythm fea­tur­ing JW & Blaze, Shal Mar­shall and Patrice Roberts. Car­ni­val would not be car­ni­val with­out bac­cha­nal and con­tro­ver­sy and the hook line of the JW/Blaze col­lab­o­ra­tion is be­ing ques­tioned by Bar­ba­di­an Tony Bai­ley, who is claim­ing own­er­ship via his 2006 sin­gle Wel­come to the band.

An­oth­er ma­jor con­tender for 2011 Road March ho­n­ours is 2008-2009 cham­pi­on Faye Ann Lyons whose awe­some Mash It Up seems des­tined to do just that-"mash up" the Car­ni­val and give her a third lien on this much cov­et­ed ti­tle.

Mak­ing tracks

There are many oth­er en­tic­ing tracks on the air­waves right now, like the pan song by ten-year-old Khal­i­fa Bais­den-Ju­nior Pan Par­ty. Like Bais­den, this song is sim­ply beau­ti­ful, es­pe­cial­ly its catchy melody, some­thing that ought to at­tract many a steel­band arranger. I am al­ways amazed by the cre­ative tal­ent of so­ca singer Patch, es­pe­cial­ly for the orig­i­nal, push­ing-the-en­ve­lope sto­ry lines he comes up with. This time around, in the af­ter­math of last year's Pipe, he's say­ing De Horner­man Vex, be­cause he threw away "de blastid cell­phone" his woman is tex­ting the horner­man on.

Al­so show­ing his con­sis­ten­cy, de­spite dou­ble tragedy in his fam­i­ly last year, is Mr Chucky with My Bad Thing and Do Fuh Do. Black­ie opened the year with three sin­gles but the one I like is his re­make of the late Mer­chant's So­ca Night. Speak­ing of re­makes, you must lis­ten to Dubois' treat­ment of Roar­ing Li­on's Miss Dorothy Went and Bathe. Yes, folks, I promise you that mu­si­cal­ly it's go­ing to be one of the most boun­ti­ful Car­ni­vals in re­cent times.

Colours for J'Ou­vert

Pop­u­lar vet­er­an mas­man Vian­ney Xavier is back in the fray af­ter an 11-year hia­tus from Car­ni­val. This time around, how­ev­er, the for­mer Medi­um Band of the Year win­ner is con­cen­trat­ing on J'Ou­vert. Said the pop­u­lar Bel­mont band­leader: "I took a rest from the hard work in 2000 but, in look­ing at J'Ou­vert over the decade past, I re­alised it was lack­ing a cer­tain some­thing which some friends, who agreed with me, and I de­cid­ed to try and bring back in J'Ou­vert."

So, Vian­ney & As­so­ciates will hit the road ear­ly on the morn­ing of Mon­day, March 7, with part­ner Luv-Ker's Va­ri­ety Store, with the a pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled Colours, an acronym for Cross­ing Our Love­ly Ocean Us­ing Rhythm Sen­sa­tion­al­ly. Vian­ney ex­plained: "We are giv­ing mas­quer­aders choic­es for J'Ou­vert-cos­tumes, paint or mud; take your pick." Mu­sic on the road will be by DJ Pro­duc­tion Sounds, along with a steel­band. The band leaves its head­quar­ters, lo­cat­ed at the back of the tai­lor shop, at the cor­ner of Hen­ry and Duke streets, Port-of-Spain, on J'Ou­vert morn­ing "ear­ly o'clock," ac­cord­ing to Vian­ney, and heads to the South Quay com­pe­ti­tion venue.

Bakr Tai­lor Shop on Ob­ser­va­to­ry Street, East Dry Riv­er, is al­so a cen­tre for band ac­tiv­i­ties.

Peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in Colours can call 347-3169, 792-4684 or 769-3161.