Pe­ter Ray Blood

Hav­ing de­scend­ed from my high on re­ceiv­ing three awards for Ex­cel­lence in Jour­nal­ism and con­tribut­ing to the na­tion's cul­ture in one month, I've re­sumed to the pace and fren­zy of my usu­al week­end ac­tiv­i­ties.Trini­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) de­serves every bit of praise for host­ing a num­ber of en­joy­able events to com­mem­o­rate Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month.

It's SO­CA...the soul of Ca­lyp­so Part II , the Com­posers on Oc­to­ber 3, at the Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um, Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, was a well-pro­duced event, de­spite act­ing prime min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an's lengthy fea­ture ad­dress.I feel that TU­CO should move this an­nu­al event to Queen's Hall as, for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the en­gi­neer­ing and acoustics at the Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um left much to be de­sired.

My oth­er sug­ges­tion is that TU­CO needs to pro­mote and mar­ket Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month much ear­li­er, and al­so have events from Oc­to­ber 1, with more be­ing staged in rur­al and far flung ar­eas.The ic­ing on the cake at this show came at its fi­nale when reign­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch Machel Mon­tano made a sur­prise guest ap­pear­ance, join­ing Ju­nior Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch sev­en-year-old Aaron Dun­can to per­form Machel's Too Young to So­ca. This per­for­mance re­al­ly moved the au­di­ence.

TU­CO North Zone's sec­ond an­nu­al Ex­tem­po­ra­ma, at SWW­TU Hall, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, last Sat­ur­day ,was one of the most en­ter­tain­ing and en­joy­able ca­lyp­so pro­duc­tions I've wit­nesed for a long time.Boast­ing the best ex­tem­pore ex­po­nents from each of TU­CO's re­gions, the pro­gramme, host­ed by Mervyn Telfer and Shirlaine Hen­drick­son, had pa­trons beg­ging for more, even as the cur­few hour was ap­proach­ing.

Led by North Zone pres­i­dent Mark John (Con­tender), the com­bat­ants in the zon­al cham­pi­onship in­clud­ed Gyp­sy, Abebele, Short Pants, Bri­an Lon­don (South); Black Sage, Wen­dell Eti­enne, Gary Ranks (North); Shel­don John, Lin­go, La­dy Africa, Dion Di­az (East); and To­ba­go's La­dy IB. Al­so in the fray, rep­re­sent­ing youth was Fire­ball.While the du­el­lists did their best to win points and con­vince judges Mal­colm and Di­ane Holdip that they were the best, the show steal­er was for­mer Ca­lyp­so King Re­la­tor.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing him­self on gui­tar, with a per­cus­sion­ist in tow, Re­la­tor had the en­tire au­di­ence singing along with him with gus­to as he delved in­to the archives to de­liv­er a com­pre­hen­sive reper­toire of vin­tage kaiso.Seen in the au­di­ence en­joy­ing Re­la­tor's set were Cos­ta Ri­ca Am­bas­sador Ri­car­do Thomp­son Thomp­son, for­mer po­lice com­mi­sion­er Ever­ald Snag­gs, cul­tur­al ad­vi­sor Er­rol Pe­ru, vet­er­an bard su­pe­ri­or, vet­er­an Car­ni­val of­fi­cial Canute Spencer and for­mer na­tion­al monarch Lu­ta.

On my way home from SWW­TU Hall, fel­low jour­nal­ist Gary Car­dinez hailed me out, invit­ing me in­to the yard of Wood­brook Coun­cil­lor Cleve­land Gar­cia, neigh­bour to the union hall and Ca­lyp­so Re­vue for well over a decade. This small im­prom­tu lime was just what the doc­tor or­dered, es­pe­cial­ly when Cleve­land's wife, Amil­la, cooked up a wicked fish broth and a one-pot of rice, ochro, salt­fish and split peas.The Coun­cil­lor re­mind­ed me of the gala fash­ion show next Sun­day to com­mem­o­rate the 100th an­nivesary of Wood­brook, and fea­tur­ing some of the best de­sign­ers and mod­els from west Port-of-Spain. Show­time is 4 pm, at SWW­TU Hall.

Cheers to the Sweet­est Wine

One humdinger of a par­ty, Sweet­est Wine, is tak­ing place at Au­ra, Cipri­ani Boule­vard, Port-of-Spain, on De­cem­ber 3, from 4 pm. The com­ing out par­ty by Ken Sim­mons, be­side the kind of ex­quis­ite am­bi­ence one can ex­pect at this venue, the mu­sic is al­so strict­ly top-draw­er stuff and will be pro­vid­ed by some of the best in the busi­ness, in­clud­ing DJs Howie T, Richard Sim­ply Smooth, King In­ter­na­tion­al, Kevin Bak­er & Dan­ger­ous Robin, and Mervyn.

That's not all, the Biggest Ladies Crew in at­ten­dance will re­ceive two bot­tles of pre­mi­um wine, while the "sex­i­est la­dy in red or white" will be treat­ed to free drinks.How­ev­er, be­fore Sim­mons hosts Sweet­est Wine, a group of young peo­ple-Schiz­o­phrenic En­ter­tain­ment-with a pas­sion for the arts and cul­ture, and mak­ing a name for them­selves while try­ing to groom young and up­com­ing lo­cal tal­ent, is hold­ing Cheers, make a Toast, on Sun­day. Fea­tur­ing fast ris­ing Ja­maican reg­gae artiste Sim­ba Ar­man, this gig takes place at Court­yard Mar­riots, next to Movi­eTowne, on Sun­day, from 4 pm.

No Re­vue au­di­tions

The Ka­lyp­so Re­vue is not hold­ing au­dti­tions to se­lect its cast for Car­ni­val 2012. AIn­stead, tent man­ag­er Michael Os­una (Sug­ar Aloes) is invit­ing in­ter­est­ed bards to sub­mit their new mu­sic on CDs to De Nu Pub the Mas Camp, cor­ner Ari­api­ta Av­enue and French Street, Wood­brook.The dead­line for the sub­mis­sion of CDs is Sun­day, De­cem­ber 4.

The print­er's dev­il

My sin­cere apol­o­gy to Jes­sel Mur­ray and the mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Sin­fo­nia Or­ches­tra (NSO). Last Fri­day I er­ro­neous­ly said that Mur­ray is the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the St Au­gus­tine Cham­ber Or­ches­tra (SACO), which was ac­tu­al­ly di­rect­ed by Ken­neth Listhrop.At the re­cent­ly held Many Moods of Kaiso at Queen's Hall, Mur­ray con­duct­ed the NSO.