Pe­ter Ray Blood

There was a small but ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence in at­ten­dance on Wednes­day night when a cel­e­bra­to­ry re­mem­brance con­cert was held for Lord Kitch­en­er.

The Grand­mas­ter would have turned 91 yes­ter­day, and the con­cert was held at De Nu Pub, Wood­brook.

Host­ed by Spran­galang, with mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment by Cum­mings & De Wail­ers, the show was opened by Wail­ers' vo­cal­ist Bun­ny By­noe.

Be­fore in­tro­duc­ing one of two mem­bers of Re­gen­er­a­tion Now (Paul Noel), Spran­galang ex­pound­ed on the re­cent un­solved mys­tery of 150 dead cor­beaux drop­ping out the sky in Ch­aguara­mas. Open­ing with Kitch's Slip­pery Ann, Noel al­so sang Ju­nior Car­ni­val Queen, Lo­cal Wood, and Car­ni­val is Over.

Next up was King Lu­ta, the 1994 and 2006 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch, open­ing his set with No Guns, No Weapons, a song he tout­ed as one of his 2014 of­fer­ings which cer­tain­ly has all the mak­ings of be­ing a hit. Lu­ta's set al­so in­clud­ed Black Stal­in's A Bet­ter Day, Ba­jan and Tri­ni, and Sug­ar Bum Bum.

Sug­ar Aloes, the 2002/2008 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch, who be­gan his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer at Kitch­en­er's Ca­lyp­so Re­vue in 1989 on Hen­ry Street, opened with Miss Tourist, Love in the Ceme­tery, Dr Kitch, Mys­tery Band, which brought Aloes' ver­sa­til­i­ty to the fore. "Kitch­en­er was mu­si­cal­ly mad," said Aloes, re­fer­ring to the lat­ter dit­ty in which Kitch­en­er sang about the sound of de­bris in a flood­ed East Dry Riv­er re­mind­ing him of a steel­band.

Af­ter in­ter­mis­sion, Crazy opened his per­for­mance with lots of po­lit­i­cal jokes about the PP and PNM po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

His was a var­ied reper­toire con­sist­ing of orig­i­nal num­bers, as well as songs by Kitch­en­er and King Austin. The Elec­tri­cian, a hu­mor­ous item, had the au­di­ence in stitch­es, as well as Crazy's 1993 hit Paul Yuh Mud­da Come.

Af­ter singing Doh Try Dat, Crazy ren­dered King Austin's Progress, ded­i­cat­ing the song to the vic­tims of last Mon­day's Boston bomb­ings. Nani Wine, Moth­er or Wife, and Old La­dy Walk a Mile and a Half com­plet­ed his set, and the show, at 11.35 pm.

At­tend­ing Wednes­day night's con­cert were Kitch­en­er's wid­ow Va­lerie Green, and their daugh­ter Quweina; TU­CO chair­man Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Bro Re­sis­tance); TU­CO PRO Kare­ga Man­dela; for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen Twig­gy (An­n­marie Parks-Ko­jo); 2012 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Du­ane O'Con­nor; for­mer Gem­i­ni Brass mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Dan­ny Ming; and, So­ca Unit mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Vin­cent Rivers.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Kitch­en­er's son, Ker­nel Roberts, who is renowned for per­form­ing his fa­ther's vin­tage dit­ties, was no show on Wednes­day night as he was re­port­ed­ly "un­der the weath­er."

Re­gret­tably, Kitch­en­er's birth­day trib­ute wasn't well at­tend­ed.

Es­pe­cial­ly be­cause of the huge body of good ca­lyp­soes pro­duced by the Grand­mas­ter, this show de­serves a much larg­er venue and cast, one which ap­pre­ci­ates the depth, width and beau­ty of Kitch­en­er's reper­toire. Per­haps, some­one next year will pro­duce a prop­er show to ad­e­quate­ly show­case the Grand­mas­ter's mu­sic.

Live ca­lyp­so/so­ca ac­tion con­tin­ued at De Nu Pub last night with the stag­ing of Caribbean Night, head­lined by Pel­ham God­dard & Roots, with guest David Be­raux. Next week Wednes­day's ca­lyp­so night will fea­ture 2013 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Pink Pan­ther (Er­ic Tay­lor) and reign­ing ju­nior ca­lyp­so mon­archs.

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