Pe­ter Ray Blood

It was a rainy, chilly Fri­day night but I was kept warm by the sound of mu­sic from two of the Caribbean fore­most mu­si­cians�sax­o­phon­ist Roy Cape and gui­tarist Gene Lawrence. Both men have just re­leased new CDs, Cape's A Ca­lyp­so and So­ca An­thol­o­gy and Lawrence's Meleme­lanj.

A Ca­lyp­so and So­ca An­thol­o­gy is an 18-track col­lec­tion of Cape's life's work, pro­duced by the pro­lif­ic Alvin Daniell for Ma­jor & mi­nor Pro­duc­tions Ltd. It com­piles 50-plus years of mu­sic, dat­ing back from 1960. The mu­sic of three leg­endary lo­cal band­lead­ers�Sel­wyn Wheel­er, Clarence Cur­van, Ron Berridge�oc­cu­py the al­bum's first five tracks. The se­lec­tions in­clude Wheel­er's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of The Ug­ly Duck­ling, ac­tu­al­ly a piece com­posed 100 years ago (in 1914) by Russ­ian Sergei Prokofiev, and the 1963 In­ez and Char­lie Foxx com­po­si­tion Mock­ing Bird. These are fol­lowed by Cur­van or­ches­tra's arrange­ment of Moulin Rouge; and, Lil­lipops and Ros­es and My Favourite Things by Berridge's or­ches­tra. Cape played for these three or­ches­tras when just bare­ly out of his teens.

Cape al­so records his stint with Spar­row's Trou­ba­dours via the 1969 record­ing of Sa Sa Yea and Bon­go, on the Spar­row Trou­ba­dours-Hot and Sweet LP.

On nine of the en­su­ing tracks of the CD Cape dis­plays his wide range of mu­si­cian­ship and di­ver­si­ty by high­light­ing var­i­ous artistes he has pro­vid­ed mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment for, in­clud­ing Black Stal­in (Kaiso Gone Dread and Name the Game); Ras Shorty I (Watch Out my Chil­dren); Nigel Lewis (War Par­ty); Su­perBlue (Bar­bara); De­stra (Trem­ble It); Blaxx (Car­ni­val Ques­tions and Breath­less); and, Kurt Allen (SSS). He al­so fea­tures his col­lab­o­ra­tions with Stal­in, in­clud­ing 2002 dit­ty Leroy, Roy as well as his own com­po­si­tion Sing Your Song.

If on­ly for its wide range of ma­te­r­i­al, I found the Cape CD to be very ap­peal­ing. Mas­tered by Mar­tin "Mice" Ray­mond, Cape was as­sist­ed in procur­ing vin­tage ma­te­r­i­al for the disc by ca­lyp­so re­searchers Ted­dy Pin­heiro and Desmond Pe­ters.

Four stu­dios in four Caribbean is­lands spawned Lawrence's Meleme­lanj CD. The St Vin­cent-born mu­si­cian record­ed the disc at Leeb­o­ra­tion and Denyl's Sound stu­dios (St Lu­cia); Sanch Elec­tron­ix (Trinidad); and, Hit Is­land stu­dio (Bar­ba­dos). Mixed by To­by Arm­strong, Danyl Daniel and Fran­cis "Lee­bo" De Li­ma, and mas­tered by Lawrie Dun­ster at Curve­push­er, in Lon­don, all songs were com­posed by Lawrence.

A pa­tois word, Meleme­lanj means "a con­glom­er­a­tion, a callaloo" and this al­bum lives up to its ti­tle, im­bibed with the au­then­tic nu­ances and rhythms of the Caribbean. Among its ex­ot­i­cal­ly ti­tled and Caribbean-in­fused tracks are Jolan­ta, Cha­toyea, Shin­ing Bush, Dr Macum­ba, Mon­key, Shango and Chun­ga. Fur­ther afield there are Zam­bezi, Mon­te­v­ideo and Blind Bil­ly Blue.

Work is the ti­tle of an­oth­er track, played in a madan style, the au­then­tic work rhythm of St Lu­cia, us­ing tra­di­tion­al har­monies in a mod­ern arrange­ment. Al­so na­tive to St Lu­cia is Zam­bezi which adapt­ed the is­land's Coro­man­the rhythm.

Cha­toyea is ac­tu­al­ly a three part melody where the first two melodies are com­posed to be played si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly us­ing the Bal­a­di rhythm. This track was in­flu­enced by the hero­ic love sto­ries and myths sur­round­ing the great Carib chief Cha­toyea who is recog­nised as the first na­tion­al hero of St Vin­cent & the Grenadines. This item in­cor­po­rates the use of strings (vi­o­lin, vi­o­la, cel­lo) to cre­ate a dis­tinct mood.

Lawrence hopes that the com­po­si­tion Shango will en­cour­age the use of more from the rich and un­tapped repos­i­to­ry of our tra­di­tion­al in­dige­nous rhythms in our mod­ern com­po­si­tions.

Shin­ing Bush, which has a mod­ern ca­lyp­so melody, and Blind Bil­ly Blue are two pieces in­spired by ac­claimed St Lu­cian play­wright Derek Wal­cott.

These two CDs are an elixir to re­lax mind, body and soul in all weath­er so don't wait for the pas­sage of an­oth­er trop­i­cal wave to go out and pur­chase copies.