Sean Nero

T&T's ca­lyp­so mu­sic is re­ver­ber­at­ing at main­stream mu­sic fes­ti­vals across the Unit­ed States and for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so monarch, Kurt Allen is the cul­tur­al cham­pi­on on the front­line of this ef­fort.He has a lu­cra­tive six-month deal se­cured by his US book­ing agent called Si­mon Says to do 75 shows in that part of North Amer­i­ca.Apart from fes­ti­vals, Allen would al­so per­form at sig­na­ture night­clubs, col­leges and oth­er civic per­for­mances and would take part in meet and greet ses­sions with in­flu­en­tial record la­bel ex­ec­u­tives from Warn­er Bros and Elec­tra Records. Scores of A&R pro­fes­sion­als would be in at­ten­dance, too. Last Sun­day he was ex­pect­ed to per­form at Disc Jam 2011 at Hy­land Or­chard lo­cat­ed on 199 Arnold Road, Fiskdale (Stur­bridge). It was the 12th en­gage­ment since his maid­en gig on May 27, at Strange Creek Cam­pout, Green­field, MA.Allen won the con­tract fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful au­di­tion-styled tour last year, dur­ing his reign as this coun­try's Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch.He's now part of a Caribbean cast that in­clud­ed his daugh­ter Choc'late, Den­roy Mor­gan (Fa­ther of Mor­gan Her­itage), Gramps Mor­gan and The Alche­mys­tics.Allen's ex­cit­ed about his am­bas­sado­r­i­al as­sign­ment, in lieu that it's the first time in close to five decades that this genre of T&T's in­dige­nous mu­sic was mak­ing a re­turn to the North Amer­i­can en­ter­tain­ment cir­cuit.There, he said, ca­lyp­so mu­sic was still very much un­tapped.His per­for­mance ros­ter, how­ev­er, will not take him to the venues with­in the di­as­po­ra, but rather, to mar­kets where ca­lyp­so mu­sic was still a vir­gin sound.

Look­ing for new mu­sic

He's con­vinced that this was a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty, cit­ing that reg­gae leg­end Bob Mar­ley al­so tapped in­to this mar­ket dur­ing the course of his ca­reer. It was wide­ly ac­knowl­edged that this mar­ket ex­tend­ed his (Mar­ley's) fan base and in­creased his pop­u­lar­i­ty, while cre­at­ing oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties for the break­through of reg­gae mu­sic in the US.But all the for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca (Pow­er) Monarch and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch want­ed the peo­ple of T&T to know was: "I'm more than ready...All my life. I'm fa­mil­iar with what it takes. I'm fa­mil­iar with the type of crowds. I'm fa­mil­iar with the ex­pec­ta­tions. They are very open mind­ed. You're talk­ing about peo­ple who (are) look­ing for new mu­sic. They are al­so in­ter­est­ed in un­der­stand­ing who you are and un­der­stand­ing your pulse, your mu­sic, your cul­ture. The mu­sic fes­ti­val cir­cuit is about peo­ple who trav­el. They fol­low you around. That hap­pened with Bob Mar­ley. That's who we are tar­get­ing."He added: "This op­por­tu­ni­ty did not hap­pen overnight. This has been prob­a­bly ten years in the mak­ing, in terms of try­ing to get that par­tic­u­lar mar­ket which has been elu­sive to the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. It was about con­tact­ing the right peo­ple and keep­ing in touch with them over a pe­ri­od of time."

Cul­tur­al as­sign­ment

Allen toured the US mu­sic fes­ti­val cir­cuit 21 years ago, with Roy Cape All Stars, but that out­ing was not as ex­ten­sive as this con­tract de­mand­ed, and the fo­cus mu­sic was so­ca.In 1994 and again in 1995 Allen and his band Caribbean Vi­sion played the cir­cuit, too."I did a sim­i­lar project in 1995, in Eu­rope. I had al­most 60 per­for­mances and it was every night. I'm more than pre­pared for this one phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly. I would not be per­form­ing every­day."There's an ed­u­ca­tion­al com­po­nent to Allen's cul­tur­al as­sign­ment. While in the US, he will vis­it uni­ver­si­ties to lec­ture on T&T Car­ni­val with a spe­cial fo­cus on ca­lyp­so.The tour would al­low him to de­vel­op his craft fur­ther cit­ing that it en­com­passed artistes' de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties that cov­ered ar­eas such as vo­cal re­fine­ment and mar­ket­ing.Allen said: "Even though it's go­ing to be ben­e­fi­cial to me in the short term, I can guar­an­tee that with­in the next two years, the door will be opened wide for al­most every ca­lyp­son­ian or so­ca artistes. I'm look­ing at peo­ple like Aaron Dun­can and the younger ones, who I be­lieve could make the break­through. It's all about un­der­stand­ing that the past is the moth­er of now. What we are reap­ing now is a re­sult of the past ac­tions of our an­ces­tors."

Schooled in Roar­ing Li­on'stra­di­tions

He added: "I have been schooled in the tra­di­tions of Roar­ing Li­on (Rafael de Leon), Growl­ing Tiger (Neville Mar­cano), Atil­la the Hun (Ray­mond Queve­do) and these greats. And when I look at their lega­cy, ba­si­cal­ly, they were able to in­fil­trate the US mar­ket with ca­lyp­so mu­sic. As we all know, ca­lyp­so was the in thing; the pop­u­lar mu­sic of the time. And I'm just see­ing this as a con­tin­u­a­tion of that lega­cy. Yes! There was a lapse pe­ri­od-the 1950 to now-where the mu­sic has not been able to pen­e­trate the Amer­i­can mar­ket. This is just an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue the lega­cy of those guys. Peo­ple would not even know what is ca­lyp­so had it not been for (the) Roar­ing Li­on and those guys."This gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty for Allen was hap­pen­ing just around the time when scores of lo­cal en­ter­tain­ers were cen­tre-stage at re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stag­ing of T&T-styled Car­ni­vals.But Allen said he no longer en­joyed preach­ing to the con­vert­ed. He had been in a fix­ture in the for­eign-based West In­di­an fes­ti­val mar­ket and de­sired to seek out new chal­lenges.He said: "You see them every year. When you get tired of see­ing them you see their chil­dren and even­tu­al­ly you see their grand­chil­dren. This op­por­tu­ni­ty is (in) vir­gin ter­ri­to­ry. It comes like I'm go­ing to do pi­o­neer work. I am very aware that what­ev­er I am go­ing to sell to the peo­ple they are go­ing to see that as ca­lyp­so. So I have to be very care­ful about what I sell...the im­age I project, be­cause that is the im­age they are go­ing to be hold­ing on to for ca­lyp­so."

For Aaron Dun­can

Allen con­tin­ued: "Hence the rea­son I'm do­ing this for Aaron Dun­can. I call his name be­cause he's the (Na­tion­al) Ju­nior Monarch, but in every ju­nior com­pe­ti­tion there are at least 11 fi­nal­ists. That is who I'm do­ing this for, be­cause I know, it would not be of much ben­e­fit in the long term for me, be­cause of my age. Where I want to see this go, is not where I have to take it."Pro­mot­ers from all over the world at­tend these care­ful­ly wo­ven string pro­duc­tions that­con­sti­tute the mu­sic fes­ti­val cir­cuit.They seek out the best, in their es­ti­ma­tion, for fu­ture en­gage­ments that took artistes as far as Rus­sia. Allen said he was proof of that and was poised to leave an in­deli­ble mark on the con­cert cir­cuit."Now that we have one foot in the mar­ket, I am re­al­ly hope­ful that we can send up at least four dif­fer­ent T&T acts to cov­er the cir­cuit, be­cause I could not be in two places at the same time," he said.While he had nev­er shared the stage with the Mor­gans, his daugh­ter Choc'late got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so, hav­ing per­formed at al­most every ma­jor con­cert in Ja­maica. She even shared the spot­light with the Mar­ley's.Allen said his daugh­ter was a hit on the col­lege cir­cuit of the tour, too, as wit­nessed from her pre­vi­ous ap­pear­ances and that's the seg­ment of the tour she'd com­mand.Allen had re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of his book­ings and itin­er­ary long be­fore his de­par­ture, but re­mained tight-lipped about the project.Why? He said he was not the type to talk about things be­fore they hap­pened. He said many times artistes dis­closed the po­ten­tial for big op­por­tu­ni­ties and then the pub­lic would hear noth­ing af­ter them."I'm just hop­ing for the best. I'm rep­re­sent­ing T&T, all the young ones in the art form and I thank T&T for giv­ing me that op­por­tu­ni­ty, be­cause had I not been crowned (Na­tion­al) Ca­lyp­so Monarch last year, I don't think this op­por­tu­ni­ty would have been avail­able. This opened the door where I was able to say that I am the ca­lyp­so King of T&T," said Allen.