Wes­ley Gib­bings

De­part­ing US-born UWI De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts (DC­FA) eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, Prof Jean­nine Re­my, was treat­ed to a spec­tac­u­lar demon­stra­tion of the in­struc­tion she has de­liv­ered over the years when the UWI Arts Per­cus­sion En­sem­ble paid trib­ute to her on March 28.

Over more than two decades in T&T, the Michi­gan-born mu­si­cian has left an in­deli­ble mark on the lo­cal steel­pan and wider mu­si­cal land­scape as a schol­ar, au­thor, arranger, per­former, and men­tor to a gen­er­a­tion of mu­si­cians across all gen­res and nu­mer­ous in­stru­ments.

No­body ap­peared to want ei­ther her tenure or the show to end. From the mo­ment the en­sem­ble struck the first em­phat­ic note of Re­my’s orig­i­nal J-9’s Jun­gle Jam, the DC­FA Greens au­di­ence along Gor­don Street in St Au­gus­tine knew that a deep and wide ex­cur­sion of per­cus­sive mag­ic was in store.

With MC An­tho­ny Williams keep­ing things rolling, the en­sem­ble per­formed 16 pieces, in­clud­ing sev­en arranged by Re­my and the oth­ers by a re­mark­able as­sem­blage of young and ex­pe­ri­enced mu­si­cians.

They in­clud­ed Jidelle Mal­oney, Abra­ham Ramd­han, Jay­don Kaliper­sad, Luc Cor­bie, Ka­maria Charles Richards, and Williams him­self. DC­FA grad­u­ate and ac­com­plished pan arranger and play­er, Natasha Joseph, ap­peared on stage more than once to­geth­er with a dozen oth­er alum­ni per­form­ers.

Iden­ti­fy­ing high­lights in such a pro­gramme is dif­fi­cult, as there was not a sin­gle arrange­ment with­out mem­o­rable, plea­sur­able mo­ments. Hen­ry Manci­ni’s fa­mil­iar Ba­by Ele­phant Walk, un­der the ba­ton of Tahla Har­g­reaves-Job, pre­ced­ed Mitchell Pe­ters’ A La Sam­ba, led by Mesach Nathaniel.

But it was Ed Ar­gen­ziano’s Stinkin’ Garbage, com­posed in 1997—around the time many of the play­ers were born—that sus­tained ex­cite­ment, cul­mi­nat­ing in the paint­ed garbage bins be­ing tossed aside with ex­pect­ed clings and clangs as they hit the ground.

As if that were not enough, Joelle Grana­do led a Re­my arrange­ment of Lord Kitch­en­er’s Iron Man, mov­ing seam­less­ly in­to Joey Lewis’s time­less Pint O’ Wine un­der the di­rec­tion of Jidelle Mal­oney.

Not a sin­gle foot was not tap­ping when Olatun­ji’s En­gine Room, as arranged by the mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Ramd­han, car­ried the show to­ward an ex­pect­ed in­ter­mis­sion that nev­er ac­tu­al­ly ma­te­ri­alised.

Cue UWI Arts Dru­mol­o­gy, un­der an en­er­getic Daniel Grif­fith, for what was in­tend­ed to be a break—but there would be none, as the group kept things live­ly, un­earthed drum­ming tal­ent in the au­di­ence, and sparked a spon­ta­neous dance per­for­mance—most like­ly by fel­low DC­FA stu­dents.

The re­sump­tion brought an even more di­verse set list com­pris­ing ca­lyp­so, pop, and R&B clas­sics. Kaliper­sad led an en­er­getic in­ter­pre­ta­tion of AB­BA’s Danc­ing Queen be­fore the Earth, Wind & Fire clas­sic Sep­tem­ber was per­formed with due gus­to, with Abi­gail Spring at the con­trols.

Ramd­han re­turned to lead Bruno Mars’ Up­town Funk, leav­ing every­one un­pre­pared for Re­my’s as­ton­ish­ing arrange­ment of her own com­po­si­tion, Give Dem Horn. “Where are the play­ers?” peo­ple asked as the stage cleared. Well, they were seat­ed in a row of cars along­side the plat­form.

“Horn” meant car horns, sup­ple­ment­ed by wind­shield wipers, in­di­ca­tors, and head­lights as lead in­stru­ments. It was a re­mark­able high­light of an af­ter­noon of out­stand­ing per­cus­sive mu­si­cal per­for­mances.

There was lit­tle time for re­cov­ery when pan drill mas­ter, Pan Trin­ba­go Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, and past stu­dent/en­sem­ble leader Mar­cus Ash in­tro­duced Williams to di­rect a Kaliper­sad arrange­ment of Ste­vie Won­der’s Mas­ter Blaster.

The tem­po slowed slight­ly for Fred­die Mer­cury’s Bo­hemi­an Rhap­sody, led by Ja­da Cae­sar, fol­lowed by Richards’ ver­sion of Nap­py May­ers’ Bring Back the Old Time Days.

Gabriel Ben­gochea then took the helm for the clos­ing pre­sen­ta­tion of Dance and Shake Your Tam­bourine, the 1976 hit by The Uni­ver­sal Ro­bot Band, as arranged by Williams. Out came the tam­bourines dis­trib­uted at the door at the start of the pro­gramme.

The sun showed signs of wan­ing as the af­ter­noon drew to a close. The crowd dis­persed far more slow­ly than it had as­sem­bled. Prof Re­my’s 23 years at UWI are draw­ing to an end, but the J-9 lega­cy ap­pears set for a much longer run.