FLASHBACK: Calypso In A Lenten Moment

Hunter, Sandy, Tarina
Hunter, Sandy, Tarina

It’s 7:27 a.m. on Wednesday, February 21, 2007, the day after Carnival Tuesday. I’m about to leave for work and, just for curiosity’s sake, decided to turn on the net. I might just hear Tarina Simon singing “Lifeline.”

It’s Dominica Broadcasting Corporation, and the DJ is moved to play the Hollies’s “Air That I Breathe.” It’s 8:27 a.m. his time.

“Making love with you, has left me peaceful warm inside / what more could I ask / there’s nothing left to be desired.” While you were out in the streets jamming, this guy was in bed!

The Hollies is followed by “Dust in the Wind” from the group Kansas. “All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see / dust in the wind / all we are is dust in the wind.” Hey, philosophical. Is it not? The day after carnival on a Caribbean island, a DJ plays “all we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see.”

He then runs “Seasons in the Sun” released in 1974 as a single by Terry Jacks. The B-side was titled “Put the Bone In.” This DJ is really tripping. “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun / but the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone.” Sounds Vavalian, doesn’t it?

The song is about death, infidelity. In fact, all the songs he played touched dying and a potential life force. He tried to hide sexuality and birthing of consciousness. Then he had to give way to a program from Dominica’s Catholic church.

It’s Ash Wednesday. “It means that we have gathered and publicly acknowledged that we have sinned,” the priest declared on radio the day after carnival.

“We are reminded of the reality of sin and the power of the Gospel in our lives. Rend your hearts, not your garments. Blow a trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast. Let ministers weep. Call on the Lord. Spare your people, O Lord. Return to the Lord. Come back to the Lord.” It’s Ash Wednesday and “taking ashes” is a sign of an inward desire for change in our lives.

It’s supposed to be a day of fasting and abstinence. It’s Ash Wednesday. “Lord,” he prayed, “protect us in our struggle against evil.”

… This is a good man who knows resonance in O Antiphons as well as from OM. This is a good man who understands the risen Christ. This is a good man. He may well know hearts now pumped to fitness, skin smooth from pouring sweat, mind’s creative intelligences ready to give thanks, to turn eyes to those who could not be there, those in need, those physically handicapped, those blind, those who could not hear sweet music, those abused fearing crowds, those imprisoned, those hungry in a land of plenty growing, in a land where people can find money when they need it for a good time. Typical Dominican!

There’s another host. He introduced himself. “We’ll talk,” he said, “about calypso and Lent.” I was amazed. I could not leave my house.

He introduced Johann Sebastian Bach. This is unbelievable. Bach drew from linguistic texts, streams evident in seventeenth-century Italy, France, and Germany at the time, not to mention influences of unrevealed cultures, traces of pre-European empires.

Not only did Bach freely practice octave leaping, moving symbolically, musically, liturgically between heaven and earth. His bass line adopted slow, repetitive notes in idioms like the cantata. Thanks, Wikipedia. Speed up a bouyon bass line, a zouk one even better. Ha-ha.

Bach preferred the organ. His works, many composed for choir, were described as secular and sacred. This priest knows where he’s heading.

The word baroque is said to be derived from Portuguese, meaning “oddly shaped pearl”—a word that once carried negative connotations, possibly on account of a notion of symmetry at the time. By the nineteenth century, baroque became quite acceptable a term to describe not only western music, but also its art and architecture spanning just under three hundred years from sixteen hundred.

The baroque era was seen therefore as one of the richest and most diverse periods in the progress of western civilization. In that era, a guiding philosophy was that music communicates. Wow!

… That priest host was bidding all goodbye when I arrived at work. When I tuned in, he was thanking Leandra. Wasn’t sure which of the Leandras—the queen or the one who sang “Skeletons” and “Woman Time to Shine.”

 

Then he ran Leandra, the calypsonian singing “Skeletons,” to close off his program. He was thanking Tarina Simon for her contribution. Recall in 2006, she was calling on all to join the Bishop in cleaning up the society, and her 2007 plea to save Waitukubuli’s environment was contemplative, reflective, and urgent.

What was beautiful is that there was a calypso that could find place within his religious renditions. Even “tété on belly” could, but obesity would have to be the context, and I was not aware of the extent to which the Catholic church was concerned about nutrition and diet of its congregation.

Then I heard a bit of David Rudder’s “Haiti” slip through following Leandra’s “Skeletons,” but that was stopped arbitrarily. I waited. It would’ve been a wonderful act of extending the hand in symbolic zèv (Haiti’s word for “charity”)—remembering that Great Land in song this Lenten season, season of fasting and abstinence.

The Terry jacks DJ came back, turning on zouk. Nothing to the cool side of Exile One, Grammacks, Chubby and Midnight Groovers, WCK, First Serenade, Ophelia, Swinging Stars, and RSB—they all have a cool side that remains generally unexplored by DJs.

They pick one song on a CD, play it to death, then place the CD in libraries or never care to download them anymore.

RSB, the first band to play at Dominica’s first World Creole Music Festival in 1997, has been treated thus. Though systematically forgotten, RSB has a string of cool, conscious hit albums—(1986) Alive, (1987) Break Loose, (1988) Reunion Posse, (1990) Level Vibes, (1991) Watch Ya, (1992) Kadansé, (1994) Big Time, (1995–96 ) Incline Jam, (1997) Bang Time, and (1998) Tighter Than Ever.

Nothing from these could be tight enough for this DJ, not even one from Level Vibes to steady his still drunk tongue.

When I arrived at Kairi FM, its broadcaster was praising Sandy for her performance on Saturday night—coming second, first runner-up like her colleague Tarina the year before. Then she took to reviewing Dominica’s soca monarch competition won by Hunter, followed by Triple Kay’s Benji, and Daddy Chess.

 

She ran Hunter’s “Helicopter” the same Ash Wednesday. Wow! A combined regional and national military burn whole mountain sides on Sabbath days looking for cannabis, why not play “Helicopter” on Ash Wednesday? They wouldn’t hesitate to burn on Ash Wednesday!

 

Under the influence of “Helicopter,” revelers had to act the prop—waving rags, a lead singer commanding these keep-fit dancers to move so, so, so! Vaval was going to be burnt that afternoon anyway, so why not burn the flipping tracks.

 

Furthermore, Myrtle Bruno is not a switch and, out of all sincerity, could not turn off carnival. In truth, carnival was not to be turned off but carried, its flame embedded in acts of charity, not its ashes.

 

Myrtle would go on to explore a few of Hunter’s relevant songs—relevant to the pre-Vavalian burning. In one of the tracks selected, Hunter praised the Lord “for unchanging love.” He thanked the Lord for sending his only son to die on a cross. That’s in Dominican calypso and wonderfully contrasting. Myrtle Bruno found within calypso, Lenten meaning while the others locked it off.

 

She runs a second from Hunter titled “The Beginning of the End.” Reminds me of a cultist/anthropological text titled “The Beginning Was the End” written in a Chinese monastery by Hungarian, Oscar Kiss Maerth.

 

In selections that followed, the 2007 monarch, Derrick “Hunter” St. Rose sang passionately about wars, gang war, torture, murders unsolved, rumors of war, disease, disaster, pain and anger, men and women worshipping foreign gods—apt for national and global reflection during Lent. Myrtle, you are forever kissable, spunky rebel in my psyche!

 

— Excerpt from Steinberg Henry’s “Calypso Drift” (Segment 11/Chapter 96, 97, 2014). www.calypsodrift.com, www.amazon.com, www.chapters.indigo.ca, Choices & Jays Bookstores, Dominica –0

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10 Comments

  1. March 1, 2015

    What such garbage…
    The most high God is never mocked..
    What- so-ever a man or woman soweth that will he or she reap…

  2. March 1, 2015

    “Calypso In A Lenten Moment” And so!

    If Christians could try to understand that they are called to maintain a “Relationship” with God, the Lord, through His Person, Jesus Christ, they would also understand that Salvation and Reconciliation to Him, do not happen by their choice of works–in religion–for that is what the observance of Lent is about–a work of Religion.

    However, we learn through the apostle Paul at Ephesians 2: 8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

    It is not that God wants us to simply sit around, “waiting our mansion above” when we know that we are saved; for even if Jesus will not judge us for sins –having accepted and believe in Him–but He will judge us for our works— those works will be the command of Holy Spirit, who indwells us through conscience, when God Almighty, Eternal Spirit, Christ of Love in Jesus, connects to us.

    • March 1, 2015

      Jesus said to us, through His disciples: At John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another”

      Hence the work of Love in us, is the only work which will give God delight, for the work of Love is meant to glorify His very Nature and Character of Spirit, Truth, and Righteousness. God has no interest in the works of Religion–in fact He detests those work for He lamented, through the Prophet Isaiah, which Jesus repeated to the Jews of His days on Earth, He said:

      “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, when he said: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” Matthew 15-8-9

      • March 1, 2015

        The practice of Lent is one of the religious practices that does nothing for the soul of man, and yet God is after our soul–the spiritual body in us who enters the world in its condition of darkness and death. For that reason God sent us a “Revival”; we receive that “revival” by faith–the Spiritual Channel by which we relate to God and Him to us.

        Lent is compared to the Old Testament’s, sacrifice of animals for atonement of sins–part of the laws of Moses. This also happened every year, for the people went right back to their sinful practice– the same as Lent.

        However we hear Jesus telling us at Matthew 5: 17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill”.

        By His obedience, humility, His suffering and dying, Jesus fulfilled the Law–there is no kind of work that we can do for the sake of our Salvation–Jesus paid the ransom for us “once and for all times” more than 2000 years ago.

  3. Sylvester Cadette
    February 28, 2015

    This is such a wonderfully blended piece of writing, so intricately blended to capture and juxatapose so many genres of music, art and philosophy across cultures, across different eras and across varying philosophical and theological thought processes.

    Moods, thought processes, moral and God-conscious philosophical concepts of our culture and society mirrored back to us – it forces us to think – to think on what we value, and its true meaning in our development. Stienberg, you force us to culturally listen to the echo in our blood, in our soul, in our mind and spirit. Thanks !! (DBS should again host the Artistic and Cultural (AC) Happening Program which brought cultural awareness and consciousness to us – ). I learnt.

    Thanks also for making me love Jazz music. I heard you play Morning Dance by Spyro Gyra back in 1978 (I was 12) and the Voice that captivated – your voice – just had me in awe of Jazz ever since. Thanks!!

    Health and prosperity to you. DNO please convey to…

  4. ginger
    February 28, 2015

    There is something called INTENT. Calypso, Jazz, Rock Bouyon – anything can be sung at any time of the year but what is the intent of the host. Was the intention all about reflection on what we consider spiritual things?

    What about the general discussions taking place at the time, was the focus on repentance and soul searching?

    I think ALL the media houses and forms of media contribute to the lack of spirituality around LENT? Was that sentiment which you felt on that Wednesday morning continued in subsequent days and the following week? I say not

    And I don’t blame them too much because my church refuse to speak up anyway. Spirituality is just left to individuals. No institutional support,
    May God bless you and I wish you success in your spiritual pursuits during this season.

    Ginger

    • March 2, 2015

      @ginger February 28, 2015 “Spirituality is just left to individuals. No institutional support”

      I can see your point all in all here, but let it be known that the only “institutional support” pertaining to God and the ways of the Spirit–Life in Jesus Christ–is the guidance and teachings of Holy Spirit. The New Covenant that God made to us, through His prophet Jeremiah, would be instilled in us, through our faith and the Power of Holy Spirit.

      Without Holy Spirit, conscience is dead, the mind remains in its carnal condition and the soul is asleep in darkness, without the Light which has to be man’s Life through faith in the Blood of Jesus–Christ of Love–God’s very Person.

      However, most of us are simply conformed to the practice of religion, Church to us is the “building”, our attendance is just any other social gathering–most of us might never had an encounter with Holy Spirit, and yet, without His presence in the Church it is a dead church.

      • March 2, 2015

        @ginger continued:

        Faith is the Spiritual Channel by which we relate to God and Him to us–the Church is supposed to be a Spiritual Body–Jesus is the Head–not the Pope

        Apostle Paul tells us at Ephesians 5: 25-27 “Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish”

        Paul is comparing the Love, which a man should share with his wife, with the Love of Jesus for the Church–notice that he refers to the Church as “her” or “she” –it is all about a Love relationship with God by faith–not a religious one by works.. .

        Jesus called us to walk in the Spirit, thriving in the ways of Love, which is the ways of Life in Him–none of those commandments or doctrine of man is guiding us towards that path– let us not be fooled.

  5. faceup
    February 28, 2015

    The organizers trying to make a dollar in hard times… Good try but they know very well the participants will only reach as far where ever they going to keep that show…Participants please don’t spend your money.. Let the organizers use theirs and have a good time…Been there done that :-D

    • faceup
      February 28, 2015

      My bad wrong page

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