FROM all reports, Saturday night’s concert-dance at Thirst Park both whetted and quenched the thirst of older Guyanese for the wonderful melodies and rhythms of yesteryear. Four masters of the Reggae idiom sang their audience back in time to a place where the toils of life seemed less wearing on the human psyche and the compelling rhythms of the Caribbean, especially those from the island of Jamaica, were constraining world stage artistes to take note of their presence and to acknowledge their power, beauty and, sometimes, inherent social protest. The four balladeers, all of whom are now all greying at the edges were Boris Gardiner, Eric Donaldson, Ernie Smith and Ken Lazarus, and so beloved and well-regarded is their musical legacy that tickets for the performance were sold as quickly as the proverbial hot cakes. Thirty years ago these artistes were some of the hottest names on both long-playing albums and ‘45’ discs and no party, dance or fete was considered complete without their music being played and danced to, again and again. It is a tribute to their artistic longevity that in an era where even cassettes are now regarded as old-fashioned, the music these singers recorded three decades ago still retains the power to move, enchant and inspire listeners.
The Caribbean people owe a debt of gratitude to Jamaica and Trinidad for creating and developing unique forms of music that celebrate the distinctive cultures and mixtures of cultures that help to give shape and form to regional societies. With the exception of the Amerindians, who have lived in this part of the world for millennia, all the peoples of the Caribbean region can identify their origins in far-flung lands. In the few centuries that the descendants of transplanted peoples had to help formulate with their presence and hard labour the social milieu, they have managed not only to survive but also to possess their countries and to express in various cultural forms, the myriad experiences - both good and harrowing - that have helped to shape their material existence as well as strengthen and forge their spirit to surmount difficulties and achieve objectives so that the lives of their children and grandchildren would be greatly improved.
The latter half of the 20th century witnessed the coming to consciousness of a great many more West Indians. Perhaps because lives became marginally less hazardous with the earlier introduction of trade unionism and the concomitant regulated hours of work and legislated times of leisure, the human mind was freer to explore the world of sounds and ideas and come up with forms of music that would both entertain as well as give surcease to yearnings for freedom and a better quality of life. Thus, Calypso, which has its origins in slave songs, became widely accepted as a people’s art form in Trinidad before it spread to other Eastern Caribbean territories. Leading exponents of post-modern calypso include Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow, Lord Melody and Calypso Rose. And beginning in the 1960s Jamaica, where the masses thrived on a rich heritage of indigenous folk and Rastafarian music, a distinctive sound evolved from Ska to Rock Steady, to Reggae then to Dancehall and its myriad offshoots. Leading pioneers of this most creative musical development were the legendary Byron Lee, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Ken Lazarus, Eric Donaldson, Ernie Smith, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. These legends are followed by a host of extremely talented song-writers, musicians and singers, who in the last two or so decades, have been carving their names on music charts in Europe and North America, so widely accepted are their riveting compositions.
Last Saturday night, mature Guyanese attending the Reggae Nostalgia show at Thirst Park, forgot for a few hours, the toils and tensions of their daily existence and were transported back in time to a musical interlude of indescribable sweetness.