[FA Worldmusic] Block Party in Kingston, Jamaica

[Mark Gorney]

Great post, Marco. 

Evolution in music is an interesting debate. I am all for evolution in
music, but the question is from what into what. If the music evolves in good
and interesting ways, great. If it devolves into something worse, then
clearly not so good. As someone who's been into Jamaican music for over 25
years and traveled there 12 times I have personally witnessed the music go
from (in my opinion) heaven to hell.

The music you experienced at Rae Town is melodic, uplifting and inspiring,
but today's dancehall literally makes me want to run away as fast as I can.
It's so sad that Jamaica, that once produced the greatest music in the
world, which used to sell hefty quantities of vinyl, now churns out some of
the worst. A big hit in Jamaica was 50,000 7" singles. Now a big hit is
5,000.

In the 1950s and 60s, economic conditions in Jamaica were decidedly not
favorable to the majority of Kingstonian slum-dwellers, yet Trenchtown was
like a little Hollywood filled with stars to people like Bunny Wailer, and
individual singers and groups sang with beauty and intensity about
everything under the blazing sun, rehearsing for hours in the sweltering
heat to get everything just right. Stepping into an air-conditioned studio,
they would cut a masterpiece in a half hour or less with brilliant
musicians, for which the singer(s) would receive more often than not a
pittance. And more often than not, this piece of music would last forever. I
can't say that about today's music from there.

Towards the end of the 1970s the DJ, an institution that had been around
since the 1950s, took over. Gradually, after the death of Bob Marley, the
introduction of the synthesizer and especially the sampler, the flooding of
guns and crack cocaine onto the island with the change of political regime,
the music eroded into what it is now. The collective, creative, harmonious,
socialistic struggle against oppression, injustice, poverty, etc. as
expressed so tunefully and articulately was gone, replaced by crude,
individualistic, materialistic, far less interesting and often downright
misogynist and homophobic expressions, devoid of the competent musical
backing of what has often been referred to as the golden era - an era of
substantial innovation (five musical styles in ten years, countless original
'riddims,' Bob Marley and international exposure/acceptance, etc). 

It's as if Jamaicans in the 1950s-70s were patient and willing to believe
that better will come, but now they see it's not happening and they're
pissed, and they're taking it out on us. That is reactionary, I know, but
it's how I feel sometimes. A reggae and world music festival promoter I know
who deals with some current Jamaican artists is shocked by the amount of
money dancehall artists want for a 45 minute performance. Individual greed
seems to have supplanted collective unity, and now we have songs calling for
the execution of gay people?

I am admittedly a (relatively speaking) well-off American who does not have
to struggle with day to day issues in Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria or Ghana. But
I see the same downward musical trends happening in other parts of the
Caribbean and in Africa - local, intricate musical traditions being
abandoned in favor of musicless rap and techno.

There are some that still carry on the traditions of mento, ska, rocksteady,
reggae, calypso, compas, west African kora music, highlife, rumba, soukous,
etc. but I fear that they are too few in number in their respective regions.
Too few that can read written music (where they used to before). Too few
that are willing to take on tricky instruments like the kora, or even the
balafon, trombone, guitar or piano.

Whether it's reggae, son, mambo or Ethiopian music, inevitably there are
golden eras for everything and I don't expect these musical explosions to
last forever. But if people have created an amazing music and subsequent
generations there or elsewhere want to hear it, I hope there is always
someone to provide it full-force.

I remain optimistic because there are tons of people currently doing great
music of all different kinds all over the world, in both traditional and
hybrid forms. I went on about Jamaican music because it's an interest of
mine, but I am concerned about musical traditions and knowledge dying out
because of technology, rap and social and economic conditions. And there is
the cultural factor - as the Malian saying goes, when a griot dies, it is
akin to a library burning down. Certainly rap has a role in music and
society but I'd like to see it not eclipse the wonderful music made by the
elders. 

I am not anti-evolution. Although I love the scratchy grit of music created
30 to 60 or more years ago as well the culture that accompanies it, I would
like to see music evolve in interesting, non-devolutional ways. Andy Palacio
was a brilliant example of that.


Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: fa-worldmusic-bounces+mark=worldisc.net at folk.org
[mailto:fa-worldmusic-bounces+mark=worldisc.net at folk.org] On Behalf Of Marco
Werman
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 10:15 AM
To: fa-worldmusic at folk.org
Subject: [FA Worldmusic] Block Party in Kingston, Jamaica

I just came back from ten days in Kingston, Jamaica where I was
collecting program material on the Alpha Boys School, an orphanage that
was founded in the 19th century by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy (to be
aired on Frontline/WORLD later this Spring).  Hard to believe for me,
but it was my first time on the island.  I got an amazing overview of
where Jamaican music is at in 2008.

But I write to share a sublime musical experience I had in the Kingston
working-class neighborhood of Rae Town.  As you may know, Sound
System-style street parties (with massive banks of loudspeakers that are
more comfortingly bassy than ear-splittingly treble) happen pretty much
every night of the week around Kingston, starting with Uptown Mondays at
a shopping plaza in New Kingston with current dancehall hits, and going
right through the week.

The neighborhood of Rae Town has, for the past 20 plus years there,
thrown a Sunday night dance and party.  The local paper the Gleaner
describes it as an oldies night, and the people reflect that, sort of.
There are 70 year-olds, all the way down to much younger people.
Classes mix:  doctors and lawyers from uptown mingle with an array of
characters out of Fellini.  The crowd shows up around midnight.  The
people slowly line up along both sides of the main street running
through Rae Town, almost like a dance showdown, and everyone begins a
slow groove to the music.  Grillers with jerk chicken, fish and pork are
common, as are sellers of ganja who wander around with small bouquets of
the herb still on the stem.  As the crowd builds, so does the music.

It's the music that really drew me in that night:  mostly old school
reggae and dub and anything ska:  "Fiddler on the Roof" ska by the Soul
Brothers, "Norwegian Wood" ska by Jackie Mittoo, you name it.  There was
also a seductive selection of oldies like Dionne Warwick's "Wishin and
Hopin," Sam Cooke's "Cupid" and "A Change Is Gonna Come" (a kind of plea
to the hood that crime and poverty can be licked), Dionne Warwick's et
al "That's What Friends Are For" (a neighborhood anthem, in which the DJ
dropped the sound right before the chorus, leaving the entire block
singing out loud), Maxine Brown's "Oh No Not My Baby."  And the walls of
speakers sent all this great music vibrating through my bones and making
me feel inspired and happy, and isn't that what music's supposed to do?
It was the best party I've ever been to.  I find dancehall monotonous
with a capital M.  And maybe Rae Town put me in a time warp, a flashback
to the great old days of this music that is disconnected in many ways to
the fast and furious business of dancehall.  But what a great scene and
sound that was last Sunday in Rae Town.  It's wonderful to be reminded
that the Loudest Island in the World isn't just about the size of the
sound system.  It's also about some of the coolest music ever made and
the whole world of sound that boomeranged into it.

Marco Werman

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