Rain and prayers for no rain, sax in a rubber slippers , Shakespeare and feeling good

Paloma looked at the skies and saw the stars. She said "the rain has finished. I am praying for the clouds to move.. and like my prayers are being answered"

It did not rain again.



I was soaked because I decided to walk through the heavy 6pm shower to get to the Theatre Guild .. could not think of any jazz music to play in my head though I am sure there is Jazz in the rain. I had been listening to Ruth Osman's Rain.. on Friday a group danced to it, and on Saturday another group did the flowetry performance around it.


The Flowetry competition (Flowetry is something about rhyming wid motion or poetry wid music or sumtin.. ) started late.

A lot of angst as expected, Guyana birthing six races, some live music and the rock band which did not realise that they had to do a poem but came to play.. and did their rendition of Nina Simone's Feeling Good which they arranged a few minutes before they performed.





Blues in the Night

Francis Bailey played his sax in rubber slippers and a hat. At some point he said something about the bass disappearing, but I did not notice .. the man said feel free to throw  fruit .. fresh fruit is good

There was a nice moment when the MC, Ms Gerrard sang a song without backup. There were some young people singing and playing .. good talent and maybe one day there will voice training for them - a friend in a choir said voice training is very very expensive..

David McAlmont sang and Guy Davies played the keyboard , and in one song Courtney Fadlin played the sax.  Audience near me was hooked.. except for one young man who told me that it was arite, he is a Beres Hammond fan though.


A woman enjoyed the playing of the saxophone. She told me that she follows the sax wherever she knows someone will play.. her father used to play and she used to sing. He died a long time ago . The sax brings back good memories

David McCalmont talked some history .. gives context to a song . There was a difficult time at Guyana's Queen's College hinted at... but this of course.. under the eucalyptus and well some of the funds will be going to QC for arts.





He recited a Shakespeare sonnet (not flowetry style though), in memory of two of his mentors. He did say that West Indians are proud of their education and I thought oh dear.. I wonder how many of us in my generation could recite any sonnets and so as the education system has become very independent and free from Colonial thingys and well.. okay I still can't get the big deal about Shakespeare..  but..

A man and I talked about music education and education about music in Guyana. He learned to play the piano and completed the highest level in Guyana. His learning  had paused while career took off. Engineer. He was happy Georgetown was cleaning up. He was going to completely come back to Guyana now, and with a keyboard.

Another man who likes jazz and who had come back to Guyana  a long time ago called. He sounded tired of the place. He had not gone to the jazz festival, he had work to do and was not feeling it.

I said ow man, now and den yuh gah fuh lef de wuk. I mean.. I writing this instead of de other things I supposed to do.