The Kings of Strings Simon Lee Published: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 It’s the season for surprises and nostalgia and as if with these thoughts in mind, Short Pants Productions combined the two and preempted the three wise men of the east with its We Three Strings series of pre-Christmas concerts at the Little Carib Theatre on December 21. Rather than gold, frankincense and myrrh, cuatro virtuoso Robert Munro, extempo and classic kaiso maestro Relator and our very own successor to Stephane Grapelli, Stanley Roach the “City Gate Fiddler”, presented packed houses with a medley of Christmas music, traditional, humourous, local, original and sometimes irreverent. After such a three-course feast audiences will need the interim to fully digest before tackling ham and pastelles. The shining trio is well known locally and in Relator and Munro’s cases internationally. The first performer, introduced by Sharon Pitt, has however, probably covered more ground than the other two put together. While many will know Stanley Roach for his daily performances at City Gate, a few others will recall the “Marathon Man” of the 1990s, when Stanley could be seen pounding the PBR sans violin. For this reviewer it was an immense pleasure finally to see Stanley in a concert situation. He was the man who introduced me to the musical surprises of T&T. I met him during my first weeks in Trinidad when I wandered into a heaving rumshop in Curepe Junction and heard the unmistakable strains of Danny Boy floating above the Friday night cusses, smoke and rum fumes. Intrigued I made a request-probably some Bach, or Vivaldi or even Paganini. Like a magic classical and traditional folk juke box, Stanley played every request I called for and more. I used to catch up with him in most of the watering holes on the East-West Corridor, where to my perplexity he’d play for a shot and move on, until he gave up the puncheon for running, but never put down his fiddle. The comparison with Stepane Grapelli is not unwarranted, nor the association that Grapelli has with his Gypsy Swing partner, Django Reinhardt. I was more than happy to hear his distinctive improvisational approach on numbers like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and the Creole syncopation of his interpretation of O Come All ye Faithful. In a country notorious for undervaluing or even ignoring its genius (just think Fitzroy Coleman languishing in the hills of St Babbs), where until very recently there was little call for classical violinists, Stanley has fiddled on, faithful to his largely self-taught talents. For the uninitiated, he began his set, accompanied by brother Orville on keyboard, with Bach’s Air on a G String, the double entendre title meeting with as much approval as Stanley’s faultless interpretation. Sorento allowed him to evoke the formal Christmas balls of 19th-century Martinique with their creolised panache and a Castillian segued into a the waltz cum chachacha of Bambino, all these three confirming Stanley as unique in the eastern Caribbean for what might be termed his “Creole Gypsy” style. Entirely unassuming but prodigiously talented, Stanley deserves a place in the UTT music department, alongside Errol Ince, as his style and catholic repertoire should not be allowed to go the way of oblivion. It’s rare for a classical violinist to be comfortable with improvisation; there are a few in Cuba, where he’d be welcomed as the maestro he is, but at this end of the Caribbean we need to cherish him and the example of a life, however impecunious, dedicated to bringing the people their music and the music of the world. Relator is as familiar with the concert stage as Stanley is with the road and his set provided a perfect balance in terms of humour, intimacy and familiarity. Favourites like Sip and Chat, Make a Friend for the Christmas, Bottle and Spoon instigated a cosy Little Carib sing-along while surreptitiously giving seasonal advice: Some people so greedy, they drinking fast and speedy; sipping and chatting is the way to go. With extempo, and or spirited inspiration Relator introduced a Nagib Elias commercial “which has nothing to do with the programme or Christmas” and more than got away with it, along with a Dean Martin impersonation and the irreverent (There’s no) Christmas on Sesame Street. Robert Munro, ably accompanied by Dominic Townsend on second cuatro, Andrew David on electric bass and his granddaughter Selena St Rose on maracas, reminded us all that while the cuatro usually features as not much more than a cameo instrument in our brief parang season, in the hands of a maestro, it can become a solo lead. With eyes closed Munro’s first three traditional seasonal favourites (Mary’s Boy Child, Hark the Herald Angels, How I Wish I were a Child Again) might well have been played on a harp, for the intricacy of his melodic picking technique. A galloping joropo version of Rio Manzanares returned the audience to the more familiar local soundscape, while the following Felicia, a Munro original composition proved that strings can function as percussion as well as melody, rhythm and harmony. Although self-taught Munro’s style has far more in common with South American and Latin solo cuatristos, Cuban tres players or Brazilian cavaquineros, who fully explore the melodic as well as the rhythmic potential of their instrument. Drawing on South American repertoires Munro dazzled with such compositions as Ypacarai, Sol en Merengue, El Manaquero and Carnaval Llanero and proudly showcased the already impressive precussion skills of his young granddaughter Selena St Rose. Gift wrapping the finale, the Three Kings of String played the signature We Three Kings before prising the want more crowd out of their seats to send them chipping into the Woodbrook night to the strains of Relator’s Bottle and Spoon. Relator, Robert Munro and Stanley Roach in a moment of camaraderie onstage at Three Strings at the Little Carib Theatre. Source:: Trinidad Guardian The post The Kings of Strings appeared first on Trinidad & Tobago Online. #trinidad
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 09:39:19 +0000
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