Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
THROUGH A nondescript door near where the happily crazy line up to enter a certain loony house on Knutsford Boulevard, New Kingston, 13 steps and one turn up then three more flights of nine steps each, Up On The Roof gives an eye-level view of the billboards that colour the Kingston Hip Strip.
On Tuesday night, the eatery and live entertainment spot was the platform for the recorders of Rosina Moder and the guitars of Norman McCallum and Shawn Richards to send romantic music into the open air above the hiss of JUTC buses, and the rasp of a revving motorcycle.
And there was the unscheduled 'brawta' of Jeffrey Cobham joining a controlled jam session on guitar, as well as Ramona soaring without music to end the performances with My Heart Will Go On.
When The Gleaner arrived for the free session, Moder and McCallum, who played together, were wrapping up their first set, Moder on the rarely heard bass recorder carrying the melody of Black Orpheus The two ended with Manha De Carnaval, making way for Richards.
Those relaxed in colourful wooden chairs or seated on high at the bar were restrained in conversation, and attentive to the musicians, as a constant breeze ruffled the leaves of the potted plants which lined the edges of the rooftop.
JAMAICAN FOLK SONG MEDLEY
Moder said they had started with a Jamaican folk song medley, which included Banyan Tree and Under The Coconut Tree, for which she played alto recorder. The slow Redemption Song was followed by a quick mento medley, including Long Time Gal and Mango Walk, then it was back to the slow and low with My Heart Will Go On, on bass recorder.
Richards, with a smile, started on the Latin note with Recuerdos De la Alhambra and Un Día de Noviembre, before going Marley with a good arrangement of Is This Love? which had feet tapping away on the wooden deck flooring of Up On The Roof. He started his arrangement of No Woman No Cry with a high sustained note, which gently washed up on the beach of the ear, receded and then had a second coming, before the familiar melody began and the audience applauded.
Richards went romantic North American style with Killing Me Softly and My Cheri Amor, before ending with The Entertainer.
"Let us play The Sound of Silence and go back to the space of The Graduate," Rosina Moder said as she sat with McCallum again. "I remember exactly where I was when I first saw this film and how madly in love I was."
The guitar set the mood and again the recorder carried the melody, a flickering, changing billboard on the other side of Knutsford Boulevard forming part of the backdrop for the performers.
FLAMENCO
A Moorish piece was followed by the rapid strumming of flamenco. "You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl," she said, going back to Austria for the Serenade by Hayden. More Austrian music, of the faster, foot-tapping type, followed and the pair ended with Redemption Song, done again by request, the recorder soaring on 'triumphantly' in the first verse and 'none a them can stop the time' in the second.
There was also a request for Richards to play My Cheri Amor again, the applause coming as much for the music as the couple which clung and spun to the music. They sat, only to rise again for Careless Whispers.
Cobham joined Moder and McCallum for Perfidia, coming in with strong, rapid strums of the guitar as instructed and then it was three guitars as Moder made way for Richards.
One lady did intricate steps to a Latin number, the audience cheering as she was briefly joined by a quivering, robustly built lady, then the Richards exchanged places with Moder for Guantanamera as requested.
In another of the combinations of the night, Richards and Cobham delivered Natural Mystic.
A dancer became a singer for Summer Time and a smiling, sparkly-eyed Ramona, a student at the School of Music, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, did At Last, fusing Etta James' and Celine Dion's styles.
Ramona ended the night with her voice soaring high above the Kingston Hip Strip with My Heart Will Go On.
