Michael Reckord, Contributor

Left: David Reid and Friends in performance at the Post-Christmas Concert of Choral Music, held at the Kingston Parish Church, King Street on Sunday January 7.   Right: Members of the Diocesan Festival Choir in performance at the Post-Christmas Concert of Choral Music, held at the Kingston Parish Church, King Street on Sunday January 7. - photos by Winston Sill / Freelance Photographer

As was to be expected, witticisms and sexual innuendoes flowed into the conversation. A Jamaican male could hardly be accused of causing a "premature climax" without comments of that nature arising.

But the context of the discussion between the "accused," David Reid, founder and conductor of the singing group David and Friends, and a member of the audience to which the group sang on Sunday afternoon was a serious one. It concerned the structuring of the programme of the post-Christmas concert at the Kingston Parish Church.

In addition to Reid's group, the performers were the National Chorale of Jamaica and the Diocesan Festival Choir. This was a combination of - according to Rev. Leon Golding, rector of the church - "some of the best musicians in Jamaica."

The enthusiastic applause given to the items presented certainly showed that the audience as a whole was delighted. And yet, suggested the complaining member to Reid, how much more satisfying the concert would have been if the programme had been so arranged that the final offering by Reid's group -a tremendously rousing rendition of Barry Chevannes' Early Christmas Morning aka The Ghetto Carol - had been the final item of the concert.

Jamaican carol

As it was, the concert ended, quite strongly, with another lively Jamaican carol, Noel Dexter's Good News. The bouncy item had its presenters, the Diocesan Festival Choir, swaying as they sang; for the previous items they had been still.

It also had many in the audience nodding their heads and tapping their feet. For the Chevannes carol, though, the participation had been greater: they had been singing along. Lustily.

The afternoon's entertainment began with words from the ever amiable Reverend Easton Lee. As emcee, he introduced the National Chorale, founded in 1972 by the late Geoffrey Fairweather.

Later, as performer, he delighted the audience with a poem in praise of his mother, describing her as mason, carpenter, cook, tailor and nurse, among other things. In fact, he said, she was "a whole heap of people."

Guided by its guest conductor for the concert, Dr. Richard Beckford, a Jamaican who is now a professor of music at the University of South Carolina, the National Chorale sang five popular Christmas songs. They were in good voice and for most of the pieces, they were accompanied on piano by a member, Maurice Gordon.

For one item, though, Mr. Gordon left his instrument and joined in the singing. Showing his own versatility, Dr Beckford played a spirited, sonorous item by a French composer of the late 1900s on the church organ.

In view of the doubling up of tasks that had been taking place, it would've been no surprise to any audience member that some of the singers from the Chorale reappeared with David and Friends for their segment. Accompanied by Dorothy DeGazon, they sang - as promised by the emcee - some not-so-familiar Christmas songs. One, a Filipino plantation song, showed that the group does "eschew the hackneyed," as Reid avows.

Evangelical fervour

For the final item, he turned to face the audience (while conducting, his back was to us) to lead his 30 or so singers with near-evangelical fervour. It emotionally lifted the gathering to the already discussed "premature climax."

Among the many interesting bits of information given by the emcee was that the 60-strong, 100-plus year-old Diocesan Festival Choir includes a member, Joyce Aiken, was has been with the group for 50 years. One highlight of the six pleasing items the choir performed was "O Holy Night." Guest soloist Carole Reid helped to make the listening experience almost sublime.

In her vote of thanks, Church Warden Yvonne Clarke expressed gratitude to all the performers, including accompanists Ann Trouth and Dwight McBean and the Diocesan Festival Choir's conductor, Michael Sutherland. She called the concert "a feast of music," and the applause of the audience indicated they agreed.