Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Miss Lou

Her birthday had been a few days before, on September 7, but that did not make the 'Happy Birthday' sung for the Honourable Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley on Friday night any less heartfelt.

A substantial audience for the space turned out at the Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, restaurant and nightspot for the celebration, the Jamaican-style uptempo birthday wishes. Guitarist Maurice Gordon, who organised the event told the audience "in case you didn't know, you are the voices this evening" and they duly sang.

Other voices

Other voices would come later, from poets Yasus Afari and Joan Andrea Hutchinson, as well as a stirring 'Peep Inna Me Pot' sung by Simone Thomas.

Before Gordon's guitar, Kemar Grant's congas, Dwayne Livingstone's bass and Jermaine Tulloch's black and white keys had been the voices on a 'folksy' night of live music which started off with Evening Time. And even before that, the tribute song We Love You Miss Lou had been played repeatedly, Gordon explaining that he had written the music one summer and the lyrics the summer after, the words coming as he was cycling in France.

The quartet played the jolly Long Time Gal Me Neva See You before going into a few Gordon compositions. He pointed out that he had given Miss Lou the first public copy of his Jamaica Time album, the band doing Bam Bam nyabinghi style.

Naturally, solos and interpretations were the order of the night, with the songs stretched and explored extensively, the designated voices duly singing along to Nobody's Business.

Marjorie Whylie also started off with Evening Time on keyboards, smiling sanguinely as she dropped a rocking folk song medley that included Rucumbine and Under The Coconut Tree, making smooth transitions between songs before ending with one finger depressed on one key for a low note that was superseded by the audience's applause.

Rosina Moder on recorder and Morman MacCullum on guitar gave a heartfelt delivery of Fi Mi Love a Lionheart, Simone Thomas putting emphatic body movement and vocal expression into the song about pot peepers for a very appreciative audience.

And when Moder asked the night's designated voices to join in on Redemption Song, which she led on flute, there was an 'I-Many' at Redbones.

Sean Richards, on break from music studies in Venezuela, introduced the audience to the classical guitar style of Sorcerer's Eyes and La Negra before asking them to use their imagination for his interpretation of Evening Time, read as a metaphor for life.

In the post-intermission period, it was mostly voice, Yasus Afari doing 'I Pen' and reminding all that "the Earth is a friend". He got closer to the audience on 'Patois Talking', delivering his grandfather's earthy lyrics to one woman to the delight of all. He closed with 'Complex', stating "who waan please, please, who waan vex, vex".

Hutchinson demonstrated the timelessness and social relevance of Miss Lou's by reading 'Six Nil', a poem about a drubbing in football Jamaica received from Trinidad in 1947. The reactions she documented would not out of place for Jamaica's recent 2-0 beating by Honduras.

And Hutchinson showed the connection between her work and Miss Lou's by first reading Miss Lou's 'South Parade Peddler' and her own 'King Street Palaver'. 'Usain Bolt and Mi Marriage' caused many chuckles, as did lightening matters in 'Bleach It Likkle More'. She related her travails when she was stranded in China with 'Mad Woman in Beijing' and went into matters close to heart with a few pieces from her latest book, Inna Me Heart.

And, after Hutchinson closed with her tribute poem 'Tenky Miss Lou', the voices of the instruments ushered all home gracefully with Walk Good.