Jazz pianist John Arnold and his Kariwak players took a small, intrigued audience across musical seas and continents to his Tambrin Jazz Project showcase last Friday evening at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.
Arnold blended the African Tobago tambourine drum with the East Indian tabla to create a highly pleasing hybrid sound that won over a musically savvy audience, among them acclaimed musician/composer Ray Holman and renowned violinist Inge Schlüer.
Tambrin drummers Lawrence Crooks, Laurenzo Smith and Xavier Smith applied nimble fingers to the hot animal skin to add a new dimension to Arnold’s jazzy rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” and Toots Thielemans’ Bluesette.
As if those performances weren’t impressive enough, Arnold later introduced Tabalchi Mayank Ramgoolie for some completely improvised exchanges of East Indian and African drums that he called “Organic Bago Fusion” and “Indo Vibes.”
Ramgoolie had met the cast of musicians only a week before. On Friday his inspiring exchange with Crooks felt and looked like they had been playing together for ages.
Arnold said he was driven to not only include the tambourine in his group, but also to experiment with its cross-cultural applications, after seeing the drum appear less and less prominently in cultural performances on the Sister Island.
“One of the things that bothered me is the falling of the tambourine bars. It went from seven just a few years ago to just one in Tobago. I’ve had this great interest in tambourine. Two years ago I decided, ‘John you have to take it. Add jazz to the tambrin’. What you saw on Friday was an experiment in trying to get the tambourine to use jazz as an open door to raise his awareness,” Arnold explained during a call with Kitcharee on Thursday morning.
Arnold said he was introduced to Ramgoolie by fellow musicians in Trinidad after asking for a recommendation for “a good tabla player”.
“They gave me this guy and he turned out to be really good. He came to Tobago and we did a purely organic studio session and recorded it. We are now in the process of standardizing them to register them as proper songs,” he explained.
The musical stardust sprinkles
Earlier, acclaimed guitarist Theron Shaw and saxophonist Tony Paul brought some extra sparkle to the showcase with some great guest appearances.
Shaw’s brooding work was especially immaculate on Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” inspiring howls from the appreciative audience. The unassuming guitarist had them eating out of his hands further with his original “Charlotteville Jig” before bringing the audience to their feet with an intricate solo on Lord Kitchener’s (Aldwyn Roberts) 1970 road march “Margie”.
“He is ours and we must seek him and praise him. A masterful arranger and a brilliant musical mind,” Shaw said of Kitchener, following the performance to applause.
Paul, meanwhile, silenced the audience with a rousing rendition of Grover Washington Jr’s “Mister Magic” before paying tribute to Holman with his own “Bazodee.”
His rendition of the late US-born Trinidadian percussionist Ralph McDonald’s “Jouvert Jam” evoked fond memories of the beloved composer’s time in the islands. And by the time he moved his alto sax from his lips to deliver a pitch-perfect vocal on Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Do For Love,” it sounded like he was flexing his talent a little too much. He was so good.
Vocalists Lynette Louis and Judy Balfour proved to be entertaining openers as they warmed up the venue with some jazz standards. Louis’ rendition of calypso veteran Explainer’s (Winston Henry) “Lorraine” was particularly enjoyable, as was Balfour’s cover of Nina Simone’s “Feel So Good.”
Arnold, meanwhile, said plans are already underway to experiment with the timbre to make it easier to get into performance spaces. The drum requires warm-up and had to be rolled out of the hall several times during Friday’s performance.
“We want to encourage research on the cauldron so that we have other ways of heating it and making it. At this point that’s what I’m trying to drive. We are also talking about workshops. We are planning the Tambrin Festival for 2023 which will involve going to schools and doing workshops showing how we make the drums and how we get the kids to play.
“We hope that young people, even with their new soca, dancehall and hip hop, can start using the tambourine and experimenting with the sound. If that starts to happen, I think we have exciting times ahead,” Arnold concluded.
