If music be the food...

Hartley Neita, Contributor

WE HAD a gramophone which played music in our home when we were children.

For those who were born after 1950, a gramophone was a beautifully-made box on the top of which sat a turntable that spun 78 times per minute - i.e. revolutions per minute (rpm). The motor was a spring which was wound by hand and when it was released the 78 rpm record spun round and round. Only one song, not more than three minutes long was recorded on each disc.

An arm with a needle was placed on the record, and we heard the music of Ma Rainey, Bing Crosby, Dick Haymes, Jo Stafford, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Marion Anderson and Richard Tauber. So we grew up on a menu of the Blues, a slight touch of the classics, negro spirituals, and lots and lots of love songs.

I did not know it then, but subsequently realised that my father and mother were romantics. The songs they hummed around the house were, I'll Get By As Long As I Have You, You Are Too Beautiful, I Love You For Sentimental Reasons, and You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You.

My mother hummed these songs while she ironed our clothes or replaced buttons which had fallen off, or turned the collar of our shirts so that they lasted two or three more months. My father taught us how to play them with paper and comb. He closed his eyes as he turned these tunes, lost in the romance of the words.

I don't hear these songs in homes anymore. I hear, instead, sounds of "juckie-juckie", "juggo-juggo", "chicka-me-chacka" or such similar words mixed with scatter shots of expletives. They apparently mean something to the current teen generation as they dance to them with mouths pursed, and eyes glazed in a trance.

The rhythm plucked by the bass and rattled by the drums and cymbals is an echo of the explosions of gunshots. Indeed, seeing the guys who play the bass guitar with its neck pointed at the audience is an image of the gunman aiming his M-16 assault rifle at his innocent victims. In fact, one can recall Peter Tosh building his guitar in the shape of one of these weapons.

So, let's face it. Music is no longer the food of love. Nor is it a motivator of patriotism.

The music played by the bands of the Jamaica Constabulary and the Jamaica Defence Force cannot inspire or influence the youth of today.

They need to re-score the present arrangements. They need new tunes, relevant to today. They may well need to consider breaking tradition and adding electric bass guitars to the bands.

And if they need help, I am sure they would get it from musicians and arrangers like Grub Cooper, Peter Ashbourne and Ernie Ranglin.

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