Early Valentine for music lovers

Jamaica Music Theatre Company hosts successful concert

Michael Reckord, Gleaner Writer

Love was presented in a variety of musical forms at the Jamaica Musical Theatre Company concert at Alhambra Inn on Sunday evening. The broadest classifications for the emotion were "sacred" and "secular", but further musical subdivisions might include "folk", "jazz", "pop", "dramatic", "solemn" and "humorous."

Happily, all types were entertaining and the near-capacity audience in the hotel's largest meeting place - a room of dark-brown wood and soft lighting - were left smiling at the end of the two-and-a-half-hour show.

Appropriately, since Sunday was the celebration of the birth of Bob Marley, the final song was the reggae icon's Three Little Birds.

The song featured all the performers - singers Carole Reid, Jodi HoLung. Christine MacDonald-Nevers, Cecil Cooper, John McFarlane and Andrew Lawrence; flautist Albert Shaun Hird, child drummer Brandon Goffe and pianist Yanique Leiba. Even the compère, Albertina 'Minki' Jefferson, added her voice briefly to the chorus.

As compère, Jefferson contributed much to the pleasure of the evening, being not only liberal with information on the background of every song, but also overflowing with witty Trinidadian sayings about love and affection.

In fact, just before introducing the first act, Jefferson made this promise to the audience: "We'll get you in the right frame of mind to celebrate Valentine's Day."

Then on came the three female singers, singing the folk song Walking Down the Valley. They strolled through the aisle, from back to front, where they were met by the males and escorted from the performing area.

It was then time for Leiba to accompany young Goffe as he played, on his trap set, an up-tempo version of the well-known hymn Praise to the Lord, The Almighty.

Clearly pleased with his performance, Jefferson opined, "The man have more form than a school," one of her many sayings.

In her textured, expressive voice, HoLung next sang a Celine Deon hit, The Colour of My Love. Her other solo item, I Dreamed a Dream, from the stage and movie show Les Miserables, came in the second half.

She was followed by the powerful tenor, Cooper, with Be My Love. The compère reminded listeners that the song was made popular by the late internationally renowned tenor, Mario Lanza. In fact, it was the first of Lanza's three million sellers. Cooper's second solo, after the intermission, was Charlie Chaplin's I'll be Loving You Eternally.

Hird, the only solo instrumentalist for the show, was up next. He elicited pure, beautiful notes from his flute for the hymn I'll Walk with God and received extra-strong applause. He also pleased the audience mightily with his later tune, Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine.

Actress, singer, and leader of the Jamaican Folk Singers, Christine MacDonald-Nevers, was not, surprisingly, quite dramatic in her rendition of two songs from the Broadway shows-turned movies Guys and Dolls and The King and I. They were, respectively, If I Were a Bell and Something Wonderful.

MacDonald-Never's second-half song was the humorous Someone's Sending Me Flowers. The revelation that the admirer sending the flowers - which include fungus and a meat-eating plant - has been sending them COD drew laughter, as usual.

With his rich voice and trademark sincerity, Lawrence elicited both applause and cheers for his version of Lionel Richie's Jesus is Love. His second solo song was Stevie Wonder's Ribbons in the Sky.

Reid's first solo, which was in Italian, was Puccini's O Mio Bambino (O Dear Papa). Even those who did not understand the language certainly got the mood of the piece, thanks to the soprano's vocal and physical expressiveness.

Cole Porter's I've Got You Under My Skin, made popular by Frank Sinatra, was McFarlane's choice for his passionately delivered first solo. The audience heard from the compère that it was a "torch" song, meaning one about an individual "carrying a torch" for another and, therefore, one "typically about unrequited love".

McFarlane's second solo, also delivered with great dynamism in his tremendously flexible voice, was Stevie Wonder's My Love is Warmer Than a Smile.

Apart from the solos' pieces, there were a couple of duets by the singers and an amusing, "sent-up" rendition by the three male singers of Paul Anka's My Way, which is most often associated with Frank Sinatra.

In a post-concert exchange with The Gleaner, Reid, who organised the concert, said she had wanted "a lovely Sunday evening". But she got that and more. She got "a love-filled Sunday evening".