|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Reading Time 1 mins
“You’ve got to meet this guy; he took a red-eye flight from San Francisco just for the Sparrow Concert… and is returning to California tomorrow!” That’s how Ken “Bari” Murray, who was saving an up-close seat for me, greeted me as I entered the David Rubenstein Atrium, Lincoln Center, on November 21, 2019.
“You’re kidding?” I responded in disbelief, for I wondered how both Ken and this white guy from California knew about the event when it was relatively unknown or wasn’t buzzing in New York’s Caribbean community. However, this skepticism began to fade when I was introduced to Jeff McNish who reluctantly bookmarked Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon–which he was reading–and began a discussion on the brilliance and universality of Sparrow’s work before talking about Carriacou escapades.
Very early in our conversation, it became clear that McNish’s adventures–walking through the night playing his ukulele, intermingling with parranderos and citizens while interacting with Carriacou’s landscape–should be extended beyond his circle of friends.
We present a condensation of McNish’s emails chronicling his encounters in Carriacou by accentuating the tranquility, vibrancy, beauty, and intrinsic musicality of the island and its residents. This journal, memorializing the 2001 Parang Festival (held the weekend before Christmas and climaxing with a string band competition) provides a unique angle on parang–one of the sub-region’s shared traditions–while underscoring an unwitting embrace of the role of Cultural Ambassador.
The south-eastern Caribbean region, including Venezuela, Grenada, Carriacou, and Trinidad and Tobago, share a unique cultural space in which the transcultural expression of parang is a salient feature. Cultural sociologist Will Straw defines a musical scene as a “cultural space in which a range of musical practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of processes of differentiation, and according to widely varying trajectories of change and cross-fertilization” (1991).
It is with much pleasure, as an appreciation of this wider cultural diffusion, that BigDrumNation shares Jeff McNish’s Reflections: Parang Season in Carriacou.
– Winthrop Holder for Big Drum Nation
It always chocks me when I see outsiders talk and/or know about Carriacou, but it is a feeling that I hope vanishes. Our culture is worthy of gaining world renown!