No Music Like Kaiso

In response to an invitation from Moray House Trust, Dave Martins graciously agreed to try to demonstrate this versatility of topic by giving a concert. Last night, in ‘No Music Like Kaiso’, he led the audience on a musical excursion through the art form. The Tradewinds back catalogue served as the main route with sparkling forays into the work of other contemporaries and collaborators such as Lord Blakey, Sparrow and Killer.

First stop was ‘I Want to be a Puppy’, a classic example of the humour that is an integral part of the art form. Humour in our society acts, as Dave put it, as a sort of ‘balm’. It takes the sting out of situations or behaviours that are depressing, degrading or outright dysfunctional. Lord Blakey’s ‘Chinese Incident’ was served up as another illustration. ‘Copy cats’ (which ridicules our chameleon-like qualities when abroad) was another memorable performance. Sparrow’s ‘Dan is the man in the van’ (which pointed out the comically inappropriate colonial orientation of our education:”the poems and the lessons they write and send me from England”) also featured.

A few generations ago, there were Guyanese who would recite tracts of Martin Carter’s poems in tandem with the poet at public recitals. Last night’s audience displayed a similar mastery of the Tradewinds’ lyrics. “A society decides on the ingredients of its culture”, Dave wrote recently. His hugely popular concerts around the country, the buoyant mood last night and the thunderous reception that greeted his finale, ‘Not a Blade of Grass’, suggest that the calypso as an art form and this particular calypsonian still hold a secure spot in the Guyanese psyche. He is, perhaps, as A.J Seymour once described a calypsonian, “singing us all into nationhood.”

Moray House Trust extends warm thanks to Dave Martins and Oliver for a memorable evening.