Andy Narell, David Rudder offer Kaiso Jazz Experience

BRANDON HASKETT AND RAY FUNK

ON March 30, Andy Narell and David Rudder will reunite for a live concert that features a special tribute to Black Stalin. This unique event will be at the Sound Forge, Mucurapo, where Rudder had his marathon 7.0 birthday concert last May, which included Narell.

The show will start with Narell in a quartet with Caribbean jazz musicians, including Cuban-born singer and pianist, Jany McPherson, drummer Jean-Phillipe Fanfant from Guadeloupe, and bassist Regis Therese from Martinique, all of whom he has worked with for years. Narell met McPherson many years ago, in a show in Monaco. “I loved her from the first minute of the first rehearsal. I loved her playing and her vibe. And we’ve been working together for a long time now.” He is featured on her first album, Tres Almas, and she is featured on his album Dis 1. 4. Raf, the tribute album that Narell recorded after the death of his close friend Raf Robertson. They have collaborated on numerous occasions, some of which are documented on their YouTube channels. Fanfant is a longtime friend and was a member with Narell in the French-based jazz quartet Sakesho, formed over 20 years ago.

The second half of the show will feature Rudder with a large band, and the focus will be on Black Stalin classics. Narell and Rudder have a long-lasting relationship. Narell first heard Rudder in 1985 when Narell came to Trinidad for the International Pan Showdown, saw Rudder in a club with Charlie’s Roots, and was blown away. He returned for Carnival 1986 when Rudder was everywhere with The Hammer and Bahia Girl. Rudder would have him sit in on gigs and they became friends. Narell asked him to come to perform in San Francisco with his band, and they have continued to record and perform together ever since.

Narell is very excited about the whole band. “Everybody’s going to play with David. We’re going to have drums, two percussion, bass, guitar, piano, pan, five horns, and three background vocals. “Our special guest is Alexis Baro. He is from Cuba, he lives in Toronto, (and) he plays with David all the time. He’s going to come and lead the section. He’ll come and sit in with (my) band on trumpet. He’s a great trumpet player. “And we’ll have a five-piece horn section put together by Anthony Woodruff, with Terry Shaw on guitar.

The idea for the Black Stalin tribute came into being when Rudder and Narell started talking about doing an album together and Narell suggested, “I’ll rearrange the music and do something different, and you sing it!” Rudder quickly agreed. Like many others, Narell has always had the greatest respect for Stalin. “He was a tremendously warm and sincere person, and kind.” Creating new arrangements of Stalin’s music has proved challenging. “It’s been a super-interesting experience to do a project like this. I really need to learn all the words, all of them., which is not the way I usually listen to music. It wasn’t the way I listened to Stalin’s music. “It’s not easy to learn all the words. I actually went through transcribing it and I got (writer and Newsday columnist) Debbie Jacob to help me transcribe, and listening and reading along it and getting into it like studying it as poetry and as a political speech. “It’s incredible. Stalin is like a brilliant lawyer giving his (summation) at the end of a trial.” As they work through these new arrangements, the plan is for an album to come later in 2024.

As he prepares for this Trinidad concert, Narell is in what has become his second home in Laborie, St Lucia. Since 2017, he has started each year, except for those cancelled for the pandemic, with a ten-day rigorous pan workshop in Laborie with advanced students from all over the world, from Australia to La Reunion. “I send people between 45 and 60 minutes of music to learn. “It’s like a repertoire that people have in advance. They have the charts and they have the MP3s and they’ve studied the music before they come, and we’re ready to start rehearsing.” They put together an hour-long concert and shows at a local restaurant, Mama Rose’s, and work with local young pan players from Laborie. The programme grew out of workshops that started in Trinidad with Birdsong and are co-ordinated by Dr Jason Koontz from Eastern Kentucky University. This year it expanded to a second session in mid-March, focused on beginning and intermediate students, which has just ended. Now Narell looks forward to the joy of returning to Trinidad, being with many of his favourite musicians and hoping many people will come out to hear A Kaiso Jazz Experience.