“Ring the alarm, another sound is dying, woh-oh, hey!” ~ Clive ‘Tenor Saw’ Bright.

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  My father, being proudly Welsh and therefore a singer, led the church choir wherever he was the minister.  But it wasn’t only hymns we sang.  In the summer (while we were still living in the UK, before our grand migration to Jamaica) our journey from the city to a Welsh seaside village would take place overnight, accompanied by loud and boisterous singing, until, one by one, the kids fell asleep. 

When we moved to Jamaica, accompanied by all our worldly possessions, a collection of records (both 33 rpm and 45 rpm) and the record player came along.  So also did a piano and a banjo! The record selection was eclectic, to say the least.  There were those of the classical genre; there were musicals like ‘Oklahoma’; jazz classics; Welsh male voice choirs and one haunting album of South African Freedom singers.  To this day if I hear the song: “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”, I am transported back to that wooden manse in Chapelton, with the sounds of insects and other nightlife providing the percussion to the harmonizing voices singing a capella. 

One of the instrumental jazz tracks I can only recognize when I hear it.  And when I do, the mournful minor key evokes a memory of strangeness, of dislocation, as I channeled my mother’s difficulty settling in to this new environment.  Of all the family, she had the hardest time adjusting.  And that song seemed to capture all of her longing for things to go back to what was her normal.  Fortunately, that period of adjustment didn’t last too long, and soon she became a part of the community and part of the staff at the local high school. 

I am sure we all have memories tied up in music.  There is something about the senses of hearing and smell that become tied to memory in an abstract way.  A stray scent of nutmeg can take me back to a childhood toy that I had, it was a play shop – well, a small selection of spice bottles and perhaps a cash register? But what is amazing about those long-forgotten memories is that, when triggered, they bring into your mind not only the occasion, but the emotions associated with that event, or that experience, or that person. 

Music.  “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” So said Victor Hugo.  I was fascinated some time ago to watch one of those PBS documentaries on the influence of Native Americans on rock and roll.  Included in the piece was the fascinating story of an instrumental piece that was banned.  Link Wray (and the Wraymen) was of Shawnee descent.  He came up with a sound, the ‘tremolo’ sound, with some distortion, that became very popular before it was banned.  The title ‘Rumble’ was deemed to be incendiary, since at the time it was associated with gangs and street fights.  But when you listen to it, it is another one of those haunting sounds, very simple, just the guitar chords and behind it the rhythm of the drum, slowly beating a warning.

The history of the drum goes back into the annals of time, and can be associated with rituals, with war, and with dance.  There is something about the rhythm, the feel, that resonates with the human heartbeat.  As long as the beat goes on, so does life.  The addition of drums to any song instantly gets my feet tapping.  I often joke that if, in my childhood, I had set foot in a church that incorporated drums and percussion into the hymns, I would have never left! The solemn tones of an organ don’t have the same effect.  I have often argued that for me it is the rhythm more than the lyrics that connect me to a song.  In my Zumba classes I am moved (pun intended!) by the music, even when I catch only ten percent of the Spanish words! And when I dance, I feel as if I am honoring the memory of those who sang and danced even as they worked, even as they were counted as possessions, finding joy in things that should have broken them.

There is something very threatening about a people who have the ability to find joy even in subjugation.  The Africans who were trafficked across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and the Americas managed to hold onto and pass on to their children the rhythms, the rituals and the culture of their mother land. This included the creation and use of the drum.  In Jamaica, it is said that those who ran away and lived in the hills, the Maroons (from the word Cimarron, meaning escaped or runaway – the same root for the Seminole Indians), used the drum to send messages.  Messages of planned revolt and rebellions.  And so, during slavery, the drums were banned.  But the Maroons were also maintaining traditions and rituals from their ancestors.  There are songs and dances like Kumina, in existence in both Jamaica and Cuba, that have been traced back to West Africa, despite the best efforts of those European colonizers to eradicate and stamp out all evidence of African civilization and culture.

Perhaps it is time to bring back the drum as a symbol of rebellion and revolt.  Currently, informal teams of protesters are using whistles to sound the alarm when armed, masked thugs arrive to enforce immigration policy.  There is something very painful about those whistles, so I can imagine how disturbing they are to all who hear them.  But perhaps it is time to call for the drummers to appear, to remind those enforcers of their own heartbeats, their own hearts, to remind them that the people they are mishandling are our brothers and sisters.  Those who fought for Civil Rights in the 60s used Folk music to vocalize their aims.  ‘We shall overcome’ is a powerful testament to the yearning to live in a free society.  The ‘Negro Spirituals’ sung by the enslaved were said to be encoded messages spreading word of impending Underground Railroad trips. 

In recent weeks the images coming out of Western Jamaica are more than troubling.  The destruction of homes, livelihoods and agriculture will take months to overcome and recover.  I recently attended a ‘hurricane relief’ concert, led by Steve Higgins and the South Florida Caribbean Chorale, and was reminded once more of the power of music to uplift, to unite and to heal.  Whether the disruption is in Jamaica, or in the USA, we need music and musicians more than ever to pull us together, to remind us of our common humanity.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family! May you hear music wherever you go.

One Love!

Namaste.