Ernie Ranglin

Nearly 200 bodies milled through and around the tents and chairs set out on the lawns in the garden locale of the Almond Tree Hibiscus Lodge, Main Street, Ocho Rios, on Sunday afternoon. The event was the closing day of the 15th annual international Jamaica Ocho Rios Jazz Festival. On this Fathers' Day treat as persons absorbed the warm weather, they imbibed the musical deliveries which were mostly in conjunction with the festival's theme for this year, 'Straight, No Chaser'.

A mixture of rock and country set on a backdrop of blues was the offering of the always hard-working Jamaica Observer managing director, Mark Pritchett. Pritchett was in good company with his Black Zebra band. Both he and youngster Wayne McGregor played guitar, while Dale Brown easily manipulated his bass guitar and Richie Cunningham dominated his drum set. Bathing in sweat, Pritchett also gave his regular blues-sounding vocals, intermingled with titbits of history lessons about the songs he had chosen to perform in his half-hour-long set.

Prior to this, Antelope Valley Big Band had been well received, and Errol Lee and the Bare Essentials commanded attention as they appositely and skilfully put life force into the 'Ska Revival' segment that is now a regular presentation of the festival.

The Land of Sunshine, Jamaica, met the City Of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, as the Phili Posse took to the stage. The man, the guitar and his voice, Randy Lippincott, gave a short but spicy blues set. An interesting combo was Byard Lancaster on flute and Jamaica's own Calvin Mitchell on congas.

Next up was the little lady with the big voice, Barbara Walker. With Jamaica's very own high priestess of jazz, Marjorie Whylie on piano, Lippincott on guitar, Lancaster alternating between alto and soprano saxophone, Mitchell on percussions and youngsters Deleon 'Jubba' White and Dale Haslam on drums and bass guitar respectively, it was not hard at all for Walker to bring the house (oops.the garden!) down. She opened her set with a no less than soulful take on the jazz standard, Summertime, and then gave the blues infused I Ain't Doing Too Bad and Irene Reid's One Eyed Man. A goose pimple- giving version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, which she dedicated to Myrna Hague-Bradshaw, featured an exquisite soprano sax solo from Lancaster.

Hague-Bradshaw and her husband, bandleader and trumpeter extraordinaire Sonny Bradshaw, have been the creators and organisers of the festival, but she was unable to attend the festival this year due to illness. Walker closed her set with Georgia, after which ensued resounding applause and shouts for "more, more!" from the audience. Unfortunately, this request was not met, due to time constraints.

The Eric Alexander Quartet, which included Eric Alexander on tenor sax, David Hazeltine on piano, Matt Reeves on upright bass and Joe Fornsworth on drums, soon assuaged the yearnings of the audience. The cuts Nemesis, an original from Alexander, Blues Bug, from Hazeltine, and Triste from Antonio-Carlos Jobim were only a few of their attention-grabbing offerings.

Throughout the afternoon, many might have seen Jamaican guitar great Ernie Ranglin moving around in the audience and secretly hoped that he would in fact touch the stage.

Well, a pleasant surprise it was when he really did! In an impromptu-cameo-jam session, Ranglin, who actually went home for his guitar, took the stage with the support of 'Jubba' White and Haslam on drum and bass, whom he had grabbed on the spot, while they were chilling after their performance with Walker.

It was an interesting combo- a meeting of two otherwise distant generations, both musically and otherwise. Both White and Haslam were able to hold their own in the presence of a master as well as complement his playing.
Bradshaw joined in on the happenings for a while, then Lancaster, for the final of three songs. Coincidentally, easy-going Ranglin was celebrating his birthday.

Even though the festival usually ends around 6-ish, by 7:15 pm, Joe Sizemore and the Overboard band, who had played on the opening day of the festival on Sunday, June 12, took over the activities of the jam session after Ranglin left the stage.

Happenings of the jam session went until past midnight if you stayed at the all-inclusive FDR Resort. Hazeltine and Reeves of Eric Alexander Quartet, who stayed at the resort courtesy of owner Frank Rance and his wife, who was also present at the festival earlier in the day, took their place at the piano; Reeves, with his bass, hung out by the pool bar and played much to our delight for an hour and more. Yet again, the perfect end to a day of pure, undiluted jazz..straight, no chaser!

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