The Sound of Joy

Music, and the voices of her parents singing, brought early bliss to Joy Simons Brown who grew up learning four-part harmony as easily as most children sing advertising jingles. Her own daughters, who formally studied music to a higher level than she did, marvel at her passion to rehearse and plan innovative musical productions that brighten corporate functions, put new life into concert favourites, and organise choirs into one voice.

With a philosophy that you should use your passion to create your prosperity, Joy has used her skills in music and also in teaching mathematics to forge a unique career that she said gave her fulfilment.

“In 1991 I stepped out of a job of 12 years. I decided to go with the inner feelings and with what I like. And I have tried to live that way,” she said.

Joy had been a pensions administrator at Mutual Life, then a leading insurance company in Jamaica, and her job contributed an important part of her family’s income. However, even though she and her husband had two young girls to raise, she believed that embracing music full-time was the right decision for her.

“When you do something drastic, it is like something pushes you to do it. I used to counsel people going on pension. I was always amazed that some of the company executives had a lot of regrets. They spent their best years building up an organisation that they have to step out of, and all of the things that they liked to do, they never got to do it, and now they are too weak.”

Joy saw first-hand how people became dependent on their salaries, and the closer to retirement age they crept, they hedged their futures on their pensions. Her mind reached back to advice that she had received from a teacher in high school, and she decided to trust her instincts.

“For years I always said that I wanted to do music, but because I was in a nine-to-five (job) I could not do it. I have always taught mathematics on the side because I love it. It is a calling, and the most profound lesson that I learned in teaching I got from my mathematics teacher at St Hugh’s High School. Marjorie Thomas used to tell us, “Most of the questions you ask, you already know the answer,”she said.

Her skills as a musician were well known to her colleagues and friends, so when she launched herself as a full-time musician, it was not unusual that Joy’s first assignment was from her former employer. Soon the word got around that she was available. Work started to trickle and then flow in.

Client relationship has always been something special for Joy and she cherished the photo album where she keeps programmes from almost every event where she has played. It was her pleasure, she said, to please people with the sound of music. In 1997 she went a step further by creating her own company, Sounds of Joy, that offered complete musical arrangements for events. Her productions for churches have been described as musical sermons, harking back to her formative years in the Baptist Church in Linstead where both parents sang on the choir, and where as a teenager she was asked to be the accompanist for weddings. Her services have been used by members of the diplomatic corps, most alumni organisations, universities, banks and the ever popular Emancipation Park series. In 2002 she was selected to produce an international ensemble of voices for the launch of a human rights organisation in Geneva, Switzerland.

“I never saw where my ideas were going,”Joy said, “but with support from my family and friends I have come this far. When I was going to buy my first amplifier my brother told me to buy a bigger one, because I needed to think big. I did, and he was right.”

An added satisfaction for Joy was how much more available she was for her family.

“My daughters were very happy that when they came home from school, I was here,”she said.

Professional satisfaction came early, but she had to grapple with the down side of never having a steady income, and she admitted finding that scary.

“It took a long time to get accustomed to that kind of living. You can’t credit anything and you cannot commit to loans. The work is so sporadic and people make appointments and change, but I read a lot about faith and kept on trying.”

She has seen her commitment to music bear fruit as she enjoys her life working with several musicians and singers and in being the director of two choirs, that of the University of Technology Songbirds and the Guardian Life Singers. In July, she staged “Celebrating Life, Celebrating Music”at the Little Theatre in collaboration with the Guardian Life Singers. Patrons nearly danced in the aisles and she has had to promise a sequel. In addition, Sounds of Joy hosted the Month-End Jam at Jamrock and also at Heather’s restaurant where she teamed with singers like Ellan Edwards, Omar Trowers and Kerry Ann Sukraj, as well as saxophonist Nick Laraque. All a part of the move to bring the magic of live music by professional musicians into the city’s nightlife.

Joy, however, still has time for civic involvements and she contributes to Woman Inc events, and for the past five years has hosted a cultural awareness programme at her alma mater St Hugh’s where her younger daughter was head girl.

“My years at St Hugh’s hostel were some of my best, and from that time I was organising concerts after lights out. The children today are not exposed to enough good music and this is my way of giving back,”she said.

Her efforts have brought the music of Byard Lancaster, Marie Myrie, Sean Hird, Dwight Richards and Pat Gooden to the girls, and the school carefully scheduled these visits so that as many students as possible were able to participate. Recently the school’s Past Students’ Association awarded her the Distinguished Past Student Award for 2004, a special honour for Joy in the year of the school’s 105th anniversary celebrations.

“The musicians that Joy invites really give the girls an appreciation of a wide range of music than what they are regularly exposed to. When Byard Lancaster came they enjoyed the jazz and the instruments that he played,”said Yvette Smith, principal of St Hugh’s High school.”The girls feel good knowing that there are others who care for them and are looking out for their welfare as much as we in the school are.”

As a little girl, Joy’s biggest fan was her father who used to sit quietly and listen while she practised, improvised and made music for the home. She drew from his approval, as to this day the bass line, the vocal part that her father sang, are the first notes that she learns in any song. She had to bury him to joyful music a few years ago, but even from that she continued to draw strength and comfort knowing that faith in yourself is the greatest asset of all.

– Gwyneth Harold is a freelance writer.