Act 3 – Arturo Tappin ruled at Virgin Gorda’s Jazz on The Hill

updated with more pics on June 13:  Tappin at Cayman Islands Jazz Festival 2006: 1, 2

Arturo Tappin, second from right

Arturo Tappin and his band took to the stage on Wednesday, May 23, 2007, with an Intro that could not have been lovelier, more melodic.  The repeated motifs by the saxophonist and his trumpet buddy, Etienne Charles, were designed to give the sound engineers’ time to tweak the sound just right.  

  

Tappin and Charles in conversation    

With that done, it was time for action.  It came in the form of Rupee’s Blame It on the Music.  Nicholas Brancker borrowed the bass line from the Staple Singers’ I’ll Take You There before making way for an extended pan solo, done to a lilting calypso beat at first. 

 

Nicholas Brancker under the spotlight

Dane Gulston’s pan solo was split down the middle to make room for a dancehall bridge and a ragga drum pattern.  Then the selection it all came together again for a coda in which the pan was all over the melody.

 

Pannist Dane Gulston’s wizardry was telling 

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley started innocently enough and built up to an unexpected crescendo emphasized by the oft used engineering stunt of pumping up the master volume to elicit crowd response.

Guitarist Scott Galt took his cue from that and offered up some Hendricks-like picking with teeth and also behind-the-head.  Falling back on the solo, he traded seamlessly with the sax to close the song.

Old School (Ole time calypso), taken from Etienne Charles recently releases debut CD “Culture Shock” speaks for itself.  This one was perfect vehicle for the trumpet.  Charles pulped the melody for its full worth.  Tappin had to cut in eventually to create a solo space for keyboardist Miles Robertson (son of pianist Raf Robertson whom I have not heard since Just Teasin’, 1989) who mined the Latin Fake Book for improvisational ideas.  Robertson himself then made way for the horns to riff a while with the pan adding light embellishment.

Tappin wrote a song several years ago called Tobago as an homage to Trinidad’s sister island.  Tobago is a sensuous ballad that has a pop sensibility although the thematic statement on the horns was undoubtedly in the calypso vein.

Through it all, the keys filled in tastefully and Brancker plucked at the five string bass to tug at the heart strings with his warm, deft touch.

Tappin played the role of sideman for much of this one.  However, his circular breathing expose as always was a crowd pleaser.  This unaccompanied solo breezed into Rupee’s Tempted to Touch, the highlight of which was an easy-going drum solo spot by Barbadian drummer James Lovell, arguably Barbados’ foremost technician on skins.

Tortola’s Kamau Georges made an appearance for the second time tonight (he chimed in with MD Jazz earlier in the night) at this point.  He was a bit out of character here because he chose a key that did not quite fit into the structure of the song as it had been played before.  However, he got me listening hard as I tried to rationalize the manner in which he was composing his musical ideas. 

Arturo Tappin is a hard-working leader who put all of his sweat into entertaining the Jazz on The Hill crowd improperly scattered on the mound.  In spite of this disconnect, he lunged into his final stand, allowing his virtuosity to carry him away. 

 

Tappin prepares for a final stand

Not content to watch the audience from afar, he came off the stage to serenade those of us who were open mouthed at the front of the stage. At this juncture, he obviously lost control, which by the way was a good thing for his emotions swelled large and he took it out on his axe, pleasuring us all the more as he did so.  What better way to end the first night of Jazz on The Hill. 

 

That kid’s smile says it all 

All in all, Tappin ripped through a tightly, well thought out programme that ran the gamut from original songs to a cover of the Gnarls Barkley hit, Crazy and a couple penned by Rupee.  And it all went down as Smooth as the genre was meant to be.

In retrospect, I do not think I would ever miss a ferry boat to Jazz on The Hill, Virgin Gorda, if it meant missing as electrifying a concert as Arturo Tappin dished out on Wednesday, May 23, 2007. 

An audience serenaded