NIGEL CAMPBELL
The concept of a soca cabaret is not new in Trinidad and Tobago, but St Lucian artist Teddyson John and his many guests delivered an evening of soca performance that elevated the idea of an intimate concert of Caribbean Carnival music to a level that approaches a large metropolitan theatre extravaganza and posits the soca artist primarily as a singer, and relegates their normal image of mover of hands, feet and waists to a secondary position. Stripped: A Teddyson John Experience delivered and made new fans along the way.
The Lord Kitchener Auditorium at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA), Port of Spain, on February 8, over a span of three hours became a venue for the possibilities of how the music of Carnival and its performance could be transformed by a re-harmonisation of the familiar songs and a tempering of the tempos, and the resulting whole could find pathways beyond the familiar Trinidad Carnival song cycle of pre-Christmas launch and sink or swim by February beginnings. And there was no accelerating apathy as the music remained a surprise.
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Stripped was an evolution of his Caribbean Moscato performance project and album from late 2020 that heralded a new way of selling his soca music in the tourism islands. To bring this vision alive in Trinidad, John was ably assisted by the brilliant Abeo Jackson as creative director, and supported by the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority — with its chairman Thaddeus Antoine present in the auditorium along with other reps from the island’s tourism industry. To sell his island’s creativity and himself, John went above his countryman, Derek Walcott’s famous protest of the Caribbean’s penchant for the encouragement of “the delights of mindless, of brilliant vacuity.”
John imbued a new sophistication and subtlety to almost a dozen of his hits going back to his breakthrough in the TT market from 2016, Allez, to his current offerings for this year, Party Nice, Lavi Dous and Everything Good. John elevated the festival song with the gravitas of soulful lyrics that linger, a voice that serenades, and a sound that raises spirits. His 2019 tune, Crème de la Crème, became a jazzy swinging ‘60s makeover
à la Quincy Jones from that era. Melody and Vent (
Palé, Palé, Palé) were infused with the soothing R&B instrumental tones and arrangements, with the nylon string acoustic guitar of Zack Popo taking a front seat, bathing these songs with an aura of island elegance.
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John’s guests added a layer of of camaraderie to the event that was special. His previous collaborators, Voice, Lyrikal, Farmer Nappy and Kes were all present to share retuned versions of their hits that made the audience a willing choir repeating familiar refrains. Each had a three-song performance that reinforced the earlier observation that t
