SLR sings during last Tuesday's recording of 'Mandora Time' while a member accepts a gift from Jahzan.- photo by Mel Cooke
It's the first Tuesday morning in September 2009 and three singers, a well-known storyteller, and a little girl are on the verandah of a small house at Arnold Road, St Andrew. They are under bright lights - not sunlight - and although the house is attractively painted it is not quite complete.
They are getting ready for the recording of the final episode in the storytelling series, 'Mandora Time', at the Wycliffe Bennett Studio at the Creative Production and Training Centre.
There isn't much room for error, as the recording is part of the launch of the series, which starts airing on CTV later this month, and a part of the audience invited for the live taping has been waiting for the start. The wait is for students, a critical part of the audience, to arrive. In the meantime, the SLR singers go through some harmonies (they make Old McDonald sound fresh with their harmonies) and discuss their approach.
"What we going to do, sing it or talk it?" one member of the group, which did well on Digicel Rising Stars 2008, asks to the other two as they huddle.
Amina Blackwood-Meeks, who tells the stories on the 13-episode series, and her onstage listening ear, Jahzan Maye, seem very comfortable working together; for the soundcheck Blackwood-Meeks says, "this little piggy cry cause him can't find him way home."
"Aunty Amina, why is the little piggy crying?" Jahzan asks. "Cause dem tief 'im mout!" she replies. It is a sign of what is to come when the recording begins.
"We good?" Blackwood-Meeks asks the technicians. They are. Other persons are adjusting the lights and when the launch's guest speaker, Bernard Jankee, of the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica arrives; there are greetings and introductions on the verandah.
When the programme begins, the formalities are taken care of smoothly enough. The 'Mandora Time' recording begins with SLR coming through the door of the house and on to the verandah, standing to one side, Blackwood-Meeks and Jahzan following and going to sit on the other side.
Blackwood-Meeks suggests they look what is in the story pot (literally a large pot) today; it turns out to be the tale of 'The Pig and the Cow'. And with a "crick crack" the story begins.
humorous
Blackwood-Meeks is an excellent weaver of tales, Jahzan, a pretty good listener (in more ways than one) and SLR's harmonies, snatches of song interjected at appropriate parts, beautiful. The story is humorous, Blackwood-Meeks saying that the animals went for a swim and "in those days you had to take off yu mout when yu go bathe, so yu don't drown". There were giggles from the students and chuckles from the adults.
Bredda Dog and Bredda Pig had a diving contest, to see who could stay down longest. Pig found some mud on the bottom and wallowed to his heart's delight - but when he came up Bredda Dog had taken up his mouth and gone away with it.
Blackwood-Meeks spoke mostly to Jahzan, but occasionally directly to the audience, her expressions conveying the story as much as her voice and the words, as she told of Pig grumbling so much that farmer McDonald moved him to the back of the farmyard and put Cow up front.
disgruntled
"Widdout me dere would be no Christmas," Pig complains to Cow, recounting his contribution to the ham and bacon. "If it wasn't me nobody would go to Boston to have jerk pork!" And SLR chipped in with Pluto Shervington's line, "sell mi a pound a dat ting dere" when Pig spoke about some of the names he was called.
Cow got disgruntled and responded, but the story evolves into a lesson about giving and Christmas, Jahzan taking gifts that Blackwood-Meeks scooped up from the pot over to SLR's members and then receiving one from Aunty Amina herself.
And just before the end, Blackwood-Meeks gets up and walks towards the audience, speaking about the cow being sacred in some cultures (you can't kill it, you can't work it and you certainly can't eat it"). And the recording ends with SLR doing Old McDonald one more time, then all takes a bow.