Mighty Sparrow entertains
Standing ovation: The Mighty Sparrow entertains after receiving a thunderous welcome. —Photo: GARY CARDINEZ
Calypso meets parang
By Gary Cardinez – Story Created: Nov 6, 2014 at 11:59 PM ECT
The Calypso king of the world, Mighty Sparrow last Monday finally met the queen of parang, Alicia Jaggasar when they both performed at the Mas Camp Pub, Woodbrook in a specially crafted event titled, “Calypso Meets Parang: A One Night Stand.” The two treasured artistes spent time chatting backstage each expressing admiration for each other’s musical talents.
The night proved to be a wonderful affair as the artistes helped the patrons get into the spirit of the Christmas season early, while also taking them down memory lane through some classic calypsos and traditional Christmas songs.
Reigning Humorous Calypso Monarch, The Incredible Myron B kicked off the show performing his unique brand of soca-parang songs, some of which are already considered classics. He also sang some of his humorous calypsos, which had the audience doubling over with laughter.
Myron debuted his new calypso, “Ebola Scare,” which is a truly funny take on the deadly virus. Although he is skating on thin ice with this song because of the fears over the Ebola outbreak in Africa invading Trinidad and Tobago, Myron B managed to get the audience laughing as he sang his very creative double-entendre calypso about a woman protecting herself. Myron B also sang, “One Man Parang,” “My Wish,” “One More Sip” and more.
Sparrow mounted the stage immaculately dressed in his three-piece suit and received a thunderous welcome. He started his set with “Congo Man” and the audience immediately started singing along. Sparrow is proving to be a modern day miracle of sorts having survived a coma over a year ago and now able to deliver excellent performances, remembering the lyrics of his multitude of evergreen calypsos.
Sparrow continued his performance with “Lying Excuses” in which he mimicked the vocals of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong much to the amazement of the audience. “London Bridge” was next and Sparrow followed it up with “Phillip My Dear” and “Jean and Dinah” leaving the audience begging for more.
Before the applause ended the night’s backing band, Cummings and the Wailers went into “The Lizard” and Sparrow performed this song executing some humorous antics such as making the motions of playing a trombone, while doing a little wine. After singing “Melda” Sparrow ended his forty-five minute session with “Drunk and Disorderly” leaving the stage to a standing ovation.
Alicia Jaggasar and Los Alumnos de San Juan took quite some time to get going due to technical difficulties. When the band was ready to get going, Jaggasar told the audience that parang bands should be shown more respect.
“Parang is a part of our culture just as any other genre of music born here. If I can’t hear myself or my band I just can’t perform.” Jaggasar said before the music started and the mood changed from annoyance to joy and the Christmas spirit as Los Alumnos rendered a mix of traditional parang and also more contemporary songs.
Los Alumnos performed for about an hour and even as they were still on stage patrons were commenting that, “She Born to sing.” and “That girl could real sing.” Jaggasar delighted the audience when she told them they could request any parang song they wanted to hear and when they did so, she easily sang it for them, exciting everyone.
VIDEOS:
Mighty Sparrow – Lying Excuses
