23815: (pub)Hermantin: Haitian Fusion carries gentle tones of protest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Nov. 15, 2004


CONCERT REVIEW
Haitian fusion carries gentle tones of protest

BY EVELYN McDONNELL
emcdonnell@herald.com

Two generations of Haitian art were presented Friday night at the North
Miami Beach Performing Arts Theater: Both offered vivid protests, but of
strikingly different hues. In the gallery next to the theater were some of
the last paintings of Charles Obas, an expressionist who disappeared in
1969, apparently murdered by the Tonton Macoutes. His breathtaking humanist
portraits of a country in pain were all etched in dark colors.

In the theater, his son Beethova Obas sang gentle songs of freedom that owed
as much to Latin music as to Haitian. Beethova dressed all in white (wearing
his collar turned up, he looked like Elvis), as if, contrary to the black
streaks in his father's work, he was trying to draw light around him. His
brother Klebert's paintings, also on display next door, were still lifes in
bold, primary colors. Another brother, Emanuel, danced and sang and smiled
alongside Beethova. Living in the shadow of their illustrious father's
tragedy, the sons have apparently decided you attract more bees with honey.

But beneath his music's gentle bossa nova surfaces, the younger was carrying
on the message of the elder. Beethova opened with Rasanble, a call set to a
dancing clave beat for ''all Haitian people and friends to gather together
in order to build a country of peace in fraternity'' (that's what the
program notes said; the songs were all in Creole or French). On Nou Pa Man,
he took to task the world's turmoil.

The show's presenters dedicated the evening to the 200th anniversary of
Haiti's independence and the memory of the Little Haiti community activist
Henry Juste.

Obas introduced Ke'm Poze, the title track from his most recent album, as
typical of the ''new groove'' he was trying to create: a mix of Haitian,
Cuban and Brazilian music. In other songs, there were hints of reggae and a
strong dose of jazz of the soulful fusion variety. Obas' seven-piece band
included Welmyr Jean-Pierre, a pianist who jokingly kept dropping in simple
tunes like Jingle Bells and Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Jowe Omicil, who can
make a soprano sax sound like it's laughing hysterically.

Southpaw Obas steadily picked an acoustic guitar and sang sweetly, a
troubadour more in the Tom Jobim tradition than Bob Dylan. The band was
joined for two songs by legendary Haitian folk singer Manno Charlemagne.
When he harmonized with the Obas brothers, they sounded like the francophone
Kingston Trio. Charlemagne's deep, croonerish vibrato added a dramatic
dynamic that was otherwise somewhat lacking.