Ellington
Sunday night's launch of Travelling Companion, a double CD of song, poetry, biblical extracts and even a broadcast of Jamaicans in all their athletic glory at last year's Beijing Olympics, was as much about teamwork as the creation of the product itself.
For while Drs Leonard Miller and Richard Kirkwood got title billing on Travelling Companion, under their names on the insert is 'with narrations by', followed by a number of names. And some of those names became flesh at University Crescent, St Andrew, adding their voices to the launch in a different way from their recitations on the CD, with Miller and Kirkwood content to mainly say thanks to specific persons at the end of the programme.
There are 18 tracks on each CD, with a narrative preceding each song.
Leonie Forbes, who narrates the Peace Prayer - St Francis of Assisi and the Serenity Prayer, said she could not make a speech. However, she could and did "share with you how extraordi-narily well I feel about this whole project."
"The first day you put it in the car, if you were afraid of the road you will be a good driver," Forbes said of its soothing qualities. "It is one of the nicest things to have happened at Christmas time in Jamaica for donkey's years," she said.
Adrian Robinson delivers The Lord And Provide and the Desiderata. At the launch, he said Travelling Companion "is so excellent. It is First World all the way. A brilliant piece of work".
"You have done a masterpiece," he complimented Miller and Kirkwood. Among the songs they presented are How Great Thou Art, O Danny Boy, Eye on the Sparrow, Impossible Dream, I Can See Clearly Now and Many Rivers to Cross.
Fae Ellington, another of the narrators (Prayer to the Great Spirit), was responsible for hosting and holding together a launch that was saturated with laughter and a general sense of well-being. Dr Aggrey Irons set the rib-tickling tone as he opened the programme after the blessing, but there was no doubting his seriousness as he looked back at the University of the West Indies' medical class of 1969 where many of the students fused science and music chords.
"Can you imagine trying to learn medicine surrounded by music and musicians? It was a wonderful thing," he said.
Irons said that when doctors are stressed they release it through music and advised all "when you are driving along, listen to music. Don't listen to the talk shows. That is stress".
"It is simply wonderful that there is this side to serious physicians, emergency-room personnel," Irons said about the doctors behind Travelling Companion.
Inspiration
Artist and singer Cecil Cooper also referred to the 1960s, saying that the generation which grew up then "had that optimistic drive that we could do anything. We tried everything."
Singer Lloyd Lovindeer, trumpeter Mickey Hanson and Grub Cooper and Frankie Campbell of Fab Five also contributed to the launch.
Playing a cut from Travelling Companion before speaking, Kirkwood thanked the Almighty first and Grub Cooper second, "saying we have been fortunate to have him as a musical mentor". He also thanked Fab Five's Sydney Thorpe for giving special meaning to I Can See Clearly Now. Miller played a cut from a voice that could not be at the launch in the flesh, the late Trevor Rhone delivering Claude McKay's If We Must Die.
Miller described Travelling Companion as "a concept album of faith, hope and inspiration", giving special thanks to vocalists Camille Wilson, Pam Hall and Charmaine Limonius.
There was a nod from Casual T, the quartet that Miller and Kirkwood are a part of, Dr Charles Roberts saying "I think Travelling Companion is timeless. The concept is something that has been needed for a while".
Dr Leachim Semaj opined that "bar none this is the best musical product in the world this year".
As Forbes said in the early going, "it will become your bed companion, your bathroom companion, your kitchen companion, your every companion".
Forbes