A Week of Musical Celebration in Kingston

The month of December, which in recent years, had lost some of its lustre as the premium period for live musical/arts events, regains some of that this year with the inaugural

Kingston Music Week, conceived and promoted by the RJR Group (see http://rjrgroup.com/kgnmusicwk/ for full schedule) .

Simply, the event is really a series of events, with live music at the heart. Many of these will see collaboration with leading live event promoters, including Keesing Live, the monthly Saturday night series gathering great steam, as well as Bleu Essence, which converts the car park in front of its Kings Plaza location into an open-air music arena most Tuesdays. The Keesing Live event will actually play out on a Friday for KMW, as in this Friday December 6, and will featurwe the likes of Rootz Underground, Skygrass and Bryan Art eith the File 13 Band.

Its the Essence that will take the spotlight come December 3, when Shades of Gray will unfold. The event is  so named because the artistes on the bill, or many of them, are part of the growing Graypatch Music roster, including VC, Nickiesha Barnes, Alkamis, Imar, Sharee and Royale, as confirmed.

Fans still hungry for music (and victuals) can head over to Usain Bolt's Tracks & Records to catch Assassin, aka Agent Sasco, in concert as the Behind The Screens series returns

ROOTZ UNDERGROUND RETURN TO RED BONES

International reggae band Rootz Underground, fresh off a multi-city tour of Europe, will play Red Bones the Blues Cafe in Kingston on Friday night (April 8).

The six-man aggregation last played the venue in December of 2010. Since that time, they have been busy fulfilling tour dates and also recording new material, even as they continue to push their sophomore full-length album, “Gravity.”

“We’ve been a away for a good while and we ready now to give our fans in Kingston, and especially at Red Bones, a taste of what’s been happening with Rootz Underground over the last few months,” says lead singer Steve “Lightnin’” Newland. “We always have a great vibe  there and this time will be no different.

The band has also remained active on the social front,  starting promoting its Rootz ReLeaf initiative, by which its fans around the globe are encouraged to plant trees in their neighbourhood and document that tree planting by photo, those items then being placed on the band’s website.

The European tour took Rootz Underground through Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and France, the latter country including a performance at Paris’ renowned Zenith Music Hall, a venue which has also hosted the likes of Alpha Blondy and Canadian rockers The Arcade Fire.   By month’s end, Rootz Underground will be heading to the southern Us state of Louisiana for the annual Festival de Louisiane, and will be hitting other events and venues in the southern and western US prior to and expected summer return across the Atlantic for more European dates.

ROOTS REGGAE STILL A GLOBAL SOUND

Persistent negative press involving Jamaican artistes over recent months has not been sufficient to dampen the appetite of international aficionados of  reggae music, with many acts enjoying a welcome presence at festivals and stand-alone tours across the globe.

In California, long a welcome territory for roots reggae artistes, two of the biggest nad long-established reggae events recently hosted a large contingent of veterans including Half Pint, Bunny Wailer, Israel Vibration, Marcia Griffiths and more. Even relative newcomer I-Octane, who has exploded in popularity over the last year, was included in the lineup for the 30^th Annual Raggamuffins Reggae Festival held in the southern California cities of Long Beach and San Diego.

Across the Pacific Ocean, in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, Dubtonic Kru, themselves road-tested vets in their own right, bested 16 other bands from as far afield as Brazil and the Ukraine to win the Global Battle of the Bands. The win puts the Jamaican sound squarely in front of a huge south-east Asian audience that stretches as far as China and India, and which also will reverberate – via a tour and promotional package – across Europe later this year.

And speaking of Europe, Rootz Underground have for the last couple of weeks been on a western and central European swing with multiple stops in countries such as Germany, France , the Czech Republic and Poland. On returning from across the Atlantic, the group will head to the Gulf of Mexico, to Lafayette, Louisiana, to be exact, where they will  make a return appearance at the International Festival de Louisiane in April, before heading west to the Houston iFest.

April also marks the return of the London Ska Festival, which will run April 21-24 in the UK capital. The festival is expected to draw participants from 37 countries, including Jamaican legends such as Ansel “Double Barrel” Collins (who will be reunited with Dave Barker), Ken Boother, Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths, as well as English stars like The Specials, The Beat (also known as The English Beat) and James Hunter, once described by Van Morrison as “one of the best voices in British r&b and soul.” 

Red bones Redux

Even before moving to its "new" digs on Argyle Road, Red Bones the Blues cafe had lived up to the musical side of its name, presenting an array of musical acts for the enjoyment of patrons and general public - from the Jamaica finals of the global Battle of the Bands to various jazz (World Music Players, Maurice Gordon), reggae (Rootz Underground) and, of course blues acts, Red Bones has become the go-to spot for live entertainment: a comfortable setting, good location and the over all vibes that one has come to expect. Her a just a few highlights of recent shows.

Lookin gabck at some ofthe great live monets shared at red Bones over the past few months