Colinstlouis

Colin is a past tripwolf blogger who is now fulfilling his dream of traveling and filming documentaries about world music. Two years ago, he completed a documentary on Caribbean music entitled, “Destination, Music.”  Now, he is just back from Andalusia, Spain, and editing his newest film about the art of Flamenco.

Interview with Sr. Merengue - Photo by Masha D'yans

Colin on this new project: “I can’t say exactly what made me undertake this project, other than a  fascination with Flamenco, and a sense that the more I learned about it, the  less I understood. Once I made the decision to go ahead, my goal was  straightforward and simple: to create something that was beautiful to look at,  but that also conveyed the passions, personalities and notions of  those who dedicate themselves to the art of Flamenco.  The film is currently in post-production, and is scheduled for released in the late Spring/early Summer of 2012.”

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After two uneventful weeks spent traveling through Sweden and Estonia, I was starting to question the wisdom of my chosen path through Europe.  I set out on this trip to escape from my comfort zone, but the clean, safe and well-maintained cities of northern Europe left me feeling more domesticated than ever.  All of that changed when I arrived in Riga, which is a hypnotic, beautiful city, but not in any conventional sense.  The twentieth century was not kind to the Baltics, and scars from Latvia’s recent brutalization are visible beneath the easygoing way of life here.  Communism’s collapse and the promise of EU membership have revitalized the country, and the general atmosphere seems to be one of hope for a brighter future, but this new optimism has yet to translate into widespread opportunity.

There is a wonderful café in the space beneath my hostel here, and yesterday, me and a crew of my fellow guests spent several hours outside, drinking, eating and talking about life.  During the course of our conversation, we spoke at length about the western world’s preoccupation with wealth and success, and it was agreed that this ethos survives partly because life back home is just too secure and familiar.

“Travel,” one of my companions opined, “is an important element of self-growth because it forces you out of your comfort zone.”

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Anyone who has traveled to the Caribbean island of Tobago knows that convenience is not one of its primary attractions. Roads here tend to be windy and narrow; blackouts and electrical surges are far from uncommon; and the weather can change from blue skies to monsoon-like rains in minutes. Even the process of getting here can be a major chore, since the island’s receives few international flights that don’t arrive from London or New York City—meaning that most winter travelers must haul their heavy coats and extra sweaters through at least one airport connection before arriving.

For those seeking ease and comfort above all else, this lack of expedience might seem to be a cause for worry. After all, shopping, cooking and driving are activities they most of us hope to get away from while on holiday. Yet, despite being one of the more rugged destinations on its block, Tobago does have enough infrastructure to satisfy the demands of the all-inclusive crowd. It’s southern half, which includes Crown Point International Airport and Scarborough, the capital, has more than its share of resorts, upscale restaurants, air-conditioning, luxury beach facilities and Internet cafes.

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Chengdu, China

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes in a backpacker hostel knows how repetitive the conversation can be. For the most part, these are places where people from all over the world stop in for a few days of cheap lodging, beer and travel advice.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that relationships in such an environment tend to be short and superficial. In fact, the average first encounter at backpacker lodgings is so predictable that some travelers, myself included on occasion, will yield all of their vital statistics up front upon meeting someone new: “I’m Colin; I’m American; I’ve been in Africa for three months; I’m twenty-six. I don’t know how long I’ll be traveling through the region…”

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I had an interesting conversation last night.  It was almost 7:00 in the evening, and I had just hailed a taxi to take me from al Ain city, where I did some shopping and checked my email, to my campsite about 20km from town.  Like every other cabbie who I’ve hired for the trip, this man, who spoke only broken English, asked me where I was from.  When I told him that I was American, he nodded without emotion, and told me that he was from Pakistan.  “From where in Pakistan,” I asked, and to make sure he understood the question, I rattled off the four cities in his country that I knew: “Islamabad?  Lahore?  Karachi?  Peshawar?

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New York City, USA

I left Kingston as soon as possible after narrowly surviving the biggest shake down attempt of my life at Anchor Studios.  In the five days since my arrival in the Jamaican capital, I had used the guesthouse as my home base; conversing, interviewing, playing my guitar and waiting for appointments that I hoped would provide information. It was here that I met Selaissie, a Rastafarian from Robin’s Bay who was down in the city escorting a lady friend to the airport for her flight home.  Our rooms were stifling and cell-like, so we spent the afternoon of his departure hanging out together—me resting after my trip in from Puerto Rico, and him waiting for the hotel staff to enforce their 12:00 checkout policy.  As we got to know each other, Selaissie began to tell me his story.

He grew up poor on the streets of Kingston, never knowing his father, but had managed to escape, and now lived a quiet life out in the countryside.  He told me about his place up in St. Mary Province, that he had built with his own hands, and it sounded perfect to my weary nerves: no electricity, no traffic, no tourists.  According to his descriptions, there was just ocean, peaceful green landscapes and the occasional thunderstorm.   He invited me up as soon as my business in town was finished, and I told him I would be there before the weekend.

I had been traveling for five weeks when I met Selaissie, and during that entire time, this documentary project dominated the course of my thinking, almost like a mantra.  “The project,” as I repeated to myself hundreds of times, was all that mattered.  Even when pondering the most mundane details or errands, I would habitually ask myself which option would yield the greater benefit for my endeavor (white shirt or brown shirt; still camera or camcorder; both?).  I can’t say why my negative experience with the Kingston musicians finally made me see the folly in this line of reasoning, but somewhere along the line, the project had become like a mirage. Every time somebody asked me what I was doing down in the Caribbean, I would give a different answer.  Usually it was something about “research for a documentary on the region’s culture and history,” but the words were now ringing hollow.

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Robin’s Bay, St. Mary Parish, Jamaica

I arrived at Kingston’s Edna Manley College the next day around 12:30 p.m., which gave me enough time to meet my contact, Derrick Johnston, before making my way to nearby Anchor Studios for a 2:00 appointment with Bongos Herman. Derrick is the cousin of a colleague of mine in New York, and I figured that his experience as the college’s Senior Library Assistant would provide me with the resources I needed to better understand the conditions from which Reggae emerged.  The literature he gave me included industry publications, government surveys and music genealogy texts, and they all pointed in one direction: Mento.
The topic of this little-known traditional Jamaican music came up several times during my conversation with artist/producer Robert Ffrench the previous evening. After he stressed that Rastafarians like himself viewed Reggae as the world’s most highly “evolved” form of music, I asked him what role previous genres like Mento had played in this evolution. The response I got was that each was a necessary, divinely ordained step towards the creation of a musical force that would spread around the world to deliver its message of revolutionary self-empowerment.

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Robin’s Bay, St. Mary Parish, Jamaica

After less than a week in Puerto Rico, I flew to Kingston on a Saturday morning, and due to the discordant state of travel in the Caribbean, found no option for the trip other than connecting through Ft. Lauderdale. I went to the airport straight from a night in the town in Old San Juan, and by the time I arrived in the Jamaican capital, it was already late afternoon. The immigration officer, unlike his counterparts in Trinidad, Antigua and Puerto Rico, would not let me into the country with just the name of a hotel chain listed as my local residence, so he held on to my passport as I visited the nearby tourist information desk. I had the name of a contact at Kingston’s Edna Manley University, and when I told this to the young woman behind the counter, she suggested a moderately priced guesthouse/hotel in the Barbican neighborhood, not far from the Bob Marley Museum. Despite almost leaving behind the bag containing all my previous video footage, this detour through immigration turned out to be major stroke of luck–in both positive and negative ways–for my quest to understand the state of music in Jamaica.

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Much to my surprise (and contrary to what living in New York had led me to expect), Puerto Rico was not an easy place to find authentic live music. One reason for this is that public transportation on the island is of little use, unless you’re commuting between major tourist areas. As a result, I elected to rent a car in order to maximize my time during the brief five days before my flight to Kingston, Jamaica. Arriving around ten, I left the airport and headed southwest, to the mountainous region of Adjuntas, and the heartland of Puerto Rico’s Jibaro Music. This genre, I was to learn, originated among Spanish-born settlers who migrated from Europe in the hopes of finding cheap land that wasn’t suitable for plantations. They represented the rugged ideal of the Puerto Rican frontiersman: independent, tough-minded and strong, not unlike their counterparts in the American west. Jibaro is unique among the island’s predominant musical forms in that it emerged independent of the West African rhythms and rituals that were brought by imported slaves. However, like most Spanish music of the time, its strum patterns and mournful, chant-like singing take their roots from Spain’s centuries of Moorish occupation and acculturation. Read More »

I left Tobago after seventeen days, having gained a solid foundational understanding of the island’s African heritage, and the impact which slavery had on the Caribbean region’s developing social consciousness. I came to Antigua, which sits roughly 520 miles to the north, intending to stay for only forty-eight hours before moving on to Puerto Rico.

My flight out of Barbados was delayed, so by the time I touched down at Antigua’s V.C. Bird International Airport, all the local Internet cafes were closed, along with any store where I could purchase credit for my mobile phone. With no communication opportunities and a hobbled right foot, my options were limited, so I cut my losses, jumped into the only shuttle bus still waiting outside the terminal, and booked a night at the Airport Inn. That evening, in a noisy, lonely hotel room, I picked up a tourist information booklet and discovered, much to my embarrassment, that I had unknowingly arrived during Antigua’s Carnival season. Given the nature of my historical-cultural-musical project, I decided it would be foolish for me to not at least give the festival a look. Read More »