After Trinidad and Tobago's carnival, you may have missed some pleasant surprises. For this post, we are featuring the performance of Kern Summerville and The Sensational Band's performance for Brass Bacchanal on Carnival Monday Night. The previous night featured the Dimanche Gras show, where the King and Queen of the bands and the event of the night, the Calypso Monarch, were selected. After that came J'ouvert and Monday Mas. Monday Mas is for anyone and everyone to go out there with a band or just take to the streets and have fun. After the day's events, tired feet head home to rest for Carnival Tuesday. Now is that it? Absolutely not! On Monday night, at the performing stage erected behind the North Stand was the resurgence of a part of Trinidad Carnival that some of us may have forgotten... Brass—O—Rama, or as it is now labeled, Brass Bacchanal.
Remember, back in the day, brass vibes infused Calypso music. But wait—festivals and mas on the road always had a brass band playing sweet music. Then, without anyone noticing, DJs on trucks replaced the brass and steel bands for music on the road. Even worse, brass bands disappeared for feting events in favor of DJs and the newly minted Soca music. This year, we are experiencing a resurgence; Calypso music is once again gaining popularity! Indeed, the resurgence of brass in the music signals the return of brass vibes! The event on Monday night was promising overall, although it began shakily as some bands needed to refine their performances and enhance the sound quality of their instruments. But before you get disappointed, we want you to know that they came through and saved the evening just before the Internet feed 'crashed." This occurred when half of the scheduled bands had already performed. We cannot comment on what we did not witness, nor did we stream the second half of the show. The word is that WACK Visual Radio 90.1FM digitally recorded the event to be shown at a later date.
As mentioned, when Kern Summerville and The Sensational Band took the stage and warmed up before their performance, playing Merchants "Be Careful" (yuh got tuh be careful) with vocals by Chuck Gordon, the vibe of the event changed. The quality of the brass music was excellent, and they electrified the evening's proceedings. It was wonderful! Then came their main performance, where they dazzled by playing Machel Montano's "Bet Meh."
Kern Summerville and The Sensational Band not only played excellent music, but they also added to the evening presentation with a skit on stage showing the cast betting to add life to the song of choice, "Bet Meh!" After the live stream abruptly stopped, my desire to hear more increased, but then the feed crashed! The vibe will not be the same listening after the actual event, but if the bands live up to expectations with sweet music, then the sadness of not being able to experience the event on that night will be negated. Let the music play, and let's ensure that brass music remains a part of our Carnival culture.
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Production Notes/Music Credits:
Event: Brass Bacchanal aka Brassorama
Band/Performed by: Kern Sumerville and the Sensational Band
Where: Behind D'North Stand Stage, Queens Park Savannah, Port of Spain
Origin: Trinidad, Republic of Trinidad & Tobago
Genre: Brass Music Vibes
We present the music here for your listening pleasure and promotional purposes only, adhering to the "Fair Use" Musical Content Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976. Sokah2Soca/Soca Music Blog © 1990 by Santiwah is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-SA/4.0/.
♫ Please click the music player button below to listen now (a small triangle in the music player/TV frame).
Bonus Track—Merchant's "Be Careful," showing how Brass was used 'back-in-the-day'—1985!
