Tanya

“Forward Home” is an original composition by the late Andre Tanker. It was arranged for Dominant Seventh  by Rellon for use as pre show music during the 2015 run of Derek Walcott’s: “Ti Jean and His Brothers” Tanker wrote the music for the play.    Forward Home is the perfect opener to this CD,  The simplicity of the folk song meets a marital, anthem-like arrangement with open jazz harmonies featuring shimmering block chords played by the horns and inventive soloing.

01 Forward Home

“Patience” speaks of the journey of a young woman towards finding the man with whom she  is meant to spend the rest of her live with. It is a song that starts with questioning and longing but climaxes in hope and a clearer sight of the reason for the wait, as she is shaped for him and he is crafted for her. The music and lyrics for this song were composed on an ordinary day during Elizabeth's lunch break. Originally a song composed for the guitar, the feelings associated with the themes of the song are represented in the music as it moves through confusion and searching and crescendos into a place of joy, peace and certainly. 

03 Patience

“Trackers” was written during the early months of 2011. It symbolises a hunt where the hunter catches the prey but in a twist of roles, the hunter lives but is instead consumed by the prey. It speaks to a deep and personal spiritual process involving death to selfish human desires and self aggrandising hegemony. From this process of death however, new life emerges through a total submission to Divine standards of thought and action. Trackers is based on a twelve bar blues form in F minor, with an eight bar coda. This form is bolstered with the use of the Avalou, a very popular Afro Trinidadian/Caribbean 6/8 rhythm which features very prominently in the melody and accompaniment to create a powerful vehicle of musical expression.
The melody first moves from triadic to quartal motion moving by an ascending half step and where to tonic is expected, in its place comes the twist of fate. The Hunter has been consumed.


04 Trackers

“Catspraddle" A catspraddle is the local term for a very bad fall usually accompanied by the breakage of something the victim was carrying, and or an awkward resting position after the fall and sometimes injury. The use of piccolo flute is novel for calypso and it is used to symbolise the child-like abandon that often leads to a catspraddle or two in childhood. The simple concept behind the music is to get up and move on after you have fallen down. 
The music tracks an actual fall, characterised by a rapidly descending whole tone motif, bracketed first by ascending arpeggiated lines that build tension before the fall and similar but descending lines thereafter, used to characterise first the child’s immediate reaction to the fall and the plaintive recollection of faculties while calling for help. The quick change to Zouk describes the event from the parent’s perspective and the process from when the parent first hears the child’s cries and complaints. Then, the parent moves to comfort the child, dry tears, issue a gentle rebuff and soothe away hurt and embarrassment before the child darts away chasing another adventure.


05 Catspraddle

“Just The Two Of Us” comes from the pen of Ralph Mac Donald, who wrote the composition with the islands of Trinidad and Tobago in mind.  The arrangement of Just the Two of Us truly highlights the fullness of joy felt in the simplicity of time spent with the one you love. The rich addition of brass and woodwinds is reminiscent of the fullness of one’s heart in the quiet moments with their beloved. Dominant Seventh brings it a bit closer to home with more calypso rhythms and solo interplay.

06 Just The Two Of Us

“Sweet Talk” was written in 2012 and was initially an idea for a steelpan arrangement. Sweet Talk therefore uses many harmonic devices that characterise tunes written especially for the steelpan, with harmonic shifts from major to minor tonality and the use of melodic sequences and altered motifs, without however any reference to the traditional verse and chorus form of calypso. With the inclusion of horns used as direct melodic accompaniment, Sweet Talk takes the form of a lively conversation between West Indian friends, spiced with spicy picong, vehement disagreement, glorious extemporisation and hyperbolic postulation.

04 Trackers

Rellon Brown

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