It could well be that my time as a musician has left me prejudiced, but I have long felt that there are striking examples of creative genius about in the musical world that we glide by without noticing or appreciating what is sitting right there before us until some circumstance or occasion brings the condition clearly into focus. Just in these past two months, for example, I have been jolted (and that’s not too strong a word) by some examples that came to me in diverse ways but each making the point of these wondrous instances of music mastery, unfortunately almost forced into the background by the sheer volume of music that comes at us these days in so many forms. One of them for me recently was to totally accidentally rediscover the singular vocal talent of American songstress Norah Jones. In an online collection of memorable songs, two performances by her stood out for me: I Don’t Know Why, and Lone Star, certainly for the highly skilled examples of classic song-writing they are, but also, equally, for the masterful vocal performance by the singer. Norah has the ability – another singer who has it is the Italian Andrea Bocelli, as does Nina Simone – of delivering music as if the song is singing her, rather than she singing the song. There is seemingly no effort, the sound is coming from some other source than her, and the warmth and the feeling she generates is striking – one cannot find a flaw in the rendition. It is simply mastery. In a different genre, also in recent weeks, I came across again a song I have long known as a classic – this one from the Trini calypsonian Lord Blakie, doing his hilarious Chinese Accident calypso, bridging Caribbean dialect and sense of humour in one fell swoop; another example of Blakie’s mastery who is probably better known for SteelBand Clash, but I see him shining brightest in his Chinese calypso.
