The Buju Banton Long Walk to Freedom Concert, National Stadium, Kingston, Jamaica

Do not have a plan when you go to Jamaica. It will be shredded by the time the sun comes up. Our original plan was to head into Kingston from the North Coast around 11:00 am, hang around at Uncorked ( a downtown wine bar) for a while, head up to the stadium parking lot around 4:00 pm to do some tailgating, and then enter the stadium for the Buju Banton Long Walk to Freedom concert around 6:00 pm. By the time I began moving around in the house that morning, that plan had been discarded and replaced by breakfast in Ochi ... and a void.

Buju Banton singing at the Long Walk to
Freedom concert

We had breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall on the White River (the border between St Ann and St Mary Parrishes), just to the north of the A3 Highway bridge. We were joined there by our regular chauffeur (recently injured in a serious auto accident), his wife, and two Florida-resident friends. We ate a hearty local breakfast and downed a few Red Stripes to set the tone for the day.

Flora and Fauna of White River

Breakfast brews

We had had fun but we were now behind the eight ball. We scrambled back to the house to get our overnight bags -- we never got hotel rooms so we would be staying over in Kingston with a friend (Dave).

We headed out to Kingston (remember that for a Kingstonian, every other part of Jamaica is "country" -- rural, that is) and the party continued at Uncorked. I love the wine offerings there and the flatbread that I ate was to die for. We were joined there by a number of friends.

By this time the talk of the town was about the news swirling around Buju. There had been some kind of altercation between him and one of his sons and that son had come out with some harsh, negative statements on social media. Radio programs were discussing the issue and the rumor mill was operating overtime but no one really knew the genesis of the event or what actually occurred therein (The son has since come out and apologized to his father via social media but has exhorted his father to be a better parent for the benefit of the younger kids.).

My daughter (Karen) was in town for the event and began texting me at this time as regards the traffic situation and the fact that they had to park at a second location and be bussed in to the concert venue. Once at the stadium she was disappointed at the lack of awareness of the officials tasked with order and crowd control. The official program began at 8:00 pm but DJs and dancers performed on stage all afternoon long to keep these early arrivers entertained.

Selina and Karen

Up to this point Paul and I had no specific plan as to how we would get to the stadium. David, one of Paul's friends, queried us as to how we were getting there. We shrugged. He said, "Come along with me." So we all went to his house where Rachel (his wife) began pouring us drinks. I was becoming worried . It was getting late and no one seemed in any hurry.

Eventually the bus showed up. We boarded but, after a short while, stopped at some condos. We were picking up David and Rachel's friends. These guys were obviously close friends who have shared a drink -- and a conversation -- or two and were in no hurry to go anywhere.

We finally got underway and when we got to the stadium, I saw the reason for their nonchalance. They affixed multiple stickers to the windshield and this allowed us to transit multiple perimeters and park directly within the stadium surrounds.

We entered the arena at 7:45 pm ... and what a sight. People as far as the eye could see.

Someone on the loudspeaker was assuring the crowd that the event would begin at 8:00 sharp and I am thinking that he is pulling our legs. I have been to many of these events and (i) they never start on time, (ii) they never proceed according to schedule, and (iii) they end whenever.

We found a space that was large enough for our group and then set about looking for lubricants. We started off with two bottles of Appleton and two bottles of Grey Goose.

And damn it if the show did not begin at 8:00 pm sharp as they had promised. The MC welcomed the crowd and introduced the first performer on the night's card, Wayne Marshall. And the show was on. For the next three hours we were treated to virtuoso performances by the likes of Jahazeil, Delly Ranks, Ghost, LUST, Coco T, Etana, Christopher Martin, Romain Virgo, Agent Sasco, and Chronix. This was a lineup befitting a music festival; definitely not a run-of-the-mill opening act.

Each of these artists were stars in their own right. Coco T had been scheduled to go on tour but held back so that he could perform at his good friend's "welcome home" party. During his set he had Koffee, one of the hottest new Reggae acts around, do a brief stint. It was electric.

I have loved Etana and her songs from the time I first heard her on the radio but have never had the opportunity to see her live. She sang beautifully and, in so doing, reassured me that my fandom was not misplaced. Chris Martin seemed somewhat diminished and restrained by the setting (or it could have been early-onset Appleton syndrome on my part).

Etana

I have previously heard a lot of the songs Ghost sang but was unsure as to the artist; it was nice to put a face -- battered though it was -- to the songs. He did a great job. Chronix had the longest set of these acts with 20 minutes allocated for his performance.

Our crew

Paul resting, David drinking, Rachel smiling

There was a 20-minute intermission and then the moment we were all waiting for. Buju strode slowly on to the stage dressed in white. The crowd exploded.

He began with Not an Easy Road and then did about four songs that lowered my enthusiasm. Then he turned to standards such as Hills and Valleys and Destiny and Dancehall favorites like Champion and Too Bad. Now we were cooking with gas.

The sound went off twice during the course of his performance -- the only blemish on an otherwise stellar night. You knew that the crowd was non-local in that they waited patiently for the sound to be restored rather than heaving a few bottles onto the stage.

The second half of his performance was focused on bringing close friends on to the stage to sing with him: Stefflondon, Marcia Griffits, Beres Hammond, Wayne Wonder, and Gramps Morgan. The set with Beres reprised some of their past collaborations and was at once playful and inspirational. I felt as though, in that set, Beres stamped his passport for re-entry into the fold of Reggae legends.

He closed with Gramps Morgan and Psalms 23. And then the fireworks began and the show was over. The highest quality, timeliest, most orderly Reggae concert that I have ever attended in Jamaica. The Long Walk to Freedom has ended. Buju you are now free to to do as you wish. You have earned it; in more ways than one.

Officials estimate that 30,000 people attended the concert but I have also seen estimates that go as high as 40,000. Music insider Copeland Forbes, in an interview with Loop News, stated that the Buju concert carried the largest audience ever at the National Stadium. "... it was bigger than Nelson Mandella's visit and ... Bob Marley's One Love Peace Concert in 1978."

Airport authorities saw a 143% increase in Kingston Airport traffic on the Friday before the concert over the traffic on the same day one year ago. Montego Bay Airport experienced a 58% traffic increase over the same period. Buju is magnetic.

©EverythingElse238

Buju Banton's Long Walk to Freedom concert: Anticipation

Members of the Jamaican diaspora, and Reggae fans from around the world, poured into Kingston, Jamaica for the first concert of the Buju Banton Long Walk to Freedom Tour. This one-time event brought thousands of fans from around the world to Jamaica to venerate and lift up this fallen warrior who once stood astride the Reggae throne but was unceremoniously hauled into the shadows when he ran afoul of the law. Paul and I made that journey with fellow fans; a journey I will recount in this post. But first, context.

Buju Banton -- born Mark Anthony Myrie -- rode a career, beginning in 1987, to the top of the Dancehall and Reggae charts and, ultimately, a Best Reggae Album award at the 2011 Grammy Awards for his 2010 album Before the Dawn. Focused, as they were, on his music, it came as a shock to his fans when it was announced that he had been arrested in 2009 by US authorities on drug-related charges.

After a couple of trials he was found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to 10 years and 1 month in prison. He was released in December 2018, after serving approximately 7 years and 7 months behind bars, and immediately returned to Jamaica.

Prior to his release, word had begun to circulate that he would hold a number of concerts in the Caribbean once able to do so. Speculation was rife as to where the initial concert would be held with the front runners seeming to be Jamaica and Trinidad. There was a strong feeling that, regardless of where that initial concert was held, fans would turn out in full force to welcome him back after the long absence. He had apparently done the crime and had most definitely done the time. We wanted to say welcome back. We missed your music, we missed you, and we want to be there in person to let you know that.

When the Buju team finally announced, we learned that the tour would be called Long Walk to Freedom and that the initial concert would be in mid-March at the National Auditorium in Kingston, Jamaica. Tickets would be sold on the Buju website only, beginning on a soon-to-be-announced date. Paul and I checked around our close-in circle to see who wanted to go. No takers. Fine by us. We were going.

We got our first indication that this would be a giant event when the ticket site crashed early on the first day of sale due to the demand. It did not fully recover until the following day. In addition to the server issue, other "ominous" indications were: (i) our inability to get a direct flight from Orlando to Montego Bay and (ii) no availability of hotel rooms in Kingston for the day of the event (Both of these searches were initiated within a week of the announcement of the concert date.). We eventually found a connecting flight through Fort Lauderdale and left the room open to a later solution.

We had a 6:00 am flight on the Friday of the concert weekend and compounded the short night by getting to the airport in enough time to have a sit-down breakfast at Cask and Larder. We went to the gate after breakfast and there began to see the stirrings of the exodus. Paul ran into a number of friends and, yes, they were heading to the concert.

When we disembarked in Fort Lauderdale it seemed as though the entire plane walked over to the terminal and gate from which the Montego-Bay-bound flight would launch.

We had spent a lot of time laughing and talking and our throats were becoming parched. We consulted about the propriety of alcohol at 8:30 am and decided that we were not hurting anyone. So we went for it.

We landed safely in Montego Bay and spent the remainder of the day fortifying ourselves for what we knew would be a hard concert day on the morrow. I will cover the concert (and the day of) in my next post.

©EverythingElse238

A tour of Gracie Mansion (Official home of the Mayor of New York City) and its current art installation titled She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York

I was scheduled to travel to New York City on March 4th to do a tour of Gracie Mansion in the morning and the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in the afternoon but Mother Nature was not being cooperative. New York City was projected to receive between 4 and 8 inches of snow and, as a result, Mayor de Blasio had ordered all NYC schools closed on Monday.

I checked with my airline before going to bed, and again when I woke up. There were no delay or cancellation notices. I had received an email from Brooklyn Museum indicating that their show was going on but the Gracie Mansion Conservancy had not provided any guidance. After noting that the City had received 3.5, rather than the expected 8 inches, I headed out to the airport hoping for the best.

The plane took off and landed on time. That was promising. I took a taxi over to Gracie Mansion (97 East End Avenue, NYC) and hung around outside waiting for the appointed time (They would not allow me inside earlier.).

I was frozen stiff by the time a woman came and checked my name off on a clipboard. After that initial check-in, we were shepherded through a physical security screening process after which we were allowed to enter the building.

As we were escorted inside (due to weather conditions, only five of us showed up), Paul Gunther, the Executive Director of the Conservancy, was coming up a set of stairs from the basement offices. He was leading the tour and was visibly disappointed by the low attendance. He launched into his discourse without pause, though, and welcomed us to the Mansion and the installation.

The history of Gracie Mansion is summarized in the timeline below.

The art installation, titled She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York,

… brings together women and women-identified artists and the artworks they have created to spark a desire to see the world more deeply and perhaps even empathetically. The 60 artworks, objects, and archival ephemera on view, ranging from the earliest years of the 20th century to the present … tell the story of tenacious endurance across modern history, even in the face of great adversity.

Paul had been addressing us in the entrance foyer which itself is home to the initial works in the installation -- The Cathedrals by Florine Stettheimer, and American-born, German-influenced painter, poet, and designer whose modern style "defies categorization."



Florine Stettheimer
The Cathedrals of  Art
1942

Florine Stettheimer
The Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue, 1931
The Cathedrals of Broadway, 1929

Florine Stettheimer
The Cathedrals of Wall Street
1939

From the Foyer we ascended a short stairway into a ceremonial hall and off, that entered the Peach Room (Rooms in the Mansion are designated by their color.), a small sitting room wherein a number of artworks reposed. Two noteworthy pieces were Haven, a fictional painting of a couple overlooking the Brooklyn-based neighborhood of Weeksville, and a Penelope Jacobs sculpture of Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Peach Room with Betty Blayton-Taylor's Ancestors
Bearing Light (2007) to the left and her Sound Intruding
(1980) to the right

Paul Gunther, Executive Director,
Gracie Mansion Conservancy

Elizabeth Colomba
Haven
2015

Penelope Jencks
Eleanor Roosevelt
2003

The Blue Room was initially renovated in 1981 and was further renovated at the behest of Michael Bloomberg during his three-term stint as Mayor of New York City. The standout effort in this room was an Alice Neel portrait of her son Hartley's wife with their first daughter.

While portraying motherhood, Ginny is not depicted as a serene Madonna. She appears tired and overwhelmed by her new role as she tries to keep her baby from moving. Wide-eyed Elizabeth seems fascinated by her grandmother, who made little noises to get her attention as she watched Neel paint.

Alice Neel
Ginny and Elizabeth
1975

Simone Leigh
The Village Seires #7
2019

Betty Parsons
Brick in the Sky
1968

Ruth Orkin
Mother and Daughter at Penn Station
1948

The Grace Room was the exception to the rule of color nomenclature. This room was notable for the presence of a chandelier that dated back to the time of the original owners as well as memorabilia from the Presidential campaign of Shirley Chisolm who was initially a member of Congress from the New York City area. This was especially poignant as Kamala Harris had just recently launched her campaign for President on the anniversary of the day that Shirley Chisolm had launched hers.

The Grace Room

The Grace Chandelier

Theresa Bernstein
Flower Piece
ca. 1943

Jennifer Packer
Say Her Name
2017

Exhibit of Shirley Chisolm Presidential Campaign memorabilia

The rooms that have been described to this time, are in the public-facing portions of the mansion. Official ceremonies and meetings are held in those spaces. This public area is connected to the living quarters by a passageway called the Hyphen.

On the other side of the Hyphen we enter the Dining Room, the walls of which are bedecked with wallpaper that would be an horticulturists dream. According to Paul, this wallpaper was introduced in 1981.

The Library is the closest of the rooms to the way things looked back in 1799 with the exception of the mantel which was replaced by Robert Moses. Robert Moses features again in this room  as Dorothy Eisner, in her painting Washington Square Park, captures the neighborhood spirit that drove the defeat -- after a seven-year battle -- of Moses' proposal to cut a road through the Square's green space.

Lauren Kelley
Lindy Lane
2010

Dorothy Eisner
Washington Square Park
1938

Cecily Brown
The Bay of Opal
2018

Betty Woodman
Grey Stripe Diptych
2016

The color in the Yellow Room was initially brought from France by Thomas Jefferson. Mayor Bloomberg wrote a check for the changes that he instituted in this room. We also run into another one of Faith Ringgold's quilts here (I discussed two of her quilts in my post on the Deland museum exhibition of African-American Artists.).

Beverly Buchanan
Yellow Yard
2003

Faith Ringgold
Tar Beach II
1990 ED 1

Grace Hartigan
Coffee Pot and Gladiolas
1954

Kaveri Raina
Vortex to Hover
2018

I had lived in New York for almost 20 years and had never visited Gracie Mansion. As a matter of fact, I did not even know where it was located. So it was a great to combine an art and historic home tour in one. I enjoyed this thoroughly, especially given the depth of knowledge and enthusiasm of Kurt. The art installation posited to be focused along four broad themes but those themes were not evident, even with the benefit of time. But that takes nothing away from the effort.

The tours are open to the public at three separate times on Mondays. Pre-registration on the Gracie Mansion website is required.