Johnbern Thomas: Jazz in Exile
Haitian drummer, displaced by the earthquake, makes his way across the border
Caribbean jazz drummer Johnbern Thomas remembers the dates that changed his career much like any other musician. He remembers the Sunday in 1999 when, at the age of eight, the pastor of his church pulled him aside to say “God has a project for you,” asking him to play in what would be his first ever public performance. He remembers January 28th, 2010—the day he left the only home he’d ever known to try and earn a living in a country where he didn’t even speak the language.
And he remembers how, two weeks earlier, on January 12, he was concentrating so hard practicing riffs from a West African Roots book by Royal Hartigan that he didn’t notice the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that would postpone his dreams of becoming a jazz star in Haiti.
Listen to clips of Thomas performing and demonstrating an African-based rhythm he incorporates into his jazz music:
Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared at JazzTimes.
Jazz in Post-Earthquake Haiti: (Re)building a Musical Culture
On a rainy Sunday night in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, jazz instructor Claude Carre sits down with his guitar on a small stage alongside two of his students, playing drums and bass. The audience of 15 or so wealthy Haitians and foreigners at Café des Artes don’t seem to notice when the house music gives way to the sounds of Carre and his trio playing a soft acoustic number.
Ever since the 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti last January —leaving some 230,000 people dead and displacing 1.3 million more to tent cities—Haiti’s musicians have struggled harder than ever to find audiences. In addition to the immediate human suffering, the earthquake also put a long-term dent Haiti’s fine arts culture, including its delicate jazz scene.
“I don’t know if after that, the jazz scene is going to expire,” Carre said.
Check out the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival
Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared at Jazz Times.
PHOTO: Tent Life
The Tele Mobil company of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, films an episode of The Tent Life—a reality show based on the tent city culture of the over one million Haitians displaced by the January 12th earthquake.
The show is aired every Thursday, Friday and Saturday on large projector screens in 17 different camps around Port-Au-Prince. The project, which is funded by the U.N. mission to Haiti (MINUSTAH), aims to improve the health and safety of camp residents through public service announcements that are aired during the show.
In Latin America’s baseball capital, a soccer town stands out
By Jacob Kushner
At the Viejo Jack bar in the town of Jarabacoa, the World Cup match between Brazil and the Ivory Coast is playing on a fuzzy projector screen. At this very moment across most of Latin America, millions of soccer fans are gathering in bars just like this to watch their favorite team progress toward the championship. Here at the Viejo Jack, there are exactly five such fans.
This is the Dominican Republic, where baseball is the second most commonly spoken language—where kids with no bats, balls or gloves use broom sticks, pieces of plastic and their bare hands to imitate what is indisputably this nation’s athletic passion.
But now the language of fútbol—‘estriker,’ patada and gol—is sneaking into the baseball-centric vocabulary of Dominicans who are taking interest in the world’s most popular sport.
Click HERE to read the full story as it appeared at 90:00 Soccer Magazine.