AFTER a four-year hiatus, the Bartistry Mix ology Competition has returned to give those who are skilled at concocting the best cocktails a chance to flex their muscles.
The 2022 competition is being presented by Commonwealth Brewery Ltd (CBL) and was created to support the local mixology community.
CBL said it views bartenders are creatives, innovators and connoisseurs in their own right.
This year, 12 mixologists entered the competi tion by submitting videos of themselves making and explaining their favourite cocktails.
CBL wanted to give them the opportunity showcase their range, specialties and abilities beyond the bar.
This year, the focus of the competition was on the Diageo Spirit portfolio, utilising Johnnie Walker Whiskey, Tanqueray Gin, Casamigos Tequila, Zacapa Rum and Kettle One Vodka.
There were three rounds which will now lead to the finals where semifinalists will compete for $1,500, $700 and $500 respectively.
Each year, Diageo hosts its own mixology competition, World Class.
This competition has trained and inspired over 400,000 bartenders across 60 countries for over 12 years, and CBL said it would like to have the Bartistry winner participate in the near future.
The finalists this year are Dinieko Russell, Damian Gray and Brenton Dames.
Dinieko, who has been a mixologist for about three years, was entered into the contest by his boss.
He said the key to making a great drink is love, balance and presentation. His go-to drink after a rough day is a glass of Jack Dan iels and Coke with lime, but to “set the party mood” he goes for a few shots of Casamigos Reposado.
He would love to one day mix a drink for rapper and business mogul Jay-Z.
“I would make him a Godfather because he is a classic man and everyone knows classic men drink whiskey,” said Dinieko.
Damian Gray, 36, who is employed at the Lyford Cay Club, has been a mixologist for the past seven years.
He hopes the Bartistry Mixology Competi tion gives him the chance to showcase his cocktail-making skills.
For him, it’s important to make sure a drink is balanced – the spirits with the sweet, the sour and the bitter.
“Once you have these ele ments you have a good cocktail,” he said.
His go-to drink is a cold Guinness with cranberry juice, but he also enjoys a Crown Royale. His alltime favourite drink is Blanco Tequila with club soda and an orange slice.
He would love to mix drink for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson one day and it would be a Paloma.
“The reason why is because I know he likes tequila,” said Damian.
Meanwhile, Brenton Dames, who has been a mixologist for about six years, believes the key to a great drink is simply a great bartender. His go-to drink is a gin with cranberry juice, but he also enjoys a nice glass of Riesling.
However, while it is an incredibly popular drink, Brenton said he does not care for Long Island iced tea.
If he ever got to the chance to mix a drink for a famous celebrity, it would be his signature cocktail – the Quantum and Solace.
HERE’S a collec tion curated by The Associated Press’ enter tainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.
• Family films have been few and far between in theaters lately, but they’re proliferating on streaming services. One of Netflix’s biggest forays into the field yet is “Slum berland,” a $90-million fantasy adventure by “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence. The film, which debuts today on Netflix, is about a young girl (Marlow Bark ley) who enters the dreamworld of Slumberland, where a rogue named Flip (Jason Momoa) helps her try to find her late father. It’s loosely based on Winsor McCay’s early 20th century comic stream, “Little Nemo in Slumberland.”
• The holiday movies are also already merrily making their way onto home screens. “Spirited,” a riff on “A Christmas Carol” starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, debuts Friday on Apple TV+. A lavish song-and-dance musical that transfers Charles Dickens’ classic to modern day and reimagines it from the ghosts’ perspectives. (Ferrell plays “Present”.) In her more measured
than humbug review, Bahr said “Spir ited” “comes up short as a musical,” but “is still pretty enjoyable.”
— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
• Neil Young & Crazy Horse have a new 11-track studio album, “World Record,” produced by Rick Rubin and Young. The first track, “Love Earth,” is a relaxed love ballad to the planet and a video of a barefoot Young walking in the wilderness. The new album examines the state of Earth, its uncertain future, and even Young’s relationship with cars.
• Broadway stars and husband and wife Colin Donnell and Patti Murin release their first joint album, “Something Stupid,” today. The couple tackle 12 tracks by Bruce Springsteen, Sara Bareilles, Jason Robert Brown, Paul Simon and more. Murin played Princess Anna in Disney’s “Frozen” on Broadway and has been a recurring character on NBC’s “Chicago Med,” a show that has also starred Donnell. His Broadway credits include “Violet,” “Anything Goes” and “Jersey Boys.”
— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy
• Chris Hemsworth, aka “Thor,” puts himself to the test in National
Geographic’s “Limitless,” part of an effort to discover the human body’s durability and how best to confront aging. Accompanied by friends and presumably nerv ous family members, Hemsworth undertakes challenges including swimming across an almost-freez ing Arctic fjord, climbing a 100-foot rope suspended over a canyon and living with a simulation of what his body might be like at nearly 90 years of age. Created by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, the six-part series debuted on Wednes day on Disney+.
• He was born Steamboat Willie in a 1928 animated short, but like a lot of older stars he rebranded with a catchier name. He’s finally getting the documentary treat ment with “Mickey: The Story of a Mouse,” debuting today on, natch, Disney+. The product of Walt Disney’s fertile imagination, Mickey became beloved by chil dren and adults and a cash mouse for Disney’s growing entertain ment empire. The chipper Mickey also proved an adaptable icon, as detailed in the film from direc tor Jeff Malmberg and producer Morgan Neville (both of whom worked on the Fred Rogers documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”).
— AP Television Writer Lynn Elber• “Pentiment” is one of the fall’s more intriguing experiments. It’s a murder mystery set in 16th century Bavaria. Its art is inspired by the illuminated manuscripts and woodcut prints of the era. And there’s no voice acting — instead, the dialogue is presented in medieval typefaces, with fonts and colors changing according to the status of the speaker. It’s a tightly focused labour of love from Obsidian Entertainment direc tor Josh Sawyer, best known for sprawling role-playing epics like “Fallout: New Vegas” and “Pillars of Eternity.” This trip back in time launched on Tuesday for the Xbox X/S, Xbox One and PC.
• Longtime Pokémon players know they can depend on Nintendo to regularly introduce new batches of the combative critters. Meet Sprigatito, a mesmerizing grass cat; Fuecoco, an excitable fire croc; and Quaxly, a duck with a nasty kick. They’re the starting characters in “Pokémon Scarlet” and “Pokémon Violet.” Nintendo says trainers will be able to freely explore a more expansive open world, a shift away from the linear storylines of previous games. Fans can resume the eternal effort to catch ’em all today on the Nintendo Switch.
He studied to be a veterinarian, but abandoned that path when he saw that his dream of an acting career could become a reality. The SAC and COB alumnus tells Cara Hunt about landing his first roles in musical theatre and how he is now celebrating starring in a Lifetime Christmas movie.
FANS of Christmas movies may have noticed a familiar accent during their holiday binge-watching this year. It would have been the voice of Bahamian actor Gabriel Hudson, who recently starred in the Lifetime movie Well Suited for Christmas.
In the film, fashion designer Rachel Rocca (Mercedes de la Zerda) lands a spot in a design com petition to create a tuxedo for one of the city’s most eligible bachelors, Brett Stone (Franco Lo Presti), for a Christmas charity gala.
As Rachel begins to unthread his well-spun public image, she discovers the true reason behind his Christmas charity, and of course they find them selves falling in love.
Gabriel, 29, plays the character of DeMario Truitt in the movie. It is one of his biggest roles to date and one which is cementing his dream of becoming a notable actor in the movie industry.
“I didn’t think that I would actu ally land the role. I had just joined the actor’s union and I wasn’t sure how that was going to affect my bookings, because I had heard that sometimes you may book less after joining, but this role was the very first one that I was offered, and when I got the call back I was just shocked
“It’s an art form. You have to really put in the effort to learn about the person you are playing to learn what they will do and say, so that you completely put yourself into that character’s world.
and nervous and very happy,” he told Tribune Weekend.
“What I love about the movie is that even though it’s your traditional Christmas romance, there is a twist there as well. My character was a foster kid who has a bond with the main character and I feel like there are other themes there. Sometimes life isn’t that happy and people don’t have real family to share Christ mas with, so some of the people you meet in your life become your family.”
It’s a feeling that Gabriel can personally relate to living in Toronto, Canada, away from his family.
“So, you celebrate with the family that you make here. For example, I will meet up with my Bahamian friends and we celebrate holidays together.”
Gabriel originally left Nassau to attend Trent University in Peterbor ough in Durham, Ontario.
“I went to St Cecilia’s Primary School and then St Augustine’s College, followed by two years at the (then) College of the Bahamas, before I went to Trent. At the time, I went there to study Biology and Forensic Science. But once I got there, I realised that I didn’t want to work with dead people, so I switched thinking I would do Marine Biology because I had worked part time at Dolphin Encounters or become a vet.”
However, the course of his life took a different turn after he saw a casting call for a play one day during his first year on campus.
“It was for one of those Greekstyle plays and when I saw it I just, why not. I had done a bit of acting in primary school and at church like during the Christmas plays, but this one went really well and I realised
how much I enjoyed it.”
Acting became a much-loved pastime for him, and even when he graduated and returned home to the Bahamas, he continued taking on roles in local productions such as The Importance of being Earnest during Shakespeare in Paradise and the Winston V Saunders-penned play You Can Lead a Horse to Water.
Eventually, he returned to Canada to complete a course in Veterinary Technology and managed to snag a few more acting roles along the way.
“I realised that I wanted to do a lot more acting. I had always been a singer, so I started taking vocal lessons as well so that I could also audition for musical roles.
I knew that if I could get into musical theatre it would open more roles for me,” he explained.
And Gabriel did, in fact, land sev eral musical roles.
“The first one I did in Toronto I was in the ensemble for The Beauty and the Beast, I was also in Ragtime and in Hello Dolly. I was also in Once On This Island. I think between 2016
and the pandemic shutting things down I may have been in about eight musicals.”
Going into detail about what it is he loves about acting, Gabriel said: “It’s an art form. You have to really put in the effort to learn about the person you are playing to learn what they will do and say, so that you completely put yourself into that character’s world. I like that I can play pretend in my roles. You know that in the Bahamas all we do is tell stories.”
His musi cal theatre career eventually expanded into TV and film roles.
“As I did more musicals, I was meeting more and more people and started hearing about more opportunities for commer cials and TV shows,” he said.
Gabriel admits that he was initially burned by a shady agent who took his money and got him zero roles.
“I had to learn from that experi ence and then I had a friend of mine who had a really good agent and I was able to sign with them and it really paid off,” he said.
Gabriel started getting steady offers for roles and realised that it was possible to earn a living from acting and that he was no longer interested in becoming a vet
“I saw people were being able to pay their rent and their bills and make a living and I realised that this was something that I could do as well and that I wanted to do. It’s hard sometimes, but it can be done,” he said.
Being in front of the camera, he said, is a lot different than perform ing on stage.
“Film is more technical; it’s a big puzzle and you have to fit all the pieces together to make the final pro ject. The camera is usually focused on your face and where your focus has to be. You also have multiple tries to get it perfect. On stage, you have to project your focus to the back of the room and you have one shot to get it right. If you mess up, then you just have to keep going to keep the show on track.”
Meanwhile, his acting career remains on track and he is garnering praising his latest role in Well Suited for Christmas.
“Of course, my family are my top fans and get excited and blow up the family chat whenever I get a new role,” he said.
Looking to the future, Gabriel said he is just looking to continue to get steady and reoccurring roles which he hopes will continue to get bigger and bigger.
One of his upcoming projects is an appearance in season four of the HBO drama Trident. “It’s only three lines,” he joked.
Well Suited for Christmas is now streaming on Lifetime, Frndly TV, Spectrum TV, Philo, Vudu and Prime Video.
A POPULAR digital magazine is getting a rebrand and focusing on real-life Bahamian adventures in busi ness, travel and culture.
The Poinciana x Pinksands 242 Digi tal Series will launch on November 21 with a brand-new digital magazine, original video content and giveaways.
Nikia Wells, who is a Baha mian travel writer, editor of Pinksands 242 and owner of Poinciana Public Relations, explained that the Poinciana Magazine is a rebrand of the Pinksands 242 Digital Maga zine, which has been released annually since 2020.
She said the rebranding was due to wanting to tell more diverse stories and a desire to share content that connected with other small business owners.
“The annual digital mag azine will now be called Poinciana Magazine and will be a collaboration between Pinksands 242 × Poinciana Public Relations. While Pink sands 242 has been a passion project of mine for many years, I recently opened my own company - Poinciana PR - and I wanted the shift to be reflected in the digital series. So, in addition to the food, cul ture and travel centric stories, there will be fun stories about the journey of other small busi ness owners, communications tips, and other little tidbits that can help persons who have opened their own business ventures,” she explained.
Nikia started Pinksands to give herself a space to share her adventures with others.
Since then, it has grown a support base of nearly 4,000 and continues to celebrate cul tures, people, cuisine, art, music, sights, and sounds from around
the world.
The Fall 2022 edition of digi tal magazine will include articles about cafés of the world; how to stay connected while travelling; visit ing Japan for the first time since the country fully reopened its bor ders; how small businesses can strengthen their commu nications game; recipes, and several interviews.
“This year’s digital series will include interviews with a few talented small business owners, including Akeem Hepburn, who is a fitness instructor in Grand Bahama, as well as Tyrone Burrows, who is a well-known and tal ented filmmaker,” she said.
“There will also be a con tinuation of a few stories that we told in previous issues, and we will touch base with author Gabriella Suighi, who recently launched her Swimming Pugs children’s book, and Randia Coakley, who has begun her international expansion of Pedi in a Bag.”
Before the pandemic, Nikia said, Bahamians were travelling and seeing the world like never before. And now, finally, they’re slowly getting back to that.
“Now, it is a much more exciting time, we have returned to a sense of normalcy, and I wanted to share that newfound sense of freedom and adven ture that many Bahamians are feeling,” she said.
The digital magazine and video series will be hosted on the Pinksands 242 and Poin ciana PR digital platforms and website. Viewers will be treated to contests and giveaways and can pick up the hard copy QR code magazine cards at vari ous locations around Grand Bahama and New Providence.
GOOD day, gardeners. When it comes to decorative grasses such as fountain grass, muhly grass, fakahatchee grass, lemon grass (or as some insist, fever grass) et al in the garden, the typical response is to trim them after they are finished a flower.
This response is very often practiced by landscapers and maintenance workers, and it seems that a lot of home gardeners tend to copycat what they see being done in large commercial landscapes.
The thing is, landscapers tend to imitate what other landscapers are doing (no disrespect intended!), maybe due to pressure from the homeowner having seen a common thing and believing that is the correct way to do it because it is common practice.
But just because a thing or a practice is common does not make it correct. Just because something is widely done does not make it benefi cial, and when it comes to trimming grasses in the landscape, the prac tice of trimming them to a clump is unnecessary, and to be perfectly honest, it appears that it is only done to keep maintenance crews busy.
Unless a grass is looking ragged or suffering from severe drought, there is no purpose to trimming it after a flowering phase. Part of the benefit to leaving the spent flowers is that they will dry into tiny seeds that are consumed by birds as food.
Another benefit to leaving healthy grasses untrimmed is that as the older leaf blades decline, they tend to drop towards the ground and as they do so they provide cover for lizards, frogs, snakes, and all those beneficial creatures that some of y’all tend to freak out over even though they help to protect gardens and landscapes from rodents, ants and harmful plant pests.
As stewards of the earth, rather than as destructors, it is overall a much more holistic and circular
response than the malpractice of trimming healthy grasses.
The same goes for the crepe myrtle tree. There is a horrible practice of topping crepe myrtles to knobby, ugly stumps. This makes no sense. Let them be, and the increased branching and flowering will reward you each May and June. If anything, it can be beneficial to thin the branches to allow more airflow and light penetration. This sounds like a record set on repeat, as this same rule of thumb applies to all trees. No, a pepper plant is
not a tree, it is a shrub at best. No, a coconut is not a tree, it is a palm. It may seem like semantics to some, but incorrect practices and the incor rect use of words does not make something right; it makes it more commonly incorrect.
Some don’t care, but if one wishes to sound as if one really knows of that which they speak, then the correct words are as important as the correct practices if one wishes to appear as if they have a deep understanding of that which they practice.
FOUNTAIN grass and, below, muhly grass.
I can never forget a particular instructor of mine at college who would get absolutely livid at the mal practice of trimming healthy grasses and at the topping of crepe myrtles. It used to make me giggle a little at the time when I was younger and full of the affliction of knowing it all as a 20-something-year-old knucklehead, but I too now am guilty of the same reaction, the “arrrghhhh what are you doing?!” reaction when I see these things happening.
The more I learn, the less I know. If you would like a healthy soil base in your garden, please stop the ridiculous practice of raking up every leaf from underneath plants. Use mulch. As always, I wish you happy gardening.
• Adam Boorman is the nursery manager at Fox Hill Nursery on Bernard Road. You can contact him with any questions you may have, or topics you would like to see dis cussed, at gardening242@gmail.com
In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 best-selling memoir Becom ing, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world.
There may be no tidy solu tions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of selfdoubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?
Deb Perelman is the author of two best-selling cookbooks; one of the internet’s most successful food bloggers; the creator of a homegrown brand
with more than a million Instagram followers; and the self-taught cook with the tiny kitchen who obsessively tests her recipes to make sure that no bowls are wasted and that the results are always worth the effort.
Here, in her third book, she gives us 100 recipes that aim to make shopping easier, preparation more practical and enjoyable, and food more reliably deli cious for the home cook.
What’s a keeper?
A full-crunch cucumber salad you’ll want to make over and over again for lunch.
An epic deep-dish broccoli cheddar quiche that even quiche skeptics love.
A slow-roasted chicken on a bed of unapologetically schmaltzy croutons. Perfect spaghetti and meatballs, better than ever.
Deb’s ultimate pound cake, one to redeem all the sleepy ones you’ve eaten over the years
• Before I Let Go (Skyland #1) by Kennedy Ryan
Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after dev astating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.
It couldn’t save their marriage.
Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she’s is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving busi ness together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had. Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more.
Maria’s one-night-stand — the thick-thighed, sexy Viking of a man she left without a word or a note — just reap peared. Apparently, Peter’s her surly Gods of the Gates co-star, and they’re about to spend the next six years filming on a desolate Irish island together. She still wants him…but he now wants nothing to do with her.
Peter knows this role could finally transform him from a forgettable character actor into a leading man. He also knows a failed relationship with Maria could poison the set, and he won’t sabotage his career for a woman who’s already walked away from him once. Given time, maybe they can be coop erative colleagues or friends — possibly even best friends — but not lovers again.
For years, they don’t touch off-camera. But on their last night of filming, their mutual restraint finally shatters, and all their pent-up desire explodes into renewed passion.
Sir Christopher Ondaatje writes about the American jazz saxophonist, nicknamed “Bird” and “Yardbird”, who was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterised by fast tempos, virtuosic technique and advanced harmonies.
“You’ve got to learn your instru ment. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”
– Charlie ParkerCHARLIE Parker Jr was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas and was the only child of Charles Parker and Adelaide “Addie” Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African American background. He was raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He went to Lincoln High School in September 1934 but left in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians’ union and deciding to pursue a full-time musical career.
Parker started playing the saxo phone when he was eleven, and joined the high school band when he was fourteen with a new alto saxo phone his mother bought him. His father was quite influential in his musical career as he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the Theatre Owners Booking Association circuit. He later became a Pullman waiter on the railways. However, the big gest influence on Parker’s career was a young trombone player – Robert Simpson – who taught him the basics of improvisation.
He had talent and practiced dili gently in the mid 1930s for up to 15 hours a day. It was while he was in his teens that he mastered improvi sation and some of the ideas that led to Bepop. Popular bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten also influenced Parker and he played with local bands around Kansas City, Missouri, where he developed his unique technique. Henry Franklin “Buster” Smith, a jazz alto saxophon ist who played with Basie and Lester Young, also helped influence Parker’s dynamic transitions to double and triple time. Parker sometimes sat in on jazz sessions with Count Basie in 1936 – the same year he married his childhood sweetheart Rebecca Ruffin.
“I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else. I could hear it some times, but I couldn’t play it.”
– Charlie ParkerLate in 1936 Parker, while travel ling with a band from Kansas City to the Ozarks for the opening of Clarence Musser’s Tavern south of Eldon, Missouri, was involved in a bad car crash which broke three ribs and fractured his spine. It was a seri ous accident which led to Parker’s ultimate troubles with pain killers and opioids – especially heroin. He
struggled with drug use for the rest of his life.
Even though Parker nearly died in 1936, he went back to the site of the accident near the Ozarks, and spent a lot of time “woodshedding” (a term used by musicians to mean rehearsing a difficult musical passage repeatedly until it can be performed flaw lessly). It was then that he developed his unique sound. In 1938, he joined Jay McSchann’s Territory Band, and toured nightclubs and concert halls in the Southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City. Parker made his first professional recording debut with McSchann’s band.
“I realised by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progres sion, I could play what I heard inside me. That’s when I was born.”
– Charlie ParkerParker acquired the nickname “Yardbird” – shortened to “Bird” following a questionable inci dent with a clicken on a tour bus with McShann’s band. The nickname continued to be used for the rest of his life.
In 1939, Parker left for New York City to concen trate on his musical career. He had other jobs too. For some time he worked as a dishwasher for nine dollars a week at Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, where Art Tatum (1909 – 1956), the famous jazz pianist, performed. It was in 1939, in New York, that Parker finally achieved his musical breakthrough that he had been searching for in the Missouri Ozarks. Playing through the changes on the song “Chero kee” Parker discovered a new musical vocabulary and sound that shifted the course of musical history. In a practice session with guitarist William “Biddy” Fleet he realised that the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale can lead melodically to any key, breaking the confines of simple jazz soloing.
“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But ... there’s no boundary line to art.”
– Charlie ParkerInitially, this new type of jazz was sneered at by established traditional jazz musicians, but musi cians like Coleman Hawkins and Art Tatum realised that the new music was a positive devel opment and participated in jam sessions and recording dates. However, from August 1, 1942, to November 11, 1944, the Musicians’ Union called a ban on all commercial recordings, as part of a struggle to get royalties from record sales for a union fund for out-of-work musicians. Conse quently, much of Bebop’s early development was not captured for posterity and gained limited radio exposure.
It was not until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, that Parker’s collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a marked effect on the jazz world.
On November 26, 1945, Charlie Parker made a recording with the Savoy label – marketed as “The greatest jazz session ever” with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis on trumpet, Curley Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. “Ko-ko”, “Billie’s Bounce” and “Now’s the Time” were part of this recording session.
Later in 1945, Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
travelled to a disastrous engagement at Billy Berg’s club in Los Angeles. The band returned to New York, but Parker remained behind, cashing in his return ticket to buy heroin. The resulting bad period in Parker’s life resulted being committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital for six months.
“Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink, I can’t even finger well, let alone play decent ideas ... You can miss the most important years of your life.”
– Charlie Parker
In mid-1946, after Parker was discharged from the State Mental Hospital, he recorded “Relaxin’ at Cam arillo” in reference to his stay at the hospital. Sadly, he fell back on his heroin addiction as soon as he got back to New York. Nevertheless, he recorded several records for both the Savoy and the Dial labels, which were some of his very best recordings. Many of these were with Miles Davis and Max Roach.
Parker had a strong appreciation of classical music – particularly the music of Igor Stravinsky and his experimental innovations. His great ambition was to perform with a string section incorporating both jazz and classical elements. On November 30, 1949, Norman Grantz, the powerful producer and impresario, arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber orchestra musicians. Six master takes from this 1949 recording session became the album “Charlie Parker with Strings” where they played the standards “Just Friends”, “Everything Happens to Me”, April in Paris”, “Summertime”, “I Didn’t Know what Time It Was”, and “If I Should Lose You”. This music eventually became known as “Third Stream”.
“Master your instrument. Don’t be afraid, just play the music.”
– Charlie Parker
In 1952, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie released an album called “Bird and Diz”. The following year, 1953, Parker performed in Massey Hall, Toronto, with Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. The concert was poorly attended because of the Jersey Joe Walcott/Rocky Marciano televised heavyweight boxing fight, but the recording of the event “Jazz at Massey Hall” is known as one of Parker’s best live recordings. At
this event Parker played a plastic Grafton saxo phone – a new innovation.
“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.”
– Charlie Parker
Parker’s health began to deteriorate badly in March 1954 when his three-year-old daughter died of an illness. Riddled with mental problems and a seri ous addiction to heroin, he attempted suicide twice in 1954. He was again committed to a mental hospital.
Charlie Parker died on March 12, 1955, in the suite of his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City. Causes of death were certified as being lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer. Also, apart from his heroin addiction, he had an advanced case of cirrhosis of the liver and had suffered a heart attack. He was only thirty-five years old.
Since 1950, Parker had been living with his common-law wife, Chan Berg, the mother of his son Baird and his daughter Pree, who died when she was three. He never married her, nor did he divorce his wife. His marital state complicated the settling of Parker’s estate. Dizzy Gillespie paid for his funeral and lying-in state in Harlem, after which his body was flown back to Missouri at the insistence of his mother and buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Summit, Missouri.
Through his recordings and popularity of the posthumously published Charlie Parker Omni book, Parker’s identifiable style dominated jazz for many years to come.
Miles Davis once said, “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker”. In 1949, the New York nightclub Bird land was named in his honour. Three years later, George Shearing wrote “Lullaby of Birdland”, named for both Parker and the nightclub.
A biographical film Bird, starring Forest Whi taker and directed by Clint Eastwood, was released in 1988.
• Sir Christopher Ondaatje is the author of The Last Colonial. He acknowledges that he has quoted liberally from Wikipedia; Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker (1973) by Ross Russell; Bird: The Legend of Char lie Parker (1977) by Robert George Reisner; and Charlie Parker: His Music and Life (1998) by Carl Woideck.
EGATTA’ is a word with many meanings, depending on two things – who’s speak ing and who’s hearing it. It is more than a sailing event, almost a way of life; several days of partying and drinking to a spectacular background of racing boats – recreating the age of sail.
Sailing vessels of several types and sizes were an essential part of Bahamian life, carrying passengers and freight between the islands. They were built by skillful Bahamian boat builders, using simple tools and wood from our forests, seldom with plans. The Nassau front, at any time of day or night, offered a pano rama of ‘look-alike’ boats, no two of which were exactly alike.
Various Out Islands built their own boats – an essential tool for con necting them to Nassau and other islands. An island without its own boatbuilder had to depend on other people’s boats to carry its passengers and cargo.
Such was life in the Bahamas; a thing that never changed, until sail power was replaced by gasoline or Diesel engines and the Bahamian sailboat was threatened by extinc tion. Something needed to be done, but what, and by whom?
Howland Bottomley and several other yachtsmen, both visitors and Bahamians, came up with the idea of holding a regatta for Bahamian working sailboats, to keep the art of building and sailing boats live.
The chosen venue was the spacious Elizabeth Harbour, at Georgetown, Exuma.
The first Exuma Regatta took place in 1954, with a fleet of 70 Baha mian sloops, schooners and dinghies displaying their skills over three days of racing. Year after year, it grew and improved, to eventually become
an outstanding annual event on the Bahamian calendar.
The contestants in the early regattas were working vessels that, except for the three days of the regatta, were kept busy – fishing for market, freighting goods, and in gen eral justifying their existence.
The purpose of the regatta was to preserve the boatbuilding skills once common to all the islands, and, to an extent, this was achieved when rivalry inspired contenders to build new boats, designed not for carrying cargo and passengers, but for win ning regattas. This evolution, from pure working sail to out and out
racing thoroughbreds, has taken place with suc cess, and the regattas now draw entries from all over the Bahamas.
Racing rules state that a vessel must be Bahamian designed, built, owned and sailed. Also, wherever possi ble, restrictions on materials used or allowed have been introduced so as to keep these racing boats as closely related to their working forebears as possible.
In 1973, as part of the Bahamas Independence Celebrations, the annual regatta was held in Nassau, and to reorganise the race, the
National Regatta Committee was formed.
The Bahamian wooden sailing vessel has served the Bahamas for many years and will continue to do so, thanks in part to a great idea back in 1954. The boatbuilding skills that helped sustain this nation in the past are alive and well to serve it in the future.
Regattas are now held in many islands, including Andros, Mangrove Cay; Eleuthera, Governor’s Harbour; Exuma, Black Point, and New Provi dence, Montagu Bay.
• For questions and comments, please send an e-mail to islandair man@gmail.com
ALL day I knew exactly what I was going to write about, but it weighed upon me.
I knew that I was going to write about my sweet little Garmin, who truth be told, can be a bit of a terror, but he has not been feeling well for the past few days.
He started limping one morning out of the blue and the following day he was droopy. He stopped limping but his over all condition was very slow and clearly something was wrong.
After several phone consultations over the weekend, it was decided that he should see his veterinarian. On the third day he went to the vet and he had a high fever; blood work showed an infection. He was put on medication, and with the antibiotics the fever went down.
The X-ray only showed that he had arthritis in his joints, but at close to 13 years of age, that is not surprising.
Still not content that the cause of his slowing had been revealed, he had an ultrasound sound yesterday and sadly it showed he has tumours on his spleen, and at his age that is an inoper able situation.
To put an elderly dog through all the stress, pain, and fear of extreme invasive surgery is not kind.
In life we need to understand the difference between being alive, having a heartbeat and quality of life.
With a young dog there is the vital ity of young organs to support the healing process. When a dog reaches a certain age his body cannot support the physical trauma of the very surgery that is supposed to save their life, but at what price?
It has taken me many years, and many dogs to actually understand this. The fact that I have now understood it, and I agree with a palliative approach, does not make it any easier to cope
with. It does not mean that I do not wake up in the middle of the night with my heart breaking and praying for a miracle that, unfortunately I have finally understood after all these years, is just not going to come.
The miracle is in birth, the miracle is the wonderful dog-human bond that exists between canine and the rest of the family. The miracle is how they wedge into your heart and stay there so comfortable for year and years.
The harsh reality is how quickly it can all change. Garmin was a sprightly old gentleman going out in the garden, patrolling both sides of the house faithfully, one day and the next he was seriously unwell.
Nasir would like you to know that the superstition of black cats being bad luck is just that... a super stition. He and his two near identical siblings do not consider themselves unlucky or harbingers of doom. They’re super friendly and outgoing, ready to interact with all the humans that come along. They don’t even mind being around the other cats at the Ba hamas Humane Society, but at eight months old, they’re all ready for a home or homes of their own. If you’ve been needing
Perhaps the best part of being a dog is that dogs do not have any of the fears and anxieties that humans have; we do all the worrying for them.
The responsibility of owning a pet is to be there for them, support them and make sure they feel safe and loved.
It is essential not to fall into the very human trap of trying to push them to do things to prove (to yourself) that they are getting better.
If your elderly and ailing dog doesn’t want to walk around the garden, there is absolutely no need. As you care for your friend, realise that he needs the freedom to do as he pleases and it is life’s simple pleasures that count the most. If he wants to sit outside and
some love and conversa tion in your life, look no further than Nasir and his siblings. Your luck might just change for the bet ter if you do. Come in to meet him, or call 325-6742 (keep trying, the lines are wonky!) for more informa tion. Nasir looks forward to chatting with you.
• Come and see the BHS at this weekend’s Jollifi cation! Raffle tickets will be available along with other goodies. Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 8pm (though don’t come too late, we may pack up a bit early). See you there!
listen to the birds sing and feel the sun on his back - then let him.
The most important thing for him is to have you near. He wants the love and presence of the people he has loved his whole life. His days will become less active and not as exciting, but as an elderly gentleman he perhaps no longer craves the frenetic lifestyle of a puppy.
I never know if it is right to intro duce a puppy into a home of older pets. Does it make the older animal feel younger or does it put their nose out of joint and make them feel as if they are being “replaced” or that they are getting less attention?
We will not submit Garmin or Bella to the mayhem of youth and exuber ance. In fact, I am not totally sure that I will ever be ready again for the energy that a young animal brings into the house. It is a lot of work and maturity does not hit until the age of three or four.
Whatever you choose do in your life, the most pressing thing is to real ise that your dog is fortunate that you will keep his life peaceful, provided they are not in pain and that the tail has wags in it, then you are doing the right thing.
Owning a pet is the best, but the goodbye is the worst. They will never live long enough and that is a sad fact of life that we have to live with.
Love them with all your might every day.
THE world-famous and prestig ious international art fair Art Basel in South Florida just a few weeks away.
And this year, Baha Mar’s The Current Gallery & Art Centre will be attending the iconic event to high light the importance and significance of Bahamian art.
Showcasing at SCOPE Miami Beach from November 29-December 4 on behalf of The Current is Baha mian artist Kachelle Knowles, who is a part of the gallery’s 11 Strong collective which has united 11 art ists across different mediums to tell stories unique to Bahamian culture and daily life.
The collective’s most recent exhi bition, “Beguile,” which Kachelle co-led with fellow 11 Strong artist Dede Brown, was featured at the grand opening of ECCHO (Expres sive Collaborations & Creative House of Opportunities), a new multifunctional creative platform for local and international artists that opened just last month at Baha Mar.
Fellow Bahamian and 11 Strong Collective artists, including Saman tha Treco, Sue Katz, John Paul Saddleton and Dede Brown, will also be attending SCOPE to support Kachelle’s showing, along with nota ble Bahamian artist, influencer and The Current’s own executive director of Arts & Culture, John Cox.
Through her work, Kachelle seeks magni fies the Black Bahamian male’s lack of visibility and accessi bility in the Bahamian landscape. As she delves deeper into her practice, her subjects unravel multilayered contexts such as colonialism, colour ism, and classism.
Her illustrations which will be on display at SCOPE shine a soft and delicate light on the joyful disposi tion of the Black man’s experience. Layered in these depictions on a brown paper material, is Kachelle’s observation in the limited public access beaches left for locals to enjoy in Nassau.
Kachelle is a contemporary artist who explores ideas of gender identity, cultural preservation/ pro duction and social relations within the Black Caribbean community. She graduated with an Associate of Fine Arts from the College of the Bahamas and received her Bach elor’s degree in Illustration at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada.
Pursuing a career as a professional artist, she has already exhibited in numerous galleries such as the Central Bank of the Bahamas and the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas.
TOP, the paint ing 90s But Feels Like 100 Degrees, and left, Keepsake From Atlantis, by Kachelle Knowles.