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Stories by Mel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Published:Friday | March 23, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

In Ugly Girl, Singer Ikaya asks a very serious question, and she does so in a beautiful voice too. After establishing the scene for encountering her man in sexual action with another woman, she describes seeing a situation where "he was on his back...

Published:Friday | March 23, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Tonight, as it has for the past four years, the Earth Hour concert at the Ranny Williams Centre on Hope Road, St Andrew, coincides with the final day of Boys and Girls' Championships. On any night when there are events at the two venues, the lights...

Published:Monday | March 19, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

There are two sound system speaker boxes, with 'Jam' inscribed on them, close to each other at the Jam One sound system base on Minott Terrace off Chisholm Avenue, St Andrew. One, of course, belongs to Jam One, the sound system operated by Tony...

Published:Monday | March 19, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Regulars at Courtyard Theatre, held annually at Campion College, Old Hope Road, St Andrew, are accustomed to moving around to see the theatrical productions staged and, in the main, directed by students. For this year's sixth staging on Saturday,...

Published:Friday | March 16, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

I will say off the bat that I am not an avid theatre person, but over the past four weekends I have been in two of the smaller theatre spaces in Kingston and a lecture hall which hosted excerpts from a musical, all this getting me mulling just how...

Published:Thursday | March 15, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

The page on the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus's website inviting persons to 'Explore UWI' presents striking images of a number of the campus's physical landmarks. The old aqueduct appears more than once, the pictures' captions...

Published:Tuesday | March 13, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

In making a hook-up in the flesh between music performers and their often far-flung audiences, the Internet - specifically social media - is proving to be an invaluable tool in data-driven touring.Adam Davis of the US-based Skyline Artists Agency,...

Published:Monday | March 12, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Dorraine Reid wets her feet as director in good form, marshaling the Omaall 'Maja Bless' Wright script over two weekends at the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. She has multiple theatre roles (...

Published:Friday | March 9, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Frederick 'Toots' Hibbert had a year of contrasts in 1966. As a member of The Maytals, he won the Festival Song competition with the enduring Bam Bam, but he was later imprisoned for marijuana. It has taken half a century, but today, Toots and the...

Published:Thursday | March 8, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Speaking about Una Marson, one of a quartet of women whose lives and work will be analysed over two weekends at the Institute of Jamaica starting on Sunday, Herbie Miller uses the present tense and then pauses."To my mind, these people are in the...

Published:Wednesday | March 7, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

In its beginning as Gospel on the Beach in 2002, what later developed into Fun in the Son, was literally and figuratively set smack in the middle of the spring break activities. At the time some of the celebrations of a deluge of mainly U.S.,...

Published:Monday | March 5, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Moiika Stanley danced her way to the Dancehall Queen title at Pier 1 in Montego Bay, St James, in 2008 and eventually made moves - literally - in over 60 countries, teaching moves to persons who have caught the Jamaican music beat. However, for the...

Published:Friday | March 2, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

There is a mind-blowing thing about a plantation society, like Jamaica. Those who earn the most do not have to work much - if at all. Now, there are those will be saying "dat a blow him mind at dis ya late stage inna 'im life?". Yes. I remain...

Published:Friday | March 2, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Singer Myrna Hague will be back on very familiar ground tonight when she performs at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston. It is where her annual Simply Myrna, Myrna Hague in Concert was first staged, before moving outdoors for the past two years...

Published:Monday | February 26, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

For the four Sundays in February, Marcus Garvey's connection to the arts was a consistent theme of the 2018 Grounation series at the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), East Street, Kingston. So it was fitting that on the series' last day, the final...

Published:Tuesday | February 27, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

For approximately the last quarter of each year, Michael Holgate attends as many of the annual cycle of Jamaican dance company seasons as he can. The founder and director of Jamaica Dance Umbrella is not the only person connected with the festival...

Published:Friday | February 23, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

At tomorrow's 2018 Jamaica Reggae Industry Association (JaRIA) Honour Awards, outstanding contributors to a wide range of the multifaceted entertainment business will be recognised at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston. With a standard position...

Published:Friday | February 23, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

With tomorrow's Jamaica Reggae Industry Association Honour Awards signalling that Reggae Month 2018 is almost over, as usual, I wonder what has been accomplished.Or, more to the point, what has been transferred from one generation of music makers to...

Published:Wednesday | February 21, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

From solo vocalists Dusty Springfield to Amy Winehouse, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran, the duo Wham!, the Spice Girls quartet and One Direction quintet, self-contained outfits like The Beatles and Rolling Stones (whose Salt of the Earth is a staple toast...

Published:Tuesday | February 20, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

On Saturday, the Jamaica Theological Seminary (JTS) on West Avenue, St Andrew, will move into the mood of Reggae Month 2018 with a symposium themed, 'Caribbean...

Published:Sunday | February 18, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

In 2015, Kingston was declared a Creative City of Music by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the organisation's website www.unesco.org saying "legendary musicians, world-famous recording studios and...

Published:Thursday | February 15, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Dem know 'bout Carib now true dat a de only one Dem no know State or Regal and Odeon"- Agent Sasco, History BookIn my younger, less patient - and hence less practical - days, I attended a church service in Cross Roads, St Andrew. The building was...

Published:Thursday | February 15, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

The Gleaner continues its series on the persons who died in Reggae Month after making a significant contribution to Jamaican popular music. So far, we have focused on William 'Bunny Rugs' Clarke, former lead singer of Third World band, and Wayne...

Published:Wednesday | February 14, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Singer Samory I, had a choice in doing what became the penultimate track on his debut album Black Gold, released in 2017. Producer Rorystonelove did not present him with a choice of songs, but two versions of the same song, Is It Because I'm Black....

Published:Monday | February 12, 2018 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

During the brief interactive session which followed his address on Marcus Garvey's influence on the youth, poetry and contemporary popular music at the Institute of Jamaica on Sunday afternoon, Steven Golding was asked about the bust of Garvey at...

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