Benjy Myaz takes his mastery to Rebel Salute’s ‘30 for 30’

When the 30th staging of roots concert Rebel Salute – which has “the preservation of reggae” as its mandate – unfolds in St Ann, among the 30 acts to perform over two nights in January 2024 will be Grammy –nominated musician, composer, arranger, producer and Indi artiste, Benjy Myaz.

Rebel Salute founder, Tony Rebel, pledged at last week Thursday’s launch at the Gardens of The Jamaica Pegasus hotel that only 15 acts will perform on each night, a modest number when compared to that of previous stagings.

“Because it’s our 30th anniversary, I want to go with 30 artistes. So we call it 30 for 30. The people always complain about having artiste onstage too short, so now is the time that artistes will get to perform a longer set to satisfy the audience’s need ... or greed. So we doing 15 artistes on Friday and 15 on Saturday,” Rebel said, during an on-stage interview session with his daughter, Jahyuda.

Third World, Anthony B, Marcia Griffiths, Sanchez, Mikey Spice, Glen Washington, Tony Rebel, Richie Stephens, Leroy Gibbons, Lone Ranger, CC Foster, Tapazuki and Benjy Myaz were named as the artistes who will take the stage on Friday, January 19.

It will mark the second Rebel Salute for Myaz, the multi-instrumentalist, reggae-jazz master, who thrilled on Thursday evening, playing his bass as he sang the classic, Take You Higher. Myaz was well received, with one guest even commenting that “this year Rebel Salute is a three-night event ... starting with tonight”. The evening was made a bit more special for Myaz, whose former headboy from high school, Cordell Green, was in the audience, and told him, “Still doing good.”

Myaz shared that his 2020 appearance “was an historic entrance” for him and that even though Rebel Salute is branded a reggae show, he brought his instrumental concept to it.

“I played my bass guitar … playing melodies ... which I plan to do again, which is a whole new thing. Using the bass to play lead in Jamaica is not very popular, but it has been popular from ever since in jazz and in funk , so I look forward to presenting those little intricacies. It was good the first time and I hope to perfect the craft for the second time.”

JAZZ MASTERS

Myaz is tuned in to the Jamaican Jazz Masters, a project which has been ongoing since 2014. In between, he released his Rootsy Rhapsody album, a project which came out joyous even though he was mourning.

“My mother and my father passed away and this was a way of mourning for me … to stay quiet. I didn’t want to sing anything, just to play the music, so the instrumental kinda brought me to a happy place instead of a sad place, so the music actually came out very happy,” Myaz said of the 2021 album.

The current all-star jazz-reggae crossover project features stars from all over the world, including saxophonists from Guyana, Nigeria, Canada, Jamaica and the USA. Described as “coming to life in Kingston, Jamaica [and] exploring the fusion of reggae riddims, jazz, Rockin Blues (R&B) classical, ska, rocksteady, roots, dub, rock, street beat, world beat” it is intricately musical in construction, however, the melodies float through the soul.

“As the bass, it was always in my mind to have a relationship with the saxophone … because the saxophone means a lot to the bass ... so the bass and the sax carry the lead melody in most of those songs. That has been going on in jazz since the ‘50s and I have always listened to that and always wanted to experiment with that giving a Jamaican twist to it. It is a deep project,” an enthusiastic Myaz shared.

On the front burner currently is a project which is coming soon. The title is Amanda, and among the compositions are two vocal tracks, one of which is Myaz doing a make over of a George Benson classic Turn Out The Lamplight and the other is On a Day, an original written and sung by the illustrious Pam Hall.

“Pam and I both did the arrangement and I also played bass and electric pianos with Llyod ‘Obeah’ Denton on grand piano,” Myaz said.

He also shared the story of Amanda and it really couldn’t get more sentimental.

“Amanda is my mother’s middle name … my late mother,” Myaz said simply. “She was my first musical influence. She bought me my first five-string bass guitar, which I used to play that track on the album … Amanda. She inspired the music in the family. She’s a chore singer. So, five chores for the day, you get five different tunes. It was also an honour to go home to Hanover and record the melody. I took my laptop and mobile studio with me and captured the melody in Hanover, so that was calculated for me. I wanted to just connect with the spirit and the vibration.”

Amanda, Myaz explained, has two meanings and the album is called Amanda with a subtitle of the two meanings, Gift of God, Worthy of Love.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com