The new Jolly Boyz to bring mento and more at Katawud Village

THERE SHALL be much merrymaking on Sunday, October 29 on the river beach at Katawud Village & Kottages, situated in the Maroon district of Ginger House in the Rio Grande Valley of Portland, when the new Jolly Boyz kicks off the first staging of the River Beach Sundays series from noon to 10 p.m.

It promises to be a day of live music, food, family-friendly fun, festivities on the beach of the crystal-clear river, come rain or shine. The live performance is from 4 to 6 p.m. The Granny Nanny Cultural Group and other local community performers will add to the entertainment value.

The world-famous Jolly Boyz are a mento band from Port Antonio, Portland. It was established in 1945 and has had great commercial success, especially in the late 1980s and 1990s, among reggae and world music fans. The group released a new album in 2010, Great Expectation, and used to be the house band at GeeJam, a hotel in Port Antonio.

The Jolly Boyz grew out of a group called the Navy Island Swamp Boys that was formed on April 11, 1945, and often played at Errol Flynn’s parties.This group included Moses Deans on banjo and guitar, Noel Lynch on guitar, and ‘Papa’ Brown on rumba box. After the group split in 1955, Deans and Brown formed The Jolly Boyz (a name Errol Flynn is said to have coined). This group was very popular throughout Port Antonio and earned the reputation of being the finest mento band in the parish.

ECO-FRIENDLY SPACE

Katawud Village & Kottages, located 45 minutes from Port Antonio, is a Maroon family-owned and managed ecotourism enterprise. It is nestled in the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It offers overnight accommodation, camping and picnic opportunities, and tours. The hosting of events is also on the cards for this eco-friendly space.

“The company was created to stem the decline of our Maroon heritage, encourage environment conservation, while providing a sustainable and viable source of income for the community. Katawud Village & Kottages, therefore, provides an alternative to the typical kind of tourism and development that leads to environmental degradation and loss of cultural identity,” its website notes.

“We offer experiences for the community, as well as for visitors to our island. We have a variety of experiences that we are going to be showcasing at the first river beach weekends. We are doing river beach weekends, river beach Sundays, at the end of every month, when there will be live cultural edu-tainment,” Dr Harcourt Fuller of Roehampton Production, the producers of the event, told The Gleaner. He is a descendant of the Maroons from the region, and is working in conjunction with Kimoy Fuller, another of the event producers.

“At this first one, we are going to have camping, kids’ playground … mini golf, mini pool tables, ludo, dominoes, etc. We are also going to have a farmers’ market, in which local farmers will operate; and a craft market, where local craft people from the Rio Grande Valley can sell their items, because we want to make a contribution to sustainable livelihood in the region,” Dr Fuller said further.

Katawud is derived from Cattawoods, the name of some Maroons who are said to have originated in the mountains of eastern Jamaica. Some migrated to central Jamaica, more so Clarendon, where they joined other Maroons in wreaking havoc upon the settlements of the colonisers. The experiences at Katawud are steeped in Maroon history, heritage and culture. Tickets for the event may be purchased at the gate or online at www. katawudvillage.com and info@katawudvillage.com.