Sisterhood’s Jazz Sampler Turns Five!

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 2006’s intoxicating ‘Dreamgirls’ three talented, spritely young women belt out a stirring number to their smitten audience. The song of the same name sought to impress upon their audience the fact that the fantasies of their male admirers were about to come true—and last forever.  The charm and femininity with which the singers delivered their message made it impossible for me not to believe them, despite the opposition of my gender. Standards like that reverberate through time, through our very beings, causing us to believe in something higher than ourselves.

Last Saturday evening I watched the National Cultural Centre come alive with the exciting appearance onstage of Sisterhood (Cheryl Pitcairn, Lydia Theobalds, Davis Felix and Mineva Ross). Formed in 2012, the group had lost none of its vitality, its ability from their first harmonized note to lift the roof of the venue. The reaction from the floor proved I was not the only impressed member of the audience. Sexily clad in fire-engine red and dripping bling, they soon let it be known that the collective plan was grab and keep their audience transfixed, excited and insatiable. Their opening numbers at St. Lucia’s Jazz Sampler, now in its fifth year, took me back to that sixties place portrayed in ‘Dreamgirls’.

The most receptive audience that included some of Saint Lucia’s best-known names and faces, evidently were determined to make their own fashion statements. You could say they gave back as much as they received. Except at intermission time, they never left their seats while partying as if this were, well, 1969. And with good reason!

On the card were lightning-fast comedians and the evening’s MCs Carlton “Cokes” Cyril and Trinidadian-born (soon to be Looshan) Errol Fabien (the audience thoroughly lapped up for the second year the show’s Masters and Apprentices theme); Aimron Simmons and Krystal Nestor; Rob “Zi” Taylor and Phyness; Deredee Williams, who received the well-merited Lifetime Achievement Award; her “apprentice” Deanna Phillip; effervescent Trevor Dornelly and a mesmerizing TC Brown, who brought us all back to his pre-calypso days. Those who entered the venue with doubts about love surely had a change of heart after listening to TC. (I almost forgot to mention the whole night was built around LOVE! Can you believe it included a surprise marriage proposal? Cokes and Errol persuaded Trevor—midway through Lionel Ritchie’s Lady—to start all over gain, to allow him the opportunity to publicly promise his own lady his limitless devotion. Before that, Rick Wayne (you read that right) delivered Elvis’s ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ so that Mineva might dance in public with her favourite married man (who is also her beloved father). Yep, it doesn’t get better than that!

Thank you Sisterhood for entertaining our fantasies, if only for four hours. See you next time!

By Nathalie La Porte