TALLAWAH- Keeping mento music alive

Mento is one of Jamaica’s oldest music genres and it still remains popular, thanks to small bands like the Florida based Tallawah Mento Band.

Some members of Tallawah Mento Band jamming in leader Smith's backyard

Tallawah leader, Colin Smith, is a successful businessman, accomplished artist and musician, who plays the guitar, banjo, piano and keyboard.

However, the band he now leads, started quite by accident almost 20 years ago.

According to him, he and two friends, Vincent Allen guitarist and Errol Smith on drums, were jamming, 

Errol with the rumba box

playing some popular Mento tunes in a music room at a church in Miami, when Vincent advised that he had brought a rumba box from Jamaican but had no idea how to play it. This instrument is shaped like a box and provides the bass sound. The player sits on it while playing.

Mento music typically features acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, congo drums, rumba box and a wind instrument (fife/clarinet/flute).

 Fortunately, Colin had built a rumba box while living in Jamaica so he was able to teach his friend Errol how to play it. He has been playing it with them ever since.

While they jammed, playing the mento music, some ladies who were listening nearby commented on how good they sounded and asked them to play at an event for them. That event turned out to be a Jamaican Independence Dinner which was scheduled to be held the following week!

Although they demurred as they had not considered playing formally as a group and did not even have a name for their group, the ladies insisted.

The legendary Keith Studdard with other guitarists Eugene and Phillip

Quickly they recruited a drummer/percussionist Val Darby. At the event, the MC was so impressed with their performance that when he asked the name of the band and they told him, 'just call us the little Mento Band,' he commented “oono likkle but oono tallawah.”

They played as The Little Mento Band for a while, but as they grew in popularity and the band expanded, Mrs Norma Darby then director of “The Jamaican Folk Revue” suggested the band be named Tallawah Mento Band, and so it was. 

They have been joined by other guitarists, saxophonist and such greats as Keith Stoddard, and have grown from strength to strength.

Flutist Tresha

While most mento bands in and outside of Jamaica tend to have mainly men, the band was  fortunate to have briefly, Jennifer Grant on the accordion and Angela Campbell, percussionist, dancer and archivist. However, some sixteen years ago they were lucky enough to find an outstanding flutist, Tresha Powell, who is a nurse by profession. 

She is now an integral and irreplaceable member of this Tallawah band.

For the benefit of the young, Mento Music is the first recorded folk music in Jamaica. It has greatly influenced the emergence of Ska and Reggae. 

Mento itself is mainly based on African rhythms and was extremely popular from the 1920’s up to its hey day during the 1940`s and 1950’s.

While it has been overrun somewhat by reggae and dancehall, it is still popular at cultural events. It is therefore a staple with groups like Jamaica Folk Singers, University Singers, Carifolk Singers and hotels on the north coast of Jamaica.

“Mento is Jamaica`s indigenous dance, song ,and instrumental style. The music is relatively slow in quadruple time, and its most characteristic feature is the accent in or on the last beat of each bar”, says  Dr Olive Lewin from her book Rock It Come Over”.  

Tallawah at North Beach

Dr Lewin went on to explain the rudiments of a Mento band as follows:

1)Melody: Fife, piccolo, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet, piano or electronic keyboard;

Available at Amazon.com

2)Harmony: guitar and banjo, which also play melodically, rhumba box or double bass on the bass line;

3)Rhythm: drums, maracas, grater and nail, sticks, and variety of improvised instruments and body sounds.

It is also impossible to find events honoring icons like Miss Lou, Olive Lewin or Rex Nettleford which do not feature the best of our mento music. Our Independence and Emancipation celebrations at home and abroad also give Mento Music pride of place.

In action at the launch of "Looking 
Back"

At school of Music at the Edna Manley College of Visual and performing Arts, there has been such renewed interest in this music genre, that in 2017, leader Smith was invited there to be a guest presenter to the master class students. He also gave similar lecture demonstrations  at the Norton Museum in Boca Raton Florida and The Auburn Research Library in association with the National Black arts festival 2012 in recognition of  Caribbean American Culture Heritage Month. At this festival Tallawah performed & presented “Jah Music: A Celebration of Traditional Jamaican Music”,

 

I was honored to have Tallawah at the launch of my autobiography “Looking Back, the struggle to preserve our freedoms” at the Pembroke Pines Library in Florida in 2017.

OTHER PICS FROM THE BACKYARD JAM

169) Joan Williams, author - YouTube

https://youtu.be/kBuMICI-gBE