Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Left: Guest speakers, Hon. Aloun N'dombet-Assamba (left), Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, and Wayne Chen, CEO of Super Plus Foods Stores, have a good time at the 'Symphony - Together Under The Stars' press launch, held at the Terra Nova All Suite Hotel, Waterloo Road, last Thursday. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer   Right: Tessanne Chin is a part of the 'Symphony - Together Under the Stars' line-up. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba, the second guest speaker at last Thursday evening's launch of 'Symphony - Together Under the Stars' at the Terra Nova All Suit Hotel, put the concert's location and one of the performers into the wider context of the progress and progression of reggae.

She said that the concert, which will be staged on the lawns of King's House on Saturday, February 17, will be at a venue that is quite familiar with pomp and pageantry. And she noted that the concert, at which there will be a fusion of reggae and classical music, will "give reggae the pageantry it deserves".

Full time

Assamba noted that although the Bob Marley museum is just up the road from King's House, "It was not too long ago that reggae music couldn't play up there lest it disturb the neighbours".

"Y'know, is full time," she said of reggae rocking royal ground.

And she commented on the inclusion of Tessanne Chin in a line-up that includes Sanchez, Chalice, Richie Stephens, LUST and Dean Fraser.

"Twenty years ago, who would think that a young woman of Asian extract - I am being politically correct, I could say Chiney girl - would be billed as a reggae act? Reggae has been one of the most important social forces in the history of all our people," Assamba said.

Super Plus boss, Wayne Chen, the evening's first guest speaker, had looked at the history of Jamaican music previously, noting that while 'Symphony' is a fusion of reggae and classical music, Jamaican music is a blend of other genres in the first place. He gave personal testimony of reggae's reach, from a guide in Kenya who had never been more than 60 miles from where he was born, but whose favourite Jamaican artiste was Chakademus, to an airport porter in France who said "more fire!" when he heard that Chen was Jamaican.

Musical superpower

"Jamaica is a musical superpower and we take it for granted because it is all around us," Chen said.

"There no country 10 times this size that has produced four distinct genres of music that can stand on their own," he said, naming reggae, deejaying, ska and dub as that phenomenal four.

"There are so many parts of our musical heritage that we take for granted ... We have not put it in a context that it has made people happy, moved people all over the world," Chen said, saying that 'Symphony' is "an opportunity to see two great musical forms - Jamaican music and European classical music - side by side".

Sanchez during his performance in the Art of Reggae segment of Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, held in Montego Bay recently. - Claudine Housen/Staff Photographer