culture

It was an interesting mix of people on the evening of March 26 at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo. Do you have in mind upscale culture appreciators, of the sort who buy expensive art? Although there were none wrapped in the stereotypical dead furry animals, that small segment of Panamanian society was represented. Then there were the artists, some dressed creatively different, some dressed starving artist scruffy, some indistinguishable by their garb. A few of these in one genre could be identified by their cameras. The folks from SAMAAP, the Afro-Antillean Museum of Panama Friends Society, were well represented, as were the Afro-Antillean community in particular and Afro-Panamanian society in general. There were fans and scholars of calypso music of many hues and descriptions, including the families and friends of the night's entertainers. And then there was this reporter's mother, a calypso fan from way back who had never, however, caught a performance by either Yomira John or Leslie George, or the Remembranza Calipso band.

Yomira John is a Panama City native and graduate of the old Conservatorio, which is now occupied by the Fundacion Danilo Perez. To make a living and her mark as a musician she had to emigrate, first to Mexico and then for many years in Paris. Her influences and the instruments she plays are various, but she's probably best known as a jazz singer who has been influenced by the African music scene in France.

Leslie George is hardly known outside of Panama, but those who go to the Antillean Fairs every year will know him as a calypso singer. But when I mentioned this to a friend with different musical tastes, she told me that she had never heard of him doing calypso, but that "everybody knows" that he's the best opera tenor in Panama. This reporter has also had the pleasure of catching one of George's gospel concerts.

The show was well received by the standing-room-only crowd. It was overwhelmingly a calypso show, but with just a taste of música típica (Sacúdete) and some of John's world music compositions like Cabanga to go along with all the Panamanian and international calypso standards running from Racombe to Veranillo Push Push, with many a number that people who know calypso but don't know George would recognize.

The event was a benefit for the museum, on the occasion of a noteworthy exhibition of André Cypriano's black and white photos of Quilombolas, the people who live in communities that were founded in centuries past on the West African model by runaway slaves in Brazil's hinterlands.