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In The Groove: Randy's Record Store Keeps A Jamaican Musical Tradition Alive

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Carl Lauder started working when he was a teenager and has since kept going Carl Lauder gently pulls out a record from its cover, dusts it and places it on the turntable, gently placing the needle on the groove, and lets the player turn out the sounds of music. Lauder is not a fancy disc jockey, in Randy's Record Mart in Parade, downtown Kingston - a melting pot of the city - he is striving to preserve and keep a musical tradition alive. "I have been working here (at Randy's) since I was a teenager," said Lauder, as he meticulously wiped traces of dust from an LP (long play) record. "I love what I am doing and this gives me the motivation to carry on." Lauder is a lone soldier, treading the path to keep the romance of analogue tones alive in the 21st-century digital world. Randy's is testimonial to the crests of the island's musical history. Sounds of silence: A stack of vinyl in the recording studio Established by Vincent 'Randy...
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Ward Theatre waits for curtains to go up again

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"All the world's a stage ... ." The words echo from William Shakespeare's As You Like It. For the Ward Theatre, the stage is the world from which voices echoed, scenes were enacted, and emotions played out to a rousing audience. All that echoes now are sounds of silence, ricocheting from the dark and dim emptiness, and rays of sunlight that permeate the doors and dissipate into the opulent interiors. Charles James Ward built the present structure, its third avatar, in 1912, the theatre opened its doors on December 16 of the same year. Ward, who was the custos of Kingston, is the 'Nephew' in the rum manufacturing company J. Wray & Nephew, which provided the enabling funds. "The Ward Theatre is a magnificent structure, with history written deep into its fabric", said Doreen Thompson of the Ward Theatre Foundation. The Ward Theatre, over the decades, has had its share of anticlimaxes. Here once stood Kingston Theatre, built in 1775...
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Carnival of colours

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Masquerade - courtesy Bacchanal Jamaica Spring is in the air, the foliage of the tropics blooming spreading innumerable colours of Mother Nature, from trees to flowers to mango trees laden with succulent, juicy fruits sweetening in the crisp Caribbean sunshine. As the monochrome rays of the sun refract into spectral colours at the Mas Camp in Kingston, in a quiet corner, Earl 'Fuzzy' Franklin sits surrounded by glue, stapler guns, pliers and scissors - unlikely tools one may think that transform mundane, raw material into sensuous, colourful carnival costumes. "I am not a designer," Fuzzy says, "I know how to put the costumes together." Fuzzy, who has been with Bacchanal Jamaica since its inception, says that initially the costumes were bought from Trinidad. "While we were out there (in Trinidad), I would watch them (the designers) at work, and I picked up the traits," he said. "After three years, we started making our own ...
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