Machel Montano’s Jumbie has without a doubt shattered the hopes of all other Road March contenders for Carnival 2007, as no other song was played as much at the judging point in downtown Port-of-Spain yesterday afternoon.
By Roxanne BethelIt boomed from the music trucks and flowed from the lips of the masqueraders; Jumbie, Jumbie, over and over again.
Band after band, section after section it was the same.
The bands changed, new masqueraders took to the stage in different costumes, of different mixtures of colour, but Jumbie remained consistent.
Not even the size of the band made a difference—Rosalind Gabriel and friends’ mini-band presentation of Faces of the Nation as well as the large band Trini Revellers presenting the French Revolution, which both followed Brian Mc Farlane’s beautiful presentation of India favoured the Jumbie.
In a show of splendid colour and class, the Trini Revellers took to the stage with an old French dance which was quickly pushed aside for Jumbie, the only song that accompanied all 20 sections of the extremely large band on stage.
An entire hour-and-a-half of nothing else but Jumbie being played only served to energize masqueraders who were content to dance the Jumbie dance as they waited their turn to parade in front of the judges.
As the final section of Trini Revellers left the stage and the sun began to set over Carnival 2007, a band of Fancy Indians took to the stage, once again, to the sounds of Jumbie.
Further up the road, Mt Hope Connection’s Fancy Sailors also danced to Jumbie.
