Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Brina

Brina's freedom songs at Redbones the Blues Café on Friday night were not all political and her love songs were not always sentimental. And even when sitting on a high stool, she found room for freedom of movement on the small stage at the Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, nightspot, her love for and skill at her art coming through continuously.

With Jerome Tulloch on keyboards, Kieran Murray on bass, Omar Francis on guitar and Anthony Watson on drums, Neekah Whyte supplying harmony vocals, Brina honoured Lucky Dube and tipped her cropped hair to Guns and Roses. She requested in original song "lips don't fail me now", bare feet showing under her floor-length khaki skirt as she lifted her legs in time to the beat.

Brina confessed that she has not yet seen the movie with the same title and starring the singer of Purple Rain, a song which was made when she was in conception.

The band took a break and Brina took a seat, guitarist Norman McCallum also seated lower and to her right, for Girl From Ipanema, hands moving from her hips to double clutch the microphone as she ended. Still seated, she swung her legs side to side and tapped a hand on a hip, as she sang of a Paper Moon under a starry sky, scatting a bit at the end as her upraised hands framed her smiling face.

It was more love with That's All, ending on the refrain in a lower register to very good applause from the audience.

There was a low of another kind when Jacqueline was invited onstage to add her didgeridoo, a large wooden wind instrument used by the aborigines in Australia, to the guitar and sparingly used drum which accompanied the sung query "is there nothing sacred anymore?" The didgeridoo was featured extensively, at one point Brina's voice going high and long with Jacqueline keeping pace.

Extensive spoken section

The full band returned and Brina stood for an uptempo surge, intermittently rising on tiptoes as she did Freedom Time, right through the extensive spoken section. "That was a nursery rhyme from Lauryn Hill. That was the only verse of the song, so when she is ready to do verse two."

Tracy Chapman's Gimme One Reason was treated to some rocking guitar from Francis and rocking left hip from Brina, both hips twitching as she invited Come Away With Me, left hand extended to the side as she held an extended 'me' to end.

There was more love, but of the wondering kind, as she asked in song "will you still love me tomorrow", the full band coming in after the first go-round of the refrain, the finally 'tomorrow' held and changed in tone and pitch to very appreciative applause.

Then it was more uptempo freedom songs to close, Brina showing her freedom of movement on Toots and the Maytals Monkey Man ("I am yet to find out who the monkey man is," she said). It was a pair of wonderful Stevie Wonder cuts to end, Brina dancing through Sir Duke and then going on a Higher Ground, scatting thorough to the end.