Despite the fact the Notting Hill Carnival has become one of the most internationally celebrated festivals since it began in 1964, I’ve never actually been as people’s responses to it have often been more dismissive than jubilant, with people complaining of being commandeered along the streets by policemen on horses while nearly passing out owing to a claustrophobic meltdown. And the pick-pocketers.. world class I always hear, the finest you’ll ever encounter, (if you actually get a chance to see them) but in no way as endearing as one from a Charles Dickens novel, you certainly wouldn’t want to adopt one, you’d probably be more inclined to string one up after the inconvenience of having to cancel your cards and your phone contract etc! But anyway, after five years of being in this city I thought I should probably at least shut out the pessimistic warnings of fellow Londoners who have probably become too disaffected to enjoy anything marvelous and cultural on their doorstep any more, and experience it for myself.
So I trotted off with a friend who had never been before either. Although, as expected, we didn’t trot for long. Once past Portobello Road it was policemen-on-horsey time and not surprisingly, they seemed to be directing us every other way but from where any of the actual action, fun and most importantly, music appeared to be. I suppose we had expected a more instant injection of music, carnival and dancing in our paths, even if jostled along with thousands of other people, we’d still be jostling. It seemed to be as though we’d accidentally side-stepped into what felt like a global-sized PE teachers’ convention, with the piercing sound of a thousand whistles maniacally filling the air– I never want to hear another one again. Still, eager to sample some of that carnivalesque spirit, we marched on with our bags zipped up to the maximum, determinedly clutched close to us.
Amazingly, my friend still got her wallet stolen about an hour in. They really are that good. We think it must have been at the point where we got embroiled in a crush while watching the first round of trucks and trailers that we’d seen go by. In all fairness, the music that we could finally hear was great, but not being able to actually dance to it was as painfully infuriating as having your foot in a plaster cast at a wedding when the DJ’s just whacked on Michael Jackson’s Thriller. As is only being able to see the very tips of lots of beautifully painted feathers drift by, while you look up to all the revelers in the spacious seclusion of their own apartments, who are clearly in far higher festival spirits than us down below.
After the wallet incident and the mandatory call to the bank, we decided not to stick around any more. On a more upbeat note we headed to A Tribute to Michael Jackson at The Jazz Club, which ran on both the Saturday and Sunday night of the bank holiday weekend, coinciding with what would have been Jackson’s 50th birthday on the 29th of August. Wow. Hosted by the very charismatic and energetic Eric Roberson and featuring vocals from Phonte Coleman (from the hip-hop duo Foreign Exchange) Kym Mazelle, Chris Ballin, Donna Gardier and Lennox Cameron, this night had a genuinely celebratory and feel-good atmosphere to it, with the added bonus of having ample room to dance unashamedly to all the hits you knew and some of the ones you didn’t know so well. Ok, so working up a crowd of MJ devotees to dance to his music is not a difficult task but the musicians’ interpretations of the King of Pop’s classics sounded incredible – as slick as the original’s themselves with fantastic vocals from Kym Mazelle and Donna Gardier.
Soul and house singer Kym Mazelle, who has sung with Jocelyn Brown and performed as a member of Soul II Soul, was brought up in the same hometown as Michael Jackson, (Gary, Indiana) and loved having the opportunity to sing songs in the tribute show. She said: “It was amazing. I have so many fresh memories of Michael and the entire family. Michael was a great influence on me wanting to be an artist, I knew I could do it because i watched him!” She added: “Afterward I got a bit emotional. When the DJ started to play ‘Stop! The love you save may be your own’ I lost it!”
