Alex
Pascall was sort of the Gil Noble of London. He is widely credited with
establishing a voice for Britain’s West Indian community on mainstream radio
and television. As one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival, he had a clear
affinity for music. Pascall surveys the diverse black British musical scene in
one of his best known broadcasts when he served as the host of Yvonne
Deutschmann’s Let the Music Talk, which
screens during the 2015 African Diaspora International Film Festival in NewYork.
Appropriately,
Let starts with what could be
considered day one of British calypso history when Lord Kitchener arrived on
the HMT Empire Windrush (a British war trophy confiscated from Germany),
improvising a performance of “London is the Place for Me” for Pathé News.
American audiences might be surprised by the considerable time then afforded to
British gospel music, but it clearly provided similar inspiration and
fortification for many devout British immigrants. Deutschmann and Pascall also a
good deal of spend time with the traditional Masqueraders, the Grenada Shortknee
Band, who actually sound better in their rehearsal segment than during their
full dress performance.
There
are additional performances by the funky soul band The Real Thing, the other
chart-topping quartet from Liverpool, representing the Mersey Sound and Eddy
Grant, a year before he released his biggest hit, “Electric Avenue.” However,
the coolest part of the film is the in-studio interview and performance with
Coleridge Goode, the revered free form jazz bassist who played on seminal Joe
Harriott and Michael Garrick sessions.
