Punta Gorda- Paul Nabor

Ms. Zoe from the embassy organized a meeting with one of the legendary musicians of the Paranda style, Paul Nabor

A couple days previous, I had just picked up the Paranda compilation CD in Belize City, I listened to it and fell in love.

I am so surprised that visits with these famous musicians can happen so easily. It's folk music. It's like going to a fiddler's convention in Mt. Airy, all my heroes are there AND i get to not only play with them but also hang out and eat and drink with them. I love that.

We arrived to Paul Nabor's house with Dr. Ludwig Palacio, he looks after Paul, and is a huge supporter of his music. We were greeted by his wife who welcomed us in. All around us were beautiful large chickens, you'll hear in the recording, they were singing up a storm. There were two buildings one for cooking and things and the other was for ceremonies. The ceremony barn had traditional drums, hammocks, amplifiers, cardboard crosses spray-painted orange and dirt floor. It smelled and felt so good in this space. It felt alive and healthy. Paul Nabor came out in his high-top shoes and bleached jeans and heartedly welcomed us. We told him a bit about ourselves, the banjo, our music. Then we played him "When sorrows encompass me round".

Punta Gorda- Paul Nabor, originally uploaded by fiddlesarah.

He graciously listened. After we were finished sean asked if he wanted to play his banjo and Paul said "no i don't want to play the banjo", he said "i play the guitar". Then he went off to get his guitar. His guitar had character, reminded me of gypsies and their instruments. Paul made his guitar work for him. The capo was a sharp nail held to the guitar by some wax twine was there permanently, most likely because the nut had gone bad. One of the pins to hold the strings in was missing and instead he had shoved a hunk of plastic to hold the string in. Out of necessity, this is a folk musician! The most exciting part was experiencing his tuning strategy which was hooking up a small voice recording device to an amplifier and playing a tape of himself playing a song. He used this to tune the guitar. i couldn't figure out was happening at first, it seemed like an avant guard music performance. But he got it tuned pretty well and performed some of his songs for us.




I have been reflecting on this experience in Belize. It's really hit me that these old guys are going to pass at some point and there aren't young people to carry these traditions on.

I am finally understanding why it is important to me to carry on folk music and traditions. It's always has felt right to me in digging up music from various old traditions and keeping them alive, but during this tour I have started to intellectually realize why this important. Sean has really spoken so elegantly about this subject and my thoughts aliegn with his on this subject. Essentially if we don't know our history and where we come from we are lost. The history books tell a story not always the truth. Folk music and the stories that go along with them, tell the peoples history and this is real perspective on being human and experiencing life and hardship.

Alan and John Lomax are invaluable resources to our American culture. Without recordings of the workers, the slaves, the prisioners we'd have only the perspective of the elite and upper class to understand our culture and the making of our history.
Its heartbreaking to see the amazing folk music and musicians of belize and know that once they are gone it's likely that those traditions will die and be lost. agghhh.

I want to find a way to capture these musicians, their stories and traditions for posterities sake. I want it to be captured so that it can be given the respect it deserves. I want not only foreigners to know about it, but also natives of belize to feel proud of their unique and special culture. It was so inspiring for me to hear of the resistance of the Garifuna people against colonialism. The Garifuna people succeeded in never being enslaved by the British. It's inspiring to see all these different people living together and seemingly not have high tensions about their differences. The Mayans, the Mennonites, the Creole's, the Garifuna and there's more.
I was there for 6 days, i definitely can't make out exactly what is going on there, but i know that it is rich in it's culture. Perhaps it's possible to get a grant or scholarship to be able to capture these stories? A sound documentary? A video documentary? Maybe a big concert, bring them to New York City and document that? It seems big, these ideas, but I feel it's so important, and almost too difficult let this time slip away and not have proper documentation of these very important musicians and traditions. mmmm...i will think on this.

http://www.stonetreerecords.com/albums/paranda.php

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/belize/nabor.html