I wish the ‘Jazzman” a speedy recovery

Sep 23, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
By the time this letter is published, well known radio personality Mr. Noel Adams would have had his heart surgery slated for September 12th.  I wish the ‘Jazz for the Asking’ supremo well, and a speedy recovery.
The NCN staff and all who contributed to Mr. Noel Adams receiving his “Pacemaker” did a good humanitarian act.  Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to the name Noel Adams and the voice that goes with it – the “Jazzman”. The once very popular radio personality was a household name to Jazz fans/enthusiasts, also the one who was responsible for many talent-spotting radio shows: “Teens Ville”, “On show young Guyana”, In search of a Star” and even the drafting of a music policy for NCN as we were informed. And I think I can recall – and I hope I’m right – there was a poem written by him which I was familiar with -”Visiting Home” – which says in part: “I’ve come back to wash the top root of my early years in the swelling of your tide, the years have wearied me and I am now an old man battling against the waves to reach the shore – certain to sink….old age and love will bring me back someday…love dig my grave, grave keep my bones, deep in your lap in the Pomeroon”.
Editor, after all those long years I finally got a chance to see the Jazzman on TV for the very first time appealing to the public for assistance.  Like most people, I tried to match the voice I knew so long to the personality I was seeing, it took a short while before I fused the two.  A voice is indeed a strange and powerful tool, it can play tricks on one, mislead.  Looking at the programme my mind kept churning, somewhat indignant to see that after almost fifty years of steadfast service with an entity “Uncle Noel” who many “young guns” now so “sweetly” call and in dire need for help so as to undergo surgery to keep the heart beating, and “Jazz for the Asking” going, has to do so “cap in hand”.
Now how many big time businesses – I think the term used is corporate Guyana  – have we not seen making generous ostentatious donations – real “big box” to events that are literally worthless, pumping large sums of money into questionable projects/operations without a second thought, some bizarre and debauch.
Others give freely or grudgingly according to their game plan, as is said “everything is done with an eye to something else”. The thing is, the Jazz man does not fit the bill. He is just not the personality or kind of project whom from which the money barons can sooner/later realize a field day from such a humanitarian input.
Still thankful we all must be for having a sprinkling of good, genuine, compassionate folks around.  And I guess that there will be some – both old and young – who though they wouldn’t be bold enough to utter aloud would be thinking: 50 years on a job! What have you been doing all along?  No doubt a valid question; yet must be examined against the background of influencing factors.
One of the things I’ve come to accept in life is that we all do need the grace of a little luck – yesiree! Matters not what we have, who we are or where we’re at, though there are folks who behave as if they are “vaccinated against the vicissitudes of life”, forgetting that in the best regulated and most well planned family structure there are unguarded moments and disappointment.
Anyway the reality is that our society is far, very far, far away, from taking care of those “walking in the rain” or “living on the edge of a sword”. We still have countless ones who as the Jamaicans would say “have to box food out of hog mouth to survive”, forever at the mercy of a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.
I can remember there was this little girl – I think  she was about 6 or 8 years old at the time, that was about 4 years ago – who was fighting desperately to save her sight, just had to get that operation and was pleading for financial assistance to do so.  I can’t say whether she was fortunate or not, but trust me I will sure revisit now that the Jazzman situation has come to light.
But I have to say that though the exercise was necessary and a good one, to me it looked somewhat kind of cheap. We see the Jazzman standing looking a bit shy yet thankful, the box, Noel’s box, is opened and the 100,000 is announced and handed over to him. He stands with the collection – a bundle of bills in hand like a mini-bus conductor, surrounded by NCN staff as one member pleads genuinely with the public to do their best to reach the target of a little over a million which at that point, was just about half;  “we still have a very long way to go” she said.
The expression on her face, the sound/tone of her voice was clear indication that she was not pleased with the general response and never for a moment did she try to stimulate the going was good, much unlike the MC who made it look so.  But I know beyond a shadow of doubt, betting pennies to pins, had the Jazzman been cut from the cloth of the gentry, his box account would have long been shaking the tambourine singing halleluiah.
Frank Fyffe

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