Burman Scott has been a professional musician for about 30 years.
He has been a bandleader from 1986, and the almost 22 years of hard work he has put into his band is obvious to all who hear the group, Los Tropicanos.
Los Tropicanos performs regularly at The Wharf, and they were there last Friday night entertaining the relatively small number of people who braved the inclement weather to enjoy the band.
Mr. Scott, a police sergeant, singer and multi-instrumentalist has, over the years, toured with the legendary Trade Winds and with Los Tropicanos.
One of his proudest moments was doing a gig at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria.
Officially the band comprises four persons: Steve Welds, Perry Smith Verlene Wallace and Burmon Scott.
Mr. Welds is the band’s lead/rhythm guitarist and has been with Los Tropicanos from its inception.
To Mr. Scott, he is not just the guitarist, but a close friend of many years standing.
‘If I get a little extra (money for a gig) he gets a little extra,’ says Mr. Scott.
The other two band members have both been around for five years.
Ms Wallace, a lady with a fine mezzo soprano range, has been singing since she was three.
She performed in the USA for many years while she lived, worked and studied in that country.
At about three or four years old, she says, a fish bone got stuck in her throat and she had to be flown to Jamaica to have the bone removed.
‘My mommy said that if you had seen me, you wouldn’t have known that I was a child with a fishbone stuck in my throat; I was running, dancing and singing up and down the aisle. I think I was born to sing and dance.’
Ms Wallace is not only a fine solo performer, but she is also a creator of innovative and excellent vocal harmony.
‘(Ms Wallace) is a local West Bay girl who used to live in Miami, and she can sing good harmony. If the other guy starts to sing a harmony that she is singing, she can change to another harmony which is good. You don’t find many females who can do that.
‘Some girls get up there and just sing lead, lead, lead,’ Mr Scott said.
Multi-talented
Everyone in Los Tropicanos sings and plays at least one instrument, and the band’s list of performance songs spans a wide range of musical genres.
Mr. Scott personally sings tunes ranging from Calypso tunes by The Mighty Sparrow, to love ballads by Lionel Ritchie.
He is the one who uses his sequencer, his laptop and his keyboard to provide the bass and the high-quality percussion sounds which help to make the band produce top quality music.
Some people criticise the fact that the music provided by Los Tropicanos is not all played live, but, says Mr. Scott, the way he does things is in keeping with musical trends.
The bass patterns and percussion sounds heard in the background of his on-stage music are keyboard-generated and pre-recorded.
With his ability to play many musical instruments, Mr. Scott said, he made up his mind to learn a technique called sequencing which helps people to create backing tracks using nothing more than a keyboard capable of creating synthetic sounds.
As a bass player he manages to create authentic bass patterns on the keyboard and it’s difficult to tell that it’s a keyboard and not a bass guitar that is accompanying the performers.
‘Some people criticise it, but I don’t care because I know that it’s my talent that’s doing everything that is coming out of the sound equipment. It’s not like I’m taking it off the internet, or anything like that it’s my talent and my effort’ said Mr. Scott.
Ms Wallace, the only female in the band, sings Reggae and Salsa tunes with similar degrees of accomplished effortlessness, and, like the band’s leader, never seems to be out of her depth in any musical idiom she tackles.
Steve Welds, who is away on three week’s vacation, is the band’s main vocalist, Mr. Scott said.
As lead singer, Mr. Welds sings most of today’s popular songs and, says Mr. Scott, his presence enhances the band’s vocal harmony.
‘With the lead singer the harmony is much more together; plus he does the emceeing; gets the crowd going…and we have a better selection of music; of course he’s away for three weeks. But I think we’re doing pretty good. As you can see, people like the band. ‘
The people did appear to like the band: they Salsaed, meringued and just went wherever the music took them until the band signed off for the night.
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