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“Theater should be dangerous.”
on Broadway Cate Blanchett Cate Blanchett
brought reggae to the world We’re Jammin’ We’re with the man who In Jamaica
Los Cabos spot: hot ’Tis the Season ’Tis sorted holiday gift list, Your Buen Provecho new culinary Mexico’s December 2016 December
R1_RHAP1216_001_Cover_v3.indd 1R1_RHAP1216_001_Cover_v3.indd 1 December 2016 Cate Blanchett • Jamaica • Los Cabos Contents
December 2016
56 Recipe for Success In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, Los Cabos has been reborn as Mexico’s hottest fine-dining destination —ellencarpenter
66 Cate Blanchett
blouse and coat A conversation with perhaps the
finest screen actress of this generation on the eve of her Broadway debut
Givenchy —ellencarpenter
wears wears 74 First Person, Far Flung: GoldenEye, Jamaica A reggae-loving writer meets the legendary founder of Island Records —naomijackson
82 Plane Spoken A novelist shares how she finds inspiration at 35,000 feet
Photography: Michele Aboud; Cate Blanche Photography: —merritttierce
December 2016
RHAP1216_003_TOC.indd 3 08/11/2016 15:27 RHAP1216_074_FPFF_Goldeneye_v2.indd 74 on GoldenEye—once thevilla ofhis Records for$300 millionin1989tofocus find thelionin winter:He’d soldIsland gae tunesby asingleartist yet released.” reg- the most exciting anddiversifiedset of to speakanentirecareer: “Perfection, Bangs cameupwithalinethat now seems Toots andtheMaytals—rockcriticLester album heproduced—Funky Kingston by reggae music.” Reviewingthefirst reggae responsible forturningtheworldonto Hall ofFame, “thesinglepersonmost to hisinductionintotheRockandRoll They Come, andhadbecome,according Jimmy Cliffastheleadin after the1976 attempt onhislife,cast phenomenon, helpedMarleyconvalesce Marley andtheWailers aninternational the first international skahit,madeBob Island Recordsin1959, hehadcreated the world ontoreggae music’ most responsible forturning Blackwell, the‘singleperson Years afterthatsuccess, I’d cometo December 2016 GoldenEye, Bayside withChris ends aremany: Sincefounding owner, ChrisBlackwell.Theleg- northern coast, toseekoutits ing Oracabessa Bay, onJamaica’s the luxe resorthotel overlook- ate inMay, IwenttoGoldenEye, Photography firstperson﹐farflung Jamaica Story Story Naomi Jackson An Rong Xu The Harder 08/11/2016 11:55
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Credit tk tk tk tk tk tk tk tk GoldenEye, withpaintings Artwell inthebackground by localartist Albert the Sha’Been barat December 2016 Chris Blackwell in 08/11/2016 11:55 mother’s paramour, James Bond author Above us all, the recently departed into the high mountains of Portland, Ian Fleming—which he’d bought in 1976 Bob Marley was our patron saint, proof where her family had its homestead and with the aim of creating a resort that’s that distinctly Caribbean music could a shop. It was a place so small that eve- truly integrated with the island (unlike speak to listeners across the world. One ryone peered into the car as we made so many white-sand Caribbean resorts). of my earliest childhood memories is the slow, final climb, looking boldly at I went there looking to see whether he’d riding with my sister in the backseat of our faces to decipher where these foreign- infused the property with the same a warm car at night in Barbados, singing ers were from. But then, when we reached depth of feeling for Jamaican culture along to “Three Little Birds”; the lyrics the shop, we heard rockers emanating he’d brought to his records. And I went lulled me to sleep, the song a cover of from the jukebox, and I felt at home again. to hear the stories of a music that was so comfort I lingered beneath. As I grew close to my roots. into myself, Marley and the Wailers’ wenty-four years after that trip, I sat Growing up in a blended West Indian ballads were an ever-present soundtrack. Tdown for breakfast at the Bizot Bar at family in Brooklyn, I sustained myself on It was “Redemption Song” and “Buffalo GoldenEye. Talsie, GoldenEye’s longtime beef patties and curry goat from Jamaican Soldier” that I returned to time and again cook, had prepared the Jamaican national joints on Flatbush Avenue, along with as I grew increasingly politically aware dish of ackee (a tropical fruit) and saltfish; the gospel, soul, calypso, and reggae that of black history and culture. Marley was it was so good that it made me feel like I swirled throughout our household. I got ours, a bard with a thrilling range who was cheating on my Jamaican stepmom, my love of music from my family: One could speak to family, love, history, war. who’d made the same meal for our family of my uncles was a radio DJ in Antigua, Despite my affinity for the country’s countless times. while my dad had formed a band called music, I hadn’t been to Jamaica Across the table from me the Soul Servers in the ’70s. And each since I was 12, when my dad was Chris Blackwell. At 79, he Saturday morning, as my sister and I did sent me there to bond with looked worldly yet jovial, emi- Above: Chris Blackwell chores around our apartment, my Jamai- my Jamaican stepmom. I (far right) with the nently relaxed in a white shirt can stepmom kept up a soundtrack of found it hot and muggy, and Wailers’ Junior Marvin, with three buttons undone. “rockers”—’70s reggae with syncopated had to rely on her to trans- Bob Marley, and Talsie called him Mr. B., a nick- bass drums—that made it clear that while late the Jamaican patois Inner Circle front man name that sounded more fitting Jacob Miller, en route we lived in America, our ears were still that grew thicker and more to Brazil in 1980 for an uncle with a well-worn
trained on the Caribbean. unintelligible as we traveled Right: the Fleming Villa place at the rum shop than a (musicians) Archive Trading Delon/Island Nathalie
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RHAP1216_074_FPFF_Goldeneye_v2.indd 79 08/11/2016 11:57 “I smiled at the serendipity of Blackwell and my family having met before, at the welcome table of music.”
renowned music mogul and real estate Aitken’s “Little Sheila” and teenaged $6,000 check to record their next album. entrepreneur. In an English accent mel- Millie Small’s cover of “My Boy Lollipop,” “I felt it was a risk worth taking. Every- lowed by island living, he told me how one of the first songs recorded in the ska one told me I was crazy. It was the best he first got his start in the business, in style. “Millie’s record opened up every- decision I’ve ever made.” the ’50s, when he managed 63 jukeboxes thing for me,” said Blackwell. “Because This spring, Blackwell is helping to around the island. “Sometimes the jukebox once you have a big hit in anything you’re bring that story to the stage at the Bir- was the entire entertainment in a com- doing, you go from one of millions to one mingham Repertory Theatre in England munity,” he said. “When I went to a place of hundreds. It happened at the same time with One Love: The Bob Marley Musical, called Rocky Point—a fishing village in the as the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the which he’s coproducing with longtime south of Jamaica—I don’t think they’d Kinks. And I was right there.” Island Records executive Suzette New- seen anybody of my complexion. I was For Blackwell, Bob Marley and the man. Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, like a ghost walking in there. Wailers were his Beatles. the story traces the Rastafarian icon’s When I took out a record and “When I met Bob and Peter two-year self-imposed exile in England put in a record, you’d get an Clockwise from top left: Tosh and Bunny Wailer in after he was shot in a 1976 assassination instant reaction and everybody pictures and books at the 1972, they were known to be attempt. (Marley spent the immediate would either say ‘Tune, tune’ or Gazebo at GoldenEye; a bad guys—which meant they aftermath of the shooting convalescing ‘Take it out, take it out.’” signed copy of the Police’s wanted to get paid what they at Strawberry Hill, Blackwell’s villa in hit single “Every Breath The answer, more often You Take,” which Sting should be paid,” he recalled. Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.) than not, was “tune, tune.” By wrote at the resort; a hut The musicians had been going “He was devastated by that,” Blackwell the early ’60s, Blackwell was between the trees on through a rough period, and said. “He never expected to be the target producing some of the first the resort’s grounds; Blackwell decided that the of a shooting in Jamaica. Depressed, he records of Jamaicans singing GoldenEye’s Beach best way to establish a good went to London and found out that he Lagoon Villas; opposite pop music: Cuban-Jamaican page: a resort guest dives relationship with them was to was really popular in England—all the godfather of ska Laurel into the lagoon trust them. So he cut them a punks discovered his music because it
December 2016
RHAP1216_074_FPFF_Goldeneye_v2.indd 80 08/11/2016 11:57 was a kind of rebel music. He was revered statuesque, flat-topped Grace Jones; a Later, after returning home, I assumed and got his confidence back and wrote pensive Marley stroking his chin on the a familiar perch at the kitchen table of my most of the songs on Exodus and Kaya, cover of Rastaman Vibration. Even the parents’ house in Brooklyn. I watched as two of his most successful albums. He matchbooks bear the name of Marley my stepmom cooked dinner, stirring meat came back to lead a peace concert and got and the Wailers’ first Island-produced in the dutchie pot she bought on our trip the leaders of the rival political parties record, Catch a Fire. to Jamaica more than 20 years before. to hold hands on stage. Only he could Perhaps most of all, though, you She listened as I played my interview have done that.” find Marley’s legacy in the harmony with Blackwell, stopping to tell me about The show premiered last May at the between the town of Oracabessa and how she was once responsible for taking Center Stage theater in Baltimore, in the resort. On our first afternoon, we care of the jukebox in her father’s shop the wake of that city’s civil unrest. “It found locals and tourists sharing the in Portland. I smiled at the serendipity was extraordinary,” said Blackwell. “In same beach, which is far less common in of Blackwell and my family having met a way, the riots helped bring attention to the Caribbean than it should be. Nearby, before, at the welcome table of music. She the play. We were just there for a month, I waded into a swimming hole just below ribbed me about the mangled accent I put and the theater was full the entire time. It the Fleming Villa to find a Rastafarian on as I spoke to Mr. Blackwell. There was was strange—the music Bob had written fishing the cerulean waters. my family, giving me a hard 40 years ago was still so relevant.” I’d read a legend that a Rasta- time as usual, and me, gath- jammin’ in jamaica farian had saved Blackwell’s united serves montego ering stories to try to make ou see Blackwell’s devotion to the life when he nearly drowned, bay from chicago﹐ hou- sense of our lives. And there Yartists he’s worked with—and to and that he’d cultivated a ston﹐ new york/newark was Blackwell’s voice swirl- Jamaica itself—throughout Golden- close, trusting relationship and washington/dulles﹐ ing in the heat of my family’s Eye, especially at the open-air Bizot with the Rasta community with connections from Brooklyn kitchen—just like other cities﹒ for more Bar, whose collage of album covers and ever since. I sensed there information﹐ go to so much of the music he had portraits make it a kind of shrine: a was some truth to it. united﹒com﹒ brought us before.
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