CaribPR Wire

The ground-breaking agreement brings stories from the Caribbean to both TEMPO Networks and to CaribbeanTales viewers in the diaspora

CARIBPR WIRE, Toronto, ON, Mon. June 10, 2024: TEMPO Networks announces an exciting partnership with CaribbeanTales Media Group (CTMG) to provide a platform for the CaribbeanTales catalogue to reach millions of mobile customers worldwide on IOS and Android devices. Under the agreement, TEMPO as lead partner, will give its customers access to a huge range of original locally and regionally produced content from the CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution catalogue directly through its TEMPO+ Caribbean app. This partnership will enable millions of viewers to access Caribbean content in ways that they have not been able to before.

“This groundbreaking partnership is destined to further catapult the distribution of culturally relevant Caribbean content worldwide and create important pathways for Caribbean producers and creatives,” exclaimed Frederick A. Morton Jr. aka Mr. TEMPO, Founder of TEMPO Networks. “I am thrilled to join forces with CaribbeanTales, which has been engaged in the important work of distributing Caribbean content for decades and shares our vision for the production and distribution of quality content documenting Caribbean history and lifestyle.”

“With our partnership we are building on our commitment to support, develop and distribute Caribbean content for Caribbean viewers worldwide,” explains Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of CTMG. “This partnership expands the reach of CaribbeanTales-TV and brings rich, new content to both the CT and TEMPO+ Caribbean platforms.”

For almost two decades, TEMPO has permeated the hearts and souls of viewers with the network emerging “as the ultimate platform for the expression of the entire Caribbean experience,” says Morton. “Caribbean people have a unique passion for living which shines through everything they do and TEMPO+ Caribbean is the bridge to this culturally rich and trendsetting community.”

CTMG is the leading supporter of content generation in the Caribbean with an enormous library of productions that tell the tales of everyday Caribbean people and the Diaspora through series, dramas, documentaries, animation, comedies and short films. All of this content is currently available on CaribbeanTales-TV.

“This wonderful partnership provides an injection of energy and resources into the world’s availability to access Caribbean content and has the potential to be a game changer for our emerging industry,” says Solomon. “There is now a mechanism through which the most compelling regional projects from the most talented producers can be viewed and disseminated, creating funds for the creators in the process. We are looking forward to working with TEMPO+ Caribbean, and with producers and other partners to build on this important milestone in the establishment of a sustainable indigenous industry for the Caribbean.”

Download the TEMPO+ Caribbean App on IOS and Android to access the widest library of Caribbean content in the world.

Links:
CaribbeanTales-TV – Online SVOD for Caribbean Content: https://caribbeantales-tv.com/

TEMPO on CaribbeanTales-TV: https://caribbeantales-tv.com/pages/TEMPO-on-cttv

TEMPO+ app on IOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/TEMPO-caribbean-network/id1640195256

TEMPO+ app on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tvcoins.prod.TEMPO&hl=en_CA

CaribbeanTales-TV on TEMPO: https://www.temponetworks.com/caribbeantales-tv/

About CaribbeanTales Media Group
Built over 20 years, CaribbeanTales Media Group (CTMG) is the only media group in Canada that provides an ecosystem of screen-based activities that serve Black Canadian, and culturally diverse audiences. CTMG is Black-owned, staffed and controlled. Our Board leadership and staff are mainly Black and are culturally diverse. CTMG provides a pipeline of activities from creation to distribution that aims to uplift, enrich, promote and monetize Black and culturally diverse film and television content for audiences.

CTMG includes: CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD), the first full-service film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean; the Caribbean-Tales International Film Festival (CTFF) that produces festivals and events; the CaribbeanTales Incubator (CTI), a production hub creating world-class and compelling original content ; and CaribbeanTales-TV (CT-TV), an online streaming video service.

About TEMPO Networks
Founded in 2005, TEMPO Networks is the Caribbean’s leading television, media & entertainment life-style brand capturing Caribbean life & culture worldwide. With its flagship 24/7 linear TV station broadcasting throughout the Caribbean and the USA on cable to over 4M viewers, TEMPO produces popular Caribbean life-style content, featuring travel, tourism, music, cuisine, pop-culture and diaspora life. TEMPO recently launched its streaming platform, TEMPO+ Caribbean, on Apple IOS & Android platforms, with an exciting and ground-breaking slate of original and exclusively curated programming. Its diverse content caters to the very significant and varied worldwide demographic who love and enjoy all things Caribbean.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An image for use with this article is available HERE

The Wonder Years Star is in discussions to play Jamaican-Canadian Community worker Harry Gairey

For Immediate Release

CaribPRWire, Toronto, Canada, Thurs. Nov. 11, 2021: Casting is underway for In the Black and popular American actor Richard Gant has been attached to the project to play the role of Jamaican-born Harry Gairey. Produced by CaribbeanTales Media Group and directed by Caribbean-Canadian Frances-Anne Solomon, the feature film is an adaptation of entrepreneur and activist Jamaican-Canadian Denham Jolly’s memoir of the same name.

In the newly re-imagined The Wonder Years (ABC), Gant guest stars as Granddaddy Clisby – the latest role for the 77-year-old actor who also plays grumpy Walter on CBS’s The Neighborhood. The veteran actor is known for his roles on Greenleaf (Percy Lee), The Mindy Project (Melville Fuller), Men of a Certain Age (Owen Thoreau, Sr.), General Hospital and NYPD Blue.

“I met Richard last year in Los Angeles at the premiere of Hero at the Director’s Guild of America Theater,” recalls Solomon. “So, when I was thinking about who would be the perfect actor to play the role of the legendary Harry Gairey, a Jamaican-born community leader and activist who worked as a railroad porter, Richard’s commanding presence and booming voice instantly came to mind. He will be phenomenal!”

In the Black focuses on Jolly’s journey from Jamaica to Canada, the enormous influence Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey had on his life as well as Jolly’s fight to secure a license for a Black-owned Toronto radio station, Flow 93.5.

The film has received support from the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada. Producer Nicole Brooks has also recently signed onto the project. Brooks’ production work began with Frances-Anne as story editor for Lord Have Mercy (Vision TV/Showcase/APTN/Toronto One) and she has gone on to create and produce several critically acclaimed and groundbreaking television and theatre productions including Echo (SunTV), Divine Restoration (Vision TV/ TVOne), Obeah Opera and executive produced CaribbeanTales’ slate of international pilots through its flagship Incubator Training Program. Also on board are writer Andrew Burrow-Trotman - The Porter (CBC) Frankie Drake Mysteries (CBC) Utopia Falls (CBC/Hulu), Diggstown (CBC) and development executive Jamie Gaetz. Solomon’s recent feature film, Hero: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross is now available on Showtime, Prime Video, Hulu and Cineplex Store.

Media Contact: Fennella Bruce | 647.290.7610 | [email protected]

CaribbeanTales Media Group (CTMG) is a multi-faceted group of media companies that produces, markets, and sells culturally diverse film and television content from the Caribbean and its wide Diaspora.  Founded by award-winning filmmaker and Academy Member Frances-Anne Solomon, CTMG includes: CaribbeanTales Inc, a registered Canadian Charity, CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution, a film distribution entity, CaribbeanTales International Film Festival; Caribbeantales-TV, a VOD streaming service; the Creatives of Colour Incubator, a year-round development and production hub, and CaribbeanTalesFlix, our production arm.

PHOTOS:

Actor Richard Gant, l, and CaribbeanTales Media Group founder and director  Caribbean Canadian Frances-Anne Solomon. (Photo courtesy of Caju Creative)

Actor Richard Gant (Courtesy: richardgant.com)

Dr. Monty Alexander, CD. (Hollis King Image)

CaribPR Wire, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs.  Sept. 19, 2019: Jamaica’s world-renowned, Grammy-nominated international musician, Dr. Monty Alexander, CD, celebrated his 75^th birthday in style this year, releasing his new album that has already grabbed the number 1 spot on US Jazz and NACC radio a mere 2 weeks after its release.

‘Wareika Hill RastaMonk Vibrations’ is an album unlike any that Dr. Alexander has released in his more than five decades in the music business. Perhaps it is the wisdom of getting older and reflecting on one’s own musical journey that has resulted in the Mountain View, Kingston-born, Caribbean immigrant taking fans on a historical stroll down the jazz alley he has trodden, which pays tribute to the West Indian musical influences and influencers of the genre in American history.

As Dr. Alexander tells it, the album is a compilation that encapsulates the genres of roots, reggae, ska and jazz into one album – all of which have had significant impact on his musical psyche and made him into the West Indian jazz maestro he is today.

From a child of 8 observing Rastafarians going up Wareika Hill behind his house in Mountain View and hearing the sounds of their drums, to  sneaking into the Federal Recording Studios at age 14 to play piano rhythms with the musicians accompanying Jamaican singers like Keith and Enid Laurel Aitken and others recording for producers like Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid and Chris Blackwell, and then learning of American Jazz musician Thelonious Monk from Rasta trumpeter Jackie Willacy to hearing and then meeting the North Carolina-born jazz musician, Alexander’s ‘Wareika Hill RastaMonk Vibrations’ captures it all, while paying the most profound compliment to Monk and Rastafarianism.

“Maybe it was just my childhood memories connecting the two, but I was left with a deep impression that the world of Monk and Rasta were one spirit,” commented Dr. Alexander.   “I always thought that Monk’s compositions naturally lent themselves to West Indian and Rastafarian rhythms, perhaps accidentally or perhaps because as a child in Jamaica I had unconsciously merged and fused Rastafarians with Thelonious Monk.”

The 14-track album is dedicated to Theodore Sonny Rollins and the memory of Melbourne Bob Cranshaw and includes Dr. Alexander’s adaptation of several songs written by Monk such as ‘Misterioso,’ ‘Rhythm a ning’ and ‘Nutty,’ as well as two songs Monk played but did not write: “Abide with Me,” a beloved Christian hymn, and “Bensha Swing,” which was written by Monk’s friend and drummer, the Barbadian-roots Denzil Best.

“This should have been spelled ‘Bimsha,’ which is how Barbadians refer to themselves,” said Dr. Alexander. “‘Bemsha Swing,’ Barbados and swing – the connection with Monk and Jazz and Island rhythms was there all along given that Monk vibrated with West Indian roots musicians like Herbie Nichols, Russel Procope, Matthew Gee, Blue Mitchell, Fats Navarro, “Tricky” Sam Nanton, Carmen McRae, Arthur Taylor, Leonard Gaskin and a host of others.”

Musicians Ron Blake, Wayne Escoffery, Andrae Murchison, Joe Lovano John Scofield, J.J. Shakur, Jason Brown, Obed Calvaire, Karl Wright, Leon Duncan, Courtney Panton, Junior Wedderburn, Abashani Wedderburn, Bongo Billy and Earl Appleton appear on Dr. Alexander’s new album, merging their talent with his to create an indomitable sound that is truly and distinctly ‘RastaMonk Vibrations.’

For a sample from Dr. Monty Alexander’s latest album or to hear the backstory, visit  him on YouTube or at montyalexander.com. You can also like him on Facebook at facebook.com/officialmontyalexander or keep up to date on his performances on Twitter at @montyHKE.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Felicia J. Persaud

Hard Beat Communications

718-476-3616

[email protected]