CREDITS

Cinematography           John Swaby, Jeremiah Stein

Location Sound            Jeff Roth

Editor                              Jeremiah Stein

Sound Editor                 Jeff Roth

Asst. Sound Editor      Sylvan Rodgers

Animatics                      Rock Ross, Peter Langton

Main Title Art               James McCaffry/Ars Nova Graphics

Interviews                     Dallas Rogers

Still Photos                    Jeff Roth

Opticals                         Cinematte

Negative Cut                William Hunter

Sound Mix                    Jeff Roth and Andy Wiskes

Translation/

Additonal Interviews     Ranny Chang/Kevin Doherty

DVD package Doherty Design

Audio mixed at Focused Audio

Film Produced and Directed by Jeremiah Stein

DVD Produced by Jeff Roth

DVD CONTENTS

Chapter   1       "Jah Jah Music" The Soul Syndicate with Tony Tuff

Chapter   2       Chinna interview by the river, Part 1

Chapter   3       "Africa Roots" Jah Minstrels with Chinna

Chapter   4       "I Feel Secure" The Soul Syndicate Band

Chapter   5       The Soul Syndicate Fan Club Dancers

Chapter   6       Chinna interview by the river, Part 2

Chapter   7       "Occupation" Chinna (acoustic)

Chapter   8       Zeros Yard

Chapter   9       "Visions of Love" Zero (acoustic)

Chapter 10       "Mariwana" The Soul Syndicate Band

Chapter 11       Chinna interview by the river, Part 3

Chapter 12       Fully and Tony interview

Chapter 13       Santa interview

Chapter 14       "Harvest Uptown" Fully, Tony, Santa (acoustic)

Chapter 15       Chinna interview by the river, Part 4

Chapter 16       "None Shall Escape the Judgment"

COMPLETE REVIEW: Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone magazine for the San Francisco International Film Festival:

Despite the enormous and persistent cult success of Perry Henzell’s THE HARDER THEY COME, very little about the Jamaican culture of reggae music and Rastafarianism- which can be called politics, religion or mysticism, depending on who is doing the calling- has reached American screens. WORD SOUND AND POWER is a documentary about the Soul Syndicate, Jamaica’s finest group of reggae instrumentalists (they have provided backing records by Bob Marley and The Wailers, Toots and The Maytals, The heptones, Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff, and many others) and the film is unique in its blend of tension and relaxation, movement between city and the country, in its mix of good talk and good music. It is the closest American film audiences are likely to get to modern Jamaican music (which has changed radically in the last ten years) and to the ideas, experiences and emotions behind that music.

The film shifts back and forth between the band as an ensemble, playing in the open air in a Kingston courtyard, and individual members talking telling tales, stating philosophy. Most often the emphasis is on Earl “Chinna” Smith, the groups lead guitarist, talking easily and forcefully with another Jamaican, Dallas Rogers, who conducts the interview sessions, thus avoiding the awkward, inevitably condescending tone that creeps into a film when a helpless “cultured” filmmaker tries to draw out a stoic “primitive.” Such stereotypes are absent altogether here. Rather, the music seems to be of a piece with the Jamaican landscape- rivers and jungles no less than Kingston slums- and with the Rastafarian faith in a deliverance from “Babylon” that gives so much of the conversation in the film its prophetic edge. Finally though, it is the music that gives that prophecy power- especially the band’s final performance of “None Shall Escape The Judgment.” The piece is so quietly insistent, so effortlessly but undeniably shaped, so peaceful and so full of dread, that when it ends, some time after the screen has gone dark and the credits are rolling, you no longer fear the judgment, but hope you can share in it.

-Greil Marcus

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