Editorials
Farewell Bertie
21/10/12 22:36
Having possession of both, we went to Harpe Place to photograph ace pan tuner at his home.
Bertie Marshall died last week and what follows below is an extended version of my editorial for the Guardian of October 21, 2012 (#1039 since I began in December 2001).
On Thursday, one of the seminal technicians, scientists and artists of the steelband movement, Bertram Lloyd Marshall, 76, succumbed to the diabetes he’d been battling for more than a decade.
Over the latter half of the 20th century, there are few men who could be numbered alongside him as a driver of steel pan innovation or in his mastery of his craft.
Known as a master tuner of the instrument, the tone he coaxed from crude steel was both envied and imitated.
As tuner for Desperadoes Steel Orchestra, Bertie Marshall, as he was universally known, tuned the pans for nine of the band’s ten Panorama wins and established himself as a key part of the creative axis that built the reputation of the Laventille steelband.
Not content with working with the standard instrument he met, he become one of the steelband movement’s most notable inventors, counting among his innovations the double tenor pan, as fundamental a part of the modern steel orchestra as can be imagined.
After introducing harmonic tuning to the instrument in 1956 at the age of 20, Bertie Marshall went on to create the high tenor, soprano pan, ping pong and increased the range of many lead instruments by stretching the belly of the instrument from four inches to six and one-half inches, making room for three new octaves and making the pan more portable and manageable by reducing its skirt.
His bolder experiments, such as the chariot pan and the Bertfone tended to remain in his home workshop or in trials with Desperadoes, but his continuous re-examination of the instrument was a constant reminder that the achievements in steel pan development should not be considered done and that inventive thinking about the instrument should not only be encouraged, it should be continuous.
His tuning of the instrument for ace pannist Robert Greenidge remains a high point of the solo pan as part of recorded performances by the musician with bands from Grover Washington to Jimmy Buffet. For many who have encountered the steel pan as a musical instrument only through such music, Bertie Marshall’s unique tone is the one they associate with the instrument.
A quiet and humble man in his later years, Mr Marshall kept his dignity no matter the circumstance. In June, the master pan tuner found himself in the unusual position of receiving an eviction notice from the HDC.
It was a clerical error that threatened to turn nasty, but while Mr Marshall quietly dismissed the fuss as an “embarrassing mix-up,” it was left to others to raise enough of a fuss to bring then Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism Winston Peters and Minister of the People and Social Development to Harpe Place to ask after the status of the national icon.
Mr Marshall’s restless tweaking of the steel pan over his whole working life added immeasurably to the national understanding of the instrument, its capabilities and its possibilities.
As a founder of the movement and a major contributor to it, there are, no doubt, many things that Bertie Marshall liked have liked to see before he passed away this week.
He cannot have been happy with the way that the petty arguments that led to blood on the streets in the earliest days of the steelband movement have matured into petty arguments that continue to keep talented musicians, arrangers and composers locked in an annual tussle for competitive glory and a disturbing acceptance of a state sponsored welfare economy as its underpinnings.
Bertie Marshall was not just an inventor. He was very much an entrepreneur, first leading Metronomes Steel Orchestra and then securing a contract for performances at the US Naval Base in Chaguaramas for his Armed Forces Steel Orchestra. From 1961 on, his Laventille Highlanders set a standard for musicianship and tone that the movement did well to follow.
In 2005, the University of Trinidad and Tobago awarded Bertie Marshall a full professorial Fellowship and appointed him to head the new Advanced Tuning program.
While he was there, available to share his techniques, was his work codified and recorded for future students and professorial study? It’s to be hoped that this was part of the process of engaging this unique talent in a University environment.
Bertie Marshall worked hard and long and created more than we can properly evaluate or honour. He wanted more for the steel band. It's now left to others to finish the work he laboured at for so long.
Comments
On Pat
23/08/11 00:09
The Trinidad Guardian editorial for August 22, 2011 on the passing of Pat Bishop. Read More...
Kitch in Carnival
16/02/10 07:50
Originally published as the Trinidad Guardian's editorial for Carnival Monday, February 15, 2010.
Ten years after his sudden passing, it seems that there is much to lament today in the loss of the prodigious talent of Aldwyn Roberts, who wrote, sang and worked in his chosen profession for more than 60 years after getting his first break at a tamboo bamboo calypso tent in 1937.
In an era in which the successful careers of most performers in the soca arena are measured in months and there is little interest in becoming the kind of well-rounded musician, arranger, promoter and extraordinary composer that Kitchener was, it’s worth remembering the sheer scope of the man’s legacy and the enormity of his contribution to the Carnival landscape.
The man was no kaiso elitist. In the England years, between 1948 and 1963, Roberts worked his behind off, building his reputation and a small calypso empire fuelled by frequent performances, a nightclub and investments in properties even as he sent songs back to Trinidad and Tobago to let his fans know that he still had his sting. ‘Nora Nora Nora’ and ‘Trouble in Arima’ were songs from this period, music strong enough to succeed without the man present to sing them.
On his return to this country in 1963, he immediately staked his claim on the Road March, the anthem of each year’s Carnival celebration and the most forthright expression of a People’s Choice award anywhere in the world.
His combination of topicality, wit, and astonishing arranging skills landed him the award ten times between 1963’s ‘The Road’ and ‘Flag woman’ in 1976.
By then, the musical emphasis of Carnival on the road had changed and the impact of the steelbands for whom his music was so emphatically composed diminished in importance on the streets, replaced by brass bands and music trucks as portable generators finally became small enough to be practical on the road.
He remained, however, the pan arranger’s darling, his music gliding off the shimmering surfaces of hammered steel with a sweetness that has rarely been matched then or since.
Between ‘Mama dis is mas’ in 1964 and ‘The Guitar Pan’ in 1997, steelbands were victorious in the Panorama competitions with his music an astonishing 18 times.
While servicing his existing constituencies, Kitchener the composer proved a restless, ready observer of the music around him. He incorporated jazz credibly in ’12 bar Joan’ created one of the great lavway laments in ‘The Carnival is over,’ and cemented the relevance of soca for disdainful calypsonians with ‘Sugar Bum Bum.’
Roberts was a calypsonian’s calypsonian, and his Calypso Revue was nursery, school and finally home to a surprising number of today’s calypsonians who got their start at the tent and remained loyally with Kitch after they became successful.
In 1964, its first year of existence, four calypsonians from the Revue competed in the Calypso Monarch finals; Kitch, Nap Hepburn, Bomber, and Blakie, with Bomber taking the crown.
In 2000, after his passing, the Dimanche Gras stage was also commanded by a startling percentage of cast members of his tent, including Sugar Aloes, Crazy, Pink Panther and De Fosto, each of whom performed in a red suit and hat styled after Kitchener’s trademark stage uniform.
Lord Kitchener may be lost to us, but his influence and legacy remain. His son, Kernel, has grown into a potent musical force and serves as a composer, musical director and as a remarkable arranger for Machel Montano’s HD family.
He is father’s son, but he is also his own man, adapting his rhythmic talents to the fast moving world of modern soca and creating, among other songs, the JW & Blaze hit Palance, which musically riffs off a bridge formulated in the Brassorama competition to move from one song to another during the competition.
The enormity of Lord Kitchener’s influence on the music of Trinidad and Tobago is still to be fully evaluated. In 1996, an attempt was made at Queen’s Hall as an Honour Performance of the man’s work was mounted by a virtual who’s who of contemporary performers, from the boy group Blak Mayl to the Marionettes Chorale.
The lessons of Kitchener’s life offer rich example for today’s calypso and soca performers. This was a man who was, at every stage of his career, a remarkable mix of entrepreneur and artist, a composer, arranger and singer who accepted everything as an influence and created something unique out of all that he saw and heard.
Aldwyn Roberts was adaptable but firm in his style – there was never a Kitch calypso that sounded like anyone else’s – and he remained vital and relevant throughout six decades of the artform’s development.
His was a daunting example, a mountainous legacy worth climbing in deed.
Ten years after his sudden passing, it seems that there is much to lament today in the loss of the prodigious talent of Aldwyn Roberts, who wrote, sang and worked in his chosen profession for more than 60 years after getting his first break at a tamboo bamboo calypso tent in 1937.
In an era in which the successful careers of most performers in the soca arena are measured in months and there is little interest in becoming the kind of well-rounded musician, arranger, promoter and extraordinary composer that Kitchener was, it’s worth remembering the sheer scope of the man’s legacy and the enormity of his contribution to the Carnival landscape.
The man was no kaiso elitist. In the England years, between 1948 and 1963, Roberts worked his behind off, building his reputation and a small calypso empire fuelled by frequent performances, a nightclub and investments in properties even as he sent songs back to Trinidad and Tobago to let his fans know that he still had his sting. ‘Nora Nora Nora’ and ‘Trouble in Arima’ were songs from this period, music strong enough to succeed without the man present to sing them.
On his return to this country in 1963, he immediately staked his claim on the Road March, the anthem of each year’s Carnival celebration and the most forthright expression of a People’s Choice award anywhere in the world.
His combination of topicality, wit, and astonishing arranging skills landed him the award ten times between 1963’s ‘The Road’ and ‘Flag woman’ in 1976.
By then, the musical emphasis of Carnival on the road had changed and the impact of the steelbands for whom his music was so emphatically composed diminished in importance on the streets, replaced by brass bands and music trucks as portable generators finally became small enough to be practical on the road.
He remained, however, the pan arranger’s darling, his music gliding off the shimmering surfaces of hammered steel with a sweetness that has rarely been matched then or since.
Between ‘Mama dis is mas’ in 1964 and ‘The Guitar Pan’ in 1997, steelbands were victorious in the Panorama competitions with his music an astonishing 18 times.
While servicing his existing constituencies, Kitchener the composer proved a restless, ready observer of the music around him. He incorporated jazz credibly in ’12 bar Joan’ created one of the great lavway laments in ‘The Carnival is over,’ and cemented the relevance of soca for disdainful calypsonians with ‘Sugar Bum Bum.’
Roberts was a calypsonian’s calypsonian, and his Calypso Revue was nursery, school and finally home to a surprising number of today’s calypsonians who got their start at the tent and remained loyally with Kitch after they became successful.
In 1964, its first year of existence, four calypsonians from the Revue competed in the Calypso Monarch finals; Kitch, Nap Hepburn, Bomber, and Blakie, with Bomber taking the crown.
In 2000, after his passing, the Dimanche Gras stage was also commanded by a startling percentage of cast members of his tent, including Sugar Aloes, Crazy, Pink Panther and De Fosto, each of whom performed in a red suit and hat styled after Kitchener’s trademark stage uniform.
Lord Kitchener may be lost to us, but his influence and legacy remain. His son, Kernel, has grown into a potent musical force and serves as a composer, musical director and as a remarkable arranger for Machel Montano’s HD family.
He is father’s son, but he is also his own man, adapting his rhythmic talents to the fast moving world of modern soca and creating, among other songs, the JW & Blaze hit Palance, which musically riffs off a bridge formulated in the Brassorama competition to move from one song to another during the competition.
The enormity of Lord Kitchener’s influence on the music of Trinidad and Tobago is still to be fully evaluated. In 1996, an attempt was made at Queen’s Hall as an Honour Performance of the man’s work was mounted by a virtual who’s who of contemporary performers, from the boy group Blak Mayl to the Marionettes Chorale.
The lessons of Kitchener’s life offer rich example for today’s calypso and soca performers. This was a man who was, at every stage of his career, a remarkable mix of entrepreneur and artist, a composer, arranger and singer who accepted everything as an influence and created something unique out of all that he saw and heard.
Aldwyn Roberts was adaptable but firm in his style – there was never a Kitch calypso that sounded like anyone else’s – and he remained vital and relevant throughout six decades of the artform’s development.
His was a daunting example, a mountainous legacy worth climbing in deed.
A love letter to mangoes
03/08/09 21:02
Editorial for August 04, an appreciation of the mango. Read More...
Information Minister responds
21/03/08 09:00
Information Minister Neil Parsanal wrote this response to the editorial of March 17 in a letter to the Guardian after its publication.
I should note that I often write the editorial without having had the benefit of witnessing the incidents or issues that are the subjects of the day's opinion leader.
I do, however, try to draw conclusions based on at least two reports of the situation. In this case, both Newsday's report on the incident and the TV6 report under the heading "Things that make you go...huh?" asserted that the reporter, Sean Douglas' microphone had been silenced.
Whether or not Mr Parsanal threw the switch, as Information Minister, he had the right and leverage to continue the discussion to the satisfaction of both the reporter and the media in attendance.
The response was published in the Guardian of March 21. Read More...
I should note that I often write the editorial without having had the benefit of witnessing the incidents or issues that are the subjects of the day's opinion leader.
I do, however, try to draw conclusions based on at least two reports of the situation. In this case, both Newsday's report on the incident and the TV6 report under the heading "Things that make you go...huh?" asserted that the reporter, Sean Douglas' microphone had been silenced.
Whether or not Mr Parsanal threw the switch, as Information Minister, he had the right and leverage to continue the discussion to the satisfaction of both the reporter and the media in attendance.
The response was published in the Guardian of March 21. Read More...
Media and Government - March 17
17/03/08 19:51
Here's a new one. I've referenced editorials that I've written for the Trinidad Guardian in this virtual space, most notably here, but this is the first time that I'm reproducing one directly as an entry on the blog.
Editorials are a curious piece of work for me. They need to represent the thinking of the newspaper's editor and publisher, or at least such thinking as they would be comfortable with.
After writing almost 600 of these, I have to acknowledge that some of them are also my own opinion, free and clear. This one was important enough to share here. There may be others in the future. Read More...
Editorials are a curious piece of work for me. They need to represent the thinking of the newspaper's editor and publisher, or at least such thinking as they would be comfortable with.
After writing almost 600 of these, I have to acknowledge that some of them are also my own opinion, free and clear. This one was important enough to share here. There may be others in the future. Read More...
