By BUKKA RENNIE Monday, March 2 2015
THIS BAND has been the most successful in every existing competitive format, be it the Music Festival, Bomb competition, best-beating on the road, people’s choice, and even the much touted annual Panorama competition. In the 51 years of Panorama, actually 50 since there was none in 1979, All Stars has been in winners row (1, 2, 3) more times than any other band — 25 times: nine firsts, ten seconds and six thirds.
How come? That’s the question many people have been asking since the ninth Panorama victory and successive Band of the Year acclaims in 2014 and 2015. Commentators have noted the attributes of disciplined, intelligent, collective functioning and leadership with vision as the hallmarks of such consistent achievement. And, yes, All Stars as an institution has displayed all those characteristics.
But All Stars is successful in competitions precisely because it is not only about competitions. Above all else there is this underlying, salient commitment to the Hell Yard legacy. Hell Yard is the birth place of All Stars. Furthermore, it is also the locus of the first, conscious, organised defence of the people’s Carnival artforms.
After the 1880 defeat of the people’s mas by the constabulary led by the infamous Captain Baker, some people, resolute that there be no repeat, organised themselves, and posters appeared around Port-of-Spain preparing the citizens mentally for the battle that was to come in 1881, telling the people boldly that Governor Freeling was in support of the people’s Carnival but Baker was against it.
Hell Yard is also the birth place of pan, not the usage of discarded implements for percussion, but the steel orchestra voicing not merely rhythm but as well melody and harmony. For these two reasons, All Stars is of the firm belief that Hell Yard should be declared an international heritage site in accordance with UNESCO’s imperatives and criteria.
The present leader of Trinidad All Stars, Beresford Hunte, repeats ad infinitum that All Stars is not a Panorama band, it is much more. Competitions are engaged as a means of sharpening proficiency, but the commitment is to the Hell Yard legacy which is a much bigger picture. It is about the development of the steelband movement and the Carnival art forms.
To that end, All Stars’ involvement is full-time, all-year round: community thanksgivings, community socials and religious services, children’s Christmas celebrations, daily parking facility etc. From 1935 to the present, All Stars has never shirked its commitment to the people’s Carnival and its handmaidens of calypso, mas and pan. In February 1940, the third and fourth captains of Hell Yard, Eric Stowe and Big Head Hamil, made the first recording of pan using “three-note kettles” backing up Roaring Lion in a lavway titled “Leggo de Lion”.
In 1945 the seventh captain, Neville Jules, made the first melody pan, the four-note ping-pong, and began the development of a “family of pans”, the steel orchestra. From then on, with the change of name from Hell Yard Boys to Cross of Lorraine to Trinidad All Stars, the band has remained consistently the largest masquerade steelband on show during Carnival, from USS Bad Behaviour to USS Fleets-In, although there were moments in the glorious 60s when Synco, Tokyo, Desperadoes, Invaders, Silver Stars, Dem Fortunates and others rose to the occasion and eclipsed the All Stars efforts.
But there were always two Carnivals contesting for space — the Carnival of the elites (the Mardi Gras) and the people’s Carnival that was referred as the jamette or low-class Carnival. As time went by the commercialisation of Carnival gave pride of place to the Mardi Gras at the expense of the people’s Carnival, and concomitantly there developed a tendency towards pushing the steelband movement out of the Monday and Tuesday parade.
That tendency coincided with the demise of portrayal at the altar of female narcissism. Decorated panties and bras; “two-piece and fries” according to a friend of mine. There was talk about allowing steelbands to parade only on the Sunday in order to avoid the congestion and to remove Piccadilly as a judging point.
The idea of the East Dry River bands (ie All Stars, Renegades and Radoes) parading together was floated as a measure to ensure the continued presence of steelbands and portrayal mas in the Carnival but that bigger picture was dashed as the desire to defeat each other at Panorama subverted the ideal. Starlift and All Stars kept the ball rolling on Monday with All Stars registering as a medium band in order to ensure that Starlift won the big band category until the “authorities” refused to accept All Stars’s classification as “medium”. Again co-operation was always and continues to be the key to how All Stars functions.
Eventually given the marked absence of steelbands in Carnival, everything went westward. Today Carnival has been removed effectively from the inner city of Port-of-Spain — no spectators, Frederick Street like a ghost town, Woodford Square empty. Grand Stand, North Stand empty. Only South Quay remains as an inner-city judging point where people gather but once the Socadrome becomes established, South Quay will also become a ghost town.
All the little people of East PoS who for decades made some money through vending downtown on Carnival days to help with the needs of their families have been pushed aside. Vending is now largely the exercise of the middle-class property owners on the avenue who either do the vending for themselves or rent space to those interested in so doing. What a pity. No wonder they will be forced to opt to barricade themselves even more behind wrought-iron gates and grills.
In the mean, Trinidad All Stars will remain true to its legacy. The band will continue to ensure that when Monday mas points are added to Tuesday points the result will surmount that of the bikini and beads mas bands until they get the authorities to change the rules as All Stars expects them to do in due time.
But nevertheless this band will continue as always to push on down George Street into the inner city, much to the delight of all those who are sick or bed-ridden shut-ins, who only have to open their windows to see the splendor of this their band that has emerged in such glory from the very bowels of their city. And do not be surprised if next year, 2016, going for a hat-trick, All Stars turns up with a big king and queen. Talk done!
Replies
If Mondays points are added to Tuesdays there is no one to beat All Stars. They look good on both days, panty and bra bands only look good on Tuesday. I think most pan people would agree that "Hell Yard" should be made a Historical Site.