GEORGE BAILEY
(1935-1970)
A LIGHT WENT OUT
IN OUR CARNIVAL
People of the
Century
By Michael Anthony
Express
Section 2
March 29, 2000
Pages 18 & 19
If
the last Carnival of our 21st century - Carnival
2000 - was in any way a Carnival of colour and magnificence, and if the
splendid costumery of some of the bands made one reflect on the high-water mark
of the Carnival pageant in Trinidad, then the mind has to rush back to that
Carnival genius who burst on the scene in 1957, fluttered and gleamed as
brightly as a butterfly, then saw his light suddenly snuffed out in 1970.
That
genius of Carnival was George Bailey.
Bailey,
knighted early by his friends as "Sir George", first came to
attention at Carnival 1957, when he was only 22. That Carnival he led the sensational band Back to Africa,
and straightaway gave the impression that what the crowd was looking upon was
the greatest bandleader the Trinidad Carnival had ever seen.
Back
to Africa
was a watershed in the Trinidad Carnival in that it was the most important
historical band to portray Africa as a land of beauty and splendour, instead of
the usual picture of drabness and miserable people, and rags and dirt.
Subtly,
this could not but have brought a sharp change in the concept of what was
Africa, a boost to the self-esteem of Africans and a feeling that all was going
to be well. For it will be remembered
that 1957 was a special year for Africa, the year which saw the emergence of
Ghana, the former "Gold Coast", as the first country in black Africa
to become independent. The visual
impact of George Bailey's Back to Africa, with its sharp and soft
colours, and the impressive sartorial styles of African "royalty",
was so memorable, that even today it is not quite forgotten.
Carnival
Monday, 1957, was traditional and predictable enough with spectacular
historical bands parading through the streets of Port of Spain.
There
were such bands as The Ten Commandments, by Irving McWilliams; The
Fall of Babylon, by Horace Lovelace; The Glory that was Greece, by
Harold Saldenha, and the dramatic La Fiesta Brava, by Bobby Ammon.
In
fact, the crowd was certain that when the band of the year was announced on
Carnival Tuesday night, it would come from one of these names.
But
the applecart of predictions was well and truly upset on Carnival Tuesday when
George Bailey burst on the scene with his spellbinding production. Understandably, there was awe and shock
mixed with admiration, for this had not happened before. A similar thing had happened the year before
in calypso, but no such earthquake had ever rocked the masquerade. Bailey won the band of the year prize of
$500.
Bailey
again rocked the masquerade in 1959 with his unforgettable band Relics of
Egypt. That was a year when it
could have been noticed that the question of design and the use of available
material was nothing short of magical, and George Bailey's achievement along
with the historical detail of old Egypt was nothing short of magical.
The
band had 15 sections, and was one of the very large bands, its membership being
then 350 masqueraders.
Parading
the streets of Port of Spain that Carnival were other fine bands such as Irving
McWilliams' The Feast of Belshazzar, a band of glittering breastplates
and sumptuous biblical finery; Neville Aming's spectacular The Reign of the
Mings, and especially Harold Saldenha's The Cree Indians of Canada.
These
bands were most difficult to supercede, but George Bailey, portraying in
meticulous detail and costumery 36 Egyptian dynasties, must have overwhelmed
the judges just as he did the crowds.
Relics
of Egypt
easily won the band of the year award for 1957, winning $500.
But
there was even further satisfaction for "Sir George". The Carnival of 1959 was the first occasion
that the prize called The Band of the People's Choice was awarded, and when the
people at the Queen's Park Savannah cast their vote for the band of their
choice, Relics of Egypt won overwhelmingly.
When
George Bailey struck again the next year he was already an icon of the
Carnival. And yet he never foaled to
surprise and delight, and his production for that Carnival - the Carnival of 1960 - was an epic of
English history. The band Ye Saga of
Merrie England, left spectators agape, and not even beautiful bands such as
Jack Braithwaite's Eternal City, Bobby Ammon's China in Peace and
War, and Neville Aming's Golden Age of China, could succeed in
stopping the young Woodbrook bandleader.
Bailey,
displaying the earliest years of English history with the legend of St George
slaying the dragon, and making a wide sweep with Robin Hood, King Arthur's
Knight of the Round Table, and Richard the Lion-hearted, was a winner even
before the band got before the judges.
He took the band of the year award ($500), and his band was again the
band of the people's choice.
"Sir"
George Bailey scattered his rivals yet again in the year 1961 when he brought
onto the streets a band called Byzantine Glory. Despite the splendour of Harold Saldenha's Zambesi,
Horace Lovelace's Discoverers of the New World, and Irving
McWilliams' Hail La Trinity, Bailey routed them, taking the then $1,000
band of the year prize for depicting the Byzantine Empire from 337 AD to 1454
AD, showing a blaze of colour and religious zeal, the grandeur, the ecstasies
and the agonies, under Emperor Constantine of the Holy Roman Empire.
Part two of this
story continues next week.
HIS IS A CARNIVAL
LEGACY
By Michael Anthony
Part Two
Express
April 5, 2000
Page 33
In
1962, Bailey brought out Somewhere in New Guinea, a spectacular band featuring
a broad spectrum of life amongst the natives of New Guinea.
Notwithstanding
Edmond Hart's colourful Flag-wavers of Slena, Archie Yee Foon's An
Ocean Fantasy and Harold Saldenha's Julius Caesar and the Conquest
of Gaul, Bailey triumphed over his band-leading brothers for yet another
Carnival.
Somewhere
in New Guinea,
which "Sir" George devised to dazzle eye and mind, had an
extraordinary impact. One of the
outstanding features of this outstanding band was the magnificence of the
portrayal of leading characters.
Especially
notable among these characters was "The God of Paradise", "The
Bird of Paradise", and a witch doctor.
George
Bailey won the band of the year award, and even more significantly, he won the
award for the band of the people's choice.
Incredibly,
to the majority of the people who witnessed the pageantry of Carnival,
"Sir" George Bailey never struck again until 1969, so far as winning
the band of the year prize was concerned.
But
luckily for posterity, the opinion of the people was not just guessed at but
was recorded, because of the existence of a band of the people's choice
award. For example, in 1966, George
Bailey's Kings Go Forth was completely rejected in the band-of-the-year
race, which was won by Edmond Hart's Playing Cards, but when the votes
to decide the people's choice were counted, Bailey's Kings Go Forth
scored 5,345 votes, with Hart's Playing Cards getting only 639 votes.
Another
bright George Bailey victory came at Carnival 1969, when in an atmosphere of
severe racial tension in the United States, which, naturally, found a nervous
and emotional response in Trinidad, Bailey brought out the magnificent band Brightest
Africa.
That
band easily took the band of the year prize, and it was good to see
"Sir" George in winners' row again.
Incidentally,
the size of bands was growing fast, and Bailey now had a band of 650
masqueraders. This band showing the
brightness and glory of Africa was not only an overwhelming winner of the band
of the year award but of the award for band of the people's choice.
And
so today, at the close of our last Carnival of the 20th century, it
is fitting to remember the bandleader of the century in the Trinidad
Carnival. For all that has been said
about George Bailey, and for the thousand things remembered about him, this
recollection simply scratches the surface of his achievements.
In
1970 George Bailey came out for the last time, and his band carried the
prophetic name of Tears of the Indies.
This band did not win the band of the year title, but its impact on
spectators could be seen when they voted for band of the people's choice.
Edmond
Hart's Inferno, had won the band of the year award, and Bailey's Tears
of the Indies had placed third.
But when the people voted they gave Tears of the Indies
4,888 votes to 670 for Hart's Inferno.
Carnival
1970 was the last Carnival in which George Bailey appeared. His record, on paper, was that he won the
band of the year title six times.
In
August 1970 he was traveling from the United States, when, at Barbados, in
transit, he collapsed on the aircraft and died.