THE CARNIVAL STORY
PELTING AT
PROGRESS
Terry Joseph
Episode 15
Express
March 6, 2000
Page 26
Perhaps the greatest casualty of steelband violence of the 1960s was
the brutal assault on technological advances that had been made up to that
time, in particular, the cutting-edge work of pan pioneer Bertie Marshall.
His
knowledge of electronics, coupled with a love for pan, led Marshall to
experiment with amplification of the instrument. He premiered the first version at J'Ouvert 1965, taking the top
prize at the Bomb competition with his still celebrated arrangement of Handel's
"Let Every Valley be Exalted."
The
execution of the piece led Father John Sewell of the Holy Trinity Cathedral to
invite the band to play with the choir at the Christmas mass, but pan
traditionalists felt that Marshall had violated the sanctity of the instrument
itself and became antagonistic toward his band, the Forsyth Hylanders. In fact they derisively described the band's
music as "Chinese."
On
Carnival Tuesday 1965, the Laventille band was routed by the city-based
Johannesburg Fascinators. It would not
be the last time that Hylanders became easy prey for other bands, whose main
grouse was that they had amplified their tenor pan.
In
fact, Hylanders became known as "The Bobolee Band", a name given it
by Express Editor-At-Large Keith Smith who was a diehard fan.
But
the philistines were battering progress.
Quite apart from its other advantages, Marshall's amplification
technique reduced the chance of possible mistakes from lapses in timing or
technique from any of the eight or nine musically illiterate frontline players
- which was common to other bands at the time.
But
he would not be allowed to proceed, and there was much more fighting to
come. Indeed, it was almost annual.
In
1968, on Carnival Tuesday afternoon, the band was again set upon, this time by
Eastern Symphony, who got assistance from their neighbourhood band San Juan All
Stars. Smith and fellow Laventillian
Ronnie Grant secured the amplifier and pan and ran with the precious cart to
the Belmont Police Station.
Marshall
continued his experiments at home, producing the Bertphone in 1971, described
by many as the greatest single leap forward in pan technology. The Bertphone, a tenor pan, was an
instrument connected to a mixing board by using individual contact microphones
from each note which gave the pannist the ability to sustain or dampen notes
and adjust tone and volume electronically.
But
the Bertphone experiment was also a victim of violence. One of two warring brothers in a house next
door to his Erica Street, Laventille home, set fire to their home on May 7,
1990, and the flames spread, torching the Marshall residence and the Bertphone
prototype as well.
By that
time, the master tuner and inventor had been so daunted by the fighting, that
after the Carnival of 1972, he had disbanded Hylanders. The decision was spurred on by a request
from Rudolph Charles to come and work with Desperadoes instead.
Marshall,
who also invented the double-tenor pan, now standard in every steel orchestra,
has continued his experiments, but on an acoustic level.
"Music
has to reach people," Marshall said just last month. "The pan has a problem and people must
face up to it. Whenever there is a
group of people around a pan, the music gets soaked up, so we had to find ways
to make it reach past the group and that is all I was doing. We still have the problem today, because
they did not like amplification and that is really what we need."
Marshall,
64, continues to turn out quality instruments, which may now be experienced in
the prize-winning sound of the Witco Desperadoes Steel Orchestra.
Mostly
due to a lack of funding, pan research and development has slowed to a trickle.