EXPRESSJules' star Saturday November"9/i'996 Page 19
KIM JOHNSON interviews Neville Jules
in New York, courtesy BWIA
EVEN before Trinidad All Stars placed
first in last Saturday's Pan is Beautiful
VIII, the Duke Street band had
already won more Steelband
Festivals than any other. Their
total of six Festival victories is
twice that closest runner-up,
Desperadoes. And at first it
doesn't seem strange, for All
Stars have long been known as
the classics band which kept
form with its biennial Classical
Jewels concerts.
How surprising it is then, to
discover that All Stars kept
away from the Steelband
Festival for nearly a decade
and a half—from the second
Festival in 1954 until 1968
when they came first—all
because band captain Neville
Jules couldn't tolerate the
adjudicators' unpredictability
in the early days of the
Festival.
It started in the first 1952
Festival with the upset victory
of Point Cumana's Boys Town.
Jules, who now lives in New
York, was Trinidad All Stars'
main man at the time. He cap-
tained the band, selected their
tunes, tuned their pans and STEPHENS
arranged their music, and was bitterly
disappointed when Welsh adjudicator
Dr Sydney Northcote placed them
third. Northcote had criticised the
bands which played classics for rear-
ranging their pieces but he hadn't said
much about All Stars' performance of
"Dream of Olwyn".
"When he condemn a lot of the
bands and thing, he had one thing to
say about we, something about crescen-
dos was too hard or something like
that," recalls Jules. Northcote had espe-
cially criticised the bands which had
introduced solo parts into the classics,
so Jules took note and planned for the
next Festival.
It wasn't difficult insofar as Jules
was concerned. He'd always preferred
orchestration to individual improvisa-
tion. And as the time drew nearer, he
began drilling the band.
"They doing a little thing,
but nothing to talk about
because they want to stay
within the guidelines, because
this man (Northcote) is a
music man," recalls Jules. Up
come Mr Theo .Stephens with
'Anna' and he start to solo."
Theodore Stephens, the
leader of another constella-
tion—Southern All Stars—
had begun pan as a prodigy.
The first time he played with
the older fellas in the San
Fernando band Free French,
he immediately became the
main ping pong player..
"Port of Spain was it and
at that time Jules was it, so
my godfather say he got to
take this boy to town and see
if we could get him a good
pan," recalls Stephens. "So
myself, Zola (Williams) and
my godfather and a friend
went up for the day. So we
went to him and after a little
bit of style he decide to make
it and he did. It was an eight-
note pan and we brought the
pan back in the night."
Stephens went on to become the
youngest member of the famous
Trinidad All Steel Percussion
Orchestra, and he and the other young-
ster, Anthony Williams, learnt the most
from Taspo leader Lt Joseph Griffiths.
But Stephens was the main soloist.
After they returned from England,
Stephens left Free French to form his
own Steelband, Metronome, which he
left in 1954 after a Barbados tour. "I
came back Christmas, and then we rest
for a while, and then open Southern All
Stars," he says. "It was ten weeks
before the Music Festival."
One supporter of the band was
also close to Merry Makers in Port
of Spain, so he asked the town
boys if the southerners could take
a last-minute rehearsal in their
Corbeau-Town panyard before
going to the competition at the
Globe Cinema. Merry Maker's cap-
tain, Alfred "Sack" Mayers, agreed.
"They came down the morning,
they rest down their instrument in
we pan tent and then we talk, ole
talk. They went about, they went
their way and they come back
about four o'clock the evening and
they start to play this 'Anna',"
recalls Mayers. "When we hear it,
I say these people win already."
There was tense moment when
Southern All Stars arrived at the
Roxy for the competition when the
gatekeeper refused to allow Theo
Stephens's mother in for free. As
they argued outside, Theo
Stephens insisting his band wasn't
going to perform if his mother
couldn't enter, the other stars
arrived, Trinidad All Stars. And
Neville Jules sided with the south-
erners.
"Yeah man," said Jules. "If the
damn man mother eh go in, we eh
beating no pan."
She was let in and the bands
played, Stephens unleashing his
dazzling tune of choice, "Anna".
But Northcote had criticised Free
French in 1952 for introducing
variations into Handel's "Largo".
And the second time around, in
1954, Stephens had taken "Anna"
and given it a Latin kind of flavour
around which he improvised his
own counter-melodies.
After the performances that
night, Jules was confident, at least
for the band. As a ping pong
soloist, he was less so. He'd started
his test piece very stylishly, and
the audience went wild, but their
applause had put him off. He for-
got what came next, got up and
walked off. The adjudicator called
him back and he started again,
this time completing the piece suc-
cessfully. And when the winners
were announced, Jules was placed
third.
Dudley Smith of Belmont's
Rising Sun, the ping pong solo
winner in the 1952 Festival, was
given first prize again, having the
same tune again: Beethoven's
"Minuet in G".
Then the ensemble winners
were announced.
"Here comes Sir Thomas
Beecham himself," declared the
adjudicator calling back Jules, and
he complimented the Trinidad All
Stars for their performance.
Beecham, a conductor, was the
founder of the London
Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932
and the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra in 1947, and it was a
great—and appropriate—compli-
ment to Jules.
Ahhh! murmured the crowd as
the players began to celebrate
backstage.
But the adjudicator was Dr
Herbert Wiseman, for Northcote
didn't adjudicate that year.
Northcote adjudicated in 1952,
1956 and 1962, but in the second
year steelbands performed in the
Music Festival, 1954, the adjudica-
tor was Wiseman.
As the cheer began rising for
the Trinidad All Stars, however,
Wiseman interrupted it with
words that still echo in Neville
Jules' memory.
"Wait!" said Wiseman. "More
runs to come after lunch."
And he gave the prize to
Southern All Stars whose ping
pong soloist had dazzled him with
his improvisation, thus prompting
Neville Jules and the Trinidad All
Stars to ignore the Steelband
Festival for the next 14 years and
create instead the Bomb
Competition, until 1968 when the
band got sponsored by Catelli and
reentered the Festival fray to win
their first of six Festival trophies.