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BIG MIKE MIGHT CALL HIS BAND LEGENDS BUT HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE REAL ONE'S ?

HERE IS ONE

George Bailey, 1935 - 1970


George Bailey, c 1960



The monarch
George Bailey, 1935–1970

But the true African king was George Bailey, the man many masqueraders, designers, commentators, and ordinary spectators consider the greatest bandleader Trinidad Carnival has yet known.
Early on, his friends dubbed him “Sir George”, and in most accounts of his life and career there is an air of nobility about both his personality and his art. He was certainly a prodigy — he produced his first independent band in 1956, a few months shy of his 21st birthday. In only his second year as a bandleader and designer, he presented Back to Africa, perhaps the most celebrated band in the history of modern Carnival, winning the 1957 band of the year award. With this single presentation, Bailey changed popular perceptions of Africa, history, and Carnival itself.
Traditional African masquerade, dating back to the era before emancipation, used rags, paint, and spears to portray an image of a miserable, uncivilised past. Bailey flaunted this stereotype by drawing on the elaborate pomp usually associated with bands depicting the history of Europe. His magnificent, meticulously researched African costumes asked masqueraders to think instead of a regal heritage. Before Bailey, the crowds did not believe any African mas could match the grandeur of Roman or Greek themes. He proved them wrong. It was a watershed moment, both for Carnival and for Trinidad society.

Bright Africa (1969)
Noel Norton


But Bailey had not come out of nowhere. The eldest of seven siblings, he was born in 1935 in Woodbrook, the west Port of Spain suburb that has produced so many of Trinidad’s cultural and political icons. His father, Aldwyn “Sonny” Bailey, was himself a bandleader, producing his own presentations from 1932 to 1940. Albert Bailey — George’s younger brother — recalls that their father “instilled in all of us the three key elements of production, that is, designing, building, and decorating.” Young George was exposed to the craft of early Woodbrook masmen like Leonard Carty, Ormand Hackshaw, and his father’s friend Ken Morris, learning from these elders the realist tradition of historical mas. Meanwhile, at Tranquillity Government School, he fell under the influence of the artist M.P. Alladin, developing a love of drawing, painting, and sculpture. He was a remarkable sportsman, challenging future Olympic athlete Mike Agostini, and playing on the national basketball team.
Naturally, he also started playing mas at an early age — “pirate mas”, ju ju warrior, flying officer (a variety of sailor mas). In 1954, just 19 years old, Bailey designed a band for the Invaders steelband, but soon struck out on his own. From his Drag Boys mas camp on Woodbrook’s Buller Street, assisted by his brothers Alvin and Albert, he embarked on a 15-year career of ornate spectacle and unprecedented popularity.

Bright Africa (1969)
Noel Norton


1959’s Relics of Egypt was so realistic a recreation of ancient Egyptian culture that some masmen wondered if Bailey had tapped into the supernatural. Like a Trinidadian version of the curse of King Tut, various members of the band fell ill that year, or suffered mysterious calamities; later it was whispered that this curse shadowed Bailey to his early death.
With his 1960 band Ye Saga of Merrie England, a pageant of English history, the “theatre of the streets” came of age. As Peter Minshall once remarked, “Who before had ever brought a royal carriage, complete with four white horses, knights, and a black Queen Elizabeth, on stage?” The Grand Stand audience responded with a prolonged standing ovation. His historical presentations won him the band of the year title four years in a row, from 1959 to 1962 (a record that would not be equalled for 30 years), but in 1963 Bailey became restless. With The Realm of Fancy Bats and Clowns he launched a new genre, “fantasy mas”, taking the traditional bat and clown characters in a splendidly fresh direction, dabbling with what many designers today call the “kinetic principle”. In 1969, as cries of “black power” began echoing from North America to the tiny states of the Caribbean, Bailey produced Bright Africa, another triumphant assertion of both his heritage and his imagination.
From 1959, when the people’s choice award was introduced (voted not by judges, like the band of the year, but by ordinary spectators), until his final band, Tears of the Indies, in 1970, Bailey repeatedly won the popular vote, usually by embarrassingly wide margins. He was loved by the crowds as maybe no other Carnival designer has been, before or since. But Sir George’s reign was all too short. In 1970, returning to Trinidad with Cito Velasquez from a trip to Bermuda, he fell ill. When the aircraft landed at Seawell airport in Barbados, he asked for fresh air. Velasquez led him to the ramp, where Bailey collapsed and died of heart failure. The kingdom of Carnival still feels the loss of its king.

“All attempts to get at the root of the Bailey magic have failed. Whatever charisma or vision or greatness was associated with the Bailey name came first from the man that Bailey was.”
— Trinidad Carnival magazine

George Bailey: Band of the Year Titles
1957 Back to Africa
1959 Relics of Egypt
1960 Ye Saga of Merrie England
1961 Byzantine Glory
1962 Somewhere in New Guinea
1969 Bright Africa

Bright Africa (1969)
Noel Norton

HERE IS ANOTHER.....................

Harold Saldenah 1925 - 1985


Harold Saldenah, c 1965



The historian
Harold Saldenah, 1925–1985

In all art-forms, creativity balances tradition — the lessons of the achievements of the past — against originality. Complete breaks with what has gone before are rare. Most Carnival designers begin their careers as apprentices to older masters, absorbing the skills and knowledge they need before they can make their own unique contributions to the ongoing tradition.
Born in the east Port of Spain district of Belmont in 1925, Harold Saldenah — universally known as “Sally” — began his Carnival career in the years immediately after the Second World War, as an assistant to now almost forgotten bandleaders like Harry Basilon and Harold Tang Yuk, and, most importantly, Mansie Lai. (In turn, among Saldenah’s early masqueraders were future bandleaders Stephen Lee Heung, Bobby Ammon, and Edmond Hart.) These were the days when Trinidad’s different social groups still had separate Carnival experiences — the “white” bands drove through Port of Spain in their elevated lorries, while “parading the streets on foot in costume . . . was perceived as a ‘black’ thing”, as one historian has put it.
But in the early 50s change accelerated. Lighter-skinned masqueraders, drawn by the increasingly attractive costumes of bandleaders like Saldenah and his contemporaries, came down from their lorries, reconnecting their mas with the streets. Sally’s historical presentations, intensely researched and scrupulously fabricated, worked as a catalyst for this change. As designers looked beyond traditional characters and biblical stories for their subject matter, new masqueraders from across the social spectrum swelled the sizes of the leading bands from the dozens to the hundreds.
Mansie Lai, Saldenah’s early mentor, had been greatly influenced in his themes by the Hollywood films that were so popular in Trinidad’s cinemas in the 1930s and 40s. In 1952, when Saldenah designed his own first band, he took inspiration from the 1951 film extravaganza Quo Vadis, set in New Testament times. Saldenah used still pictures distributed by the movie studios to guide his costume designs; he even wrote to Hollywood for more photos. Unable to afford metal, and with plastic not yet in common use, he made his first legionnaires’ helmets from papier mâché over clay moulds.

< Harold Saldenah: Band of the Year Titles
1955 Imperial Rome 44 BC to 96 AD
1956 Norse Gods and Vikings
1958 Lost City of Atlantis
1959 Crees of Canada
1964 Mexico 1519 to 1521
1968 El Dorado, City of Gold

El Dorado, City of Gold
Noel Norton





Over the next decade Saldenah produced a series of historical epics, remarkable for the magnificence and splendour of their costumes. Most celebrated of all, his 1955 presentation Imperial Rome 44 BC to 96 AD astounded masqueraders and spectators with its elaborate cast of characters — centurions, gladiators, vestal virgins, and the 12 Caesars, including Nero in a 20-yard cape of purple velvet. Saldenah’s insistence on accuracy forced his Roman soldiers into short skirts. Previously, bare flesh had been considered inappropriate. But Sally dispensed with tights and political correctness. His legionnaires learned to reflect the realism of the era they portrayed. He used tooled leather and real copper breastplates created by Ken Morris, contributing to a new tradition of metalwork in Carnival design. No one was surprised when Imperial Rome won Saldenah the first of his six band of the year titles.
During the 60s, as more women joined the masquerade and bands grew even larger (his Mexico 1519 to 1521 crossed a thousand in 1964), Saldenah split up the mass of costumed revellers into different sections, each depicting one aspect of the overall portrayal. He was thus a pioneer of “section mas”, which soon became the convention. With their different colours and themes, each complete with flag bearer and title, the sections came together in rapid succession to tell a larger story.
In the mid-60s, “fantasy” portrayals began a trend away from authentic historical themes, bringing new possibilities to designers and bandleaders. Saldenah’s imagination rose to the challenge, and with his 1968 presentation, El Dorado, City of Gold, he combined history and fantasy brilliantly. The shiny foil he used on the costumes created a glistening spectacle in the setting sun. Other bandleaders quickly followed his lead.

Two individuals from Mexico 1519 to 1521



In 1976, to celebrate his 25th year as a bandleader, Saldenah presented a personal retrospective called A Sailor Is a Sailor, recreating each of his previous bands in the form of a traditional fancy sailor. The following year he moved to Canada, where he brought his expertise to the Trinidad-style Caribana Carnival. But in 1983, for the 200th anniversary of Trinidad Carnival (the first French settlers had arrived in 1783), he came back home to present Masquerade to Carnival, a 40-section tribute to the history of the festival, with costumes celebrating dozens of traditional characters. The historian of ancient civilisations had become the historian of his own art-form.
Sally died from cancer in June 1985. He said he never felt afflicted by the disease, preferring fresh coconut water from Savannah vendors to the drugs recommended by his doctors. Two days before his death, as he was carried on a stretcher from his home to the hospital, he turned to those around him and said, with a masquerader’s smile, “Look how I’m going out as an African king!”

Wow....this makes me very proud to be a Trinidadian...but very disheartened at where our Carnival know lies

If you don't mind me adding NEO

The fun-lovers
Edmond Hart, born 1923,
and Lil Hart, 1930–1991

Carnival design has always been a collaborative art. Even the best designers incorporate ideas from their colleagues, and without the host of workers at the mas camps there’s no way that thousands of costumes could be ready by Carnival Monday every year. But the most famous collaboration in post-war Carnival was surely that between the husband and wife team of Edmond and Lil Hart, bandleader and designer.
Their nearly 30-year partnership, from 1962 to 1991, bridged the many phases of modern pretty mas. History, fantasy, indigenous themes, “bikini mas” — they did it all, winning the band of the year title five times. The marriage united Lil’s creative ideas with Edmond’s production skills to produce a trademark style: abundant colour and simple costuming. Their presentations attracted masqueraders from across the social spectrum, and were the direct ancestors of most of today’s leading bands.
Brought up in San Fernando, Edmond Hart was encouraged to play mas from the time he was nine, in costumes his mother made on her hand sewing-machine. When he came to Port of Spain in the early 50s he started playing with Harold Saldenah; in 1955 he moved to bandleader Bobby Ammon’s committee, helping to produce six bands under the Ammon name. When Ammon resigned in 1961, just five weeks before Carnival, the other committee members thrust Hart into the role of bandleader, and the band took his name. His formidable organisational skills kicked into high gear, and on Carnival Monday Was Dis Grace hit the streets. The following year, the colourful four-foot-square flags in Flagwavers of Siena — which, 30 years later, Hart said was still his favourite band — made his 176 masqueraders look like many more.

Edmond Hart in costume about to enter the Savannah stage
Mark Lyndersay


After Carnival 1962, Hart planned to let someone else take charge of the band, but none of his associates seemed interested. Finally his wife Lil stepped forward to share the responsibility, and the Harts team began its three-decade run. The band carried Edmond’s name, and he always oversaw the actual production of the costumes, but from the beginning Lil was the creative powerhouse, conceptualising the themes, sketching out the sections, and co-ordinating her bright colours (purple was her personal favourite).
Like many young Trinidadian women in the 1940s and 50s, Lil had strict parents who did not think their daughter should be involved in Carnival — but she still managed “to put on a costume and play mas”. Now she had the chance to indulge her artistic instincts, but she never forgot the element of fun. “I make sure my masqueraders enjoy themselves,” she said, “and I design costumes to conform to this.”
The Harts’ first band of the year title came in 1966, when Lil broke with convention by designing a band with a fantasy theme rather than a historical one: Playing Cards. The competition was always important to them. When the Harts’ 1969 band failed to win the judges’ nod, Lil decided to “play devil for them”. 1970’s burning Inferno won her a second title, but it also prompted a call from her alma mater, Holy Name Convent. “The principal . . . called me in and asked how I could come up with something like that. They remembered me as a good religious girl.”

Edmond Hart and Kay Christopher in Mesopotamia BC (1965)
Noel Norton


During the 60s, the opening up of Carnival to Trinidad’s full social range accelerated. The Harts saw the faces on the road and in their band changing. They declared that “Carnival is colour” and “Carnival is an escape valve”, and found an answering chord among their masqueraders. Their style was simple, bright, and comfortable. In the 80s, theirs was among the first bands to introduce special sections for the “body beautifuls” — those particularly curvy or muscular masqueraders who wanted to show off more bare skin. When asked about their role in developing so-called bikini mas, Edmond was quick to point out that he and Lil were not the ones with the salacious edge. “We tried to be as conservative as possible. But still there were people, when we give them a costume, they cut and bring it down to how they want to wear it, and since it belongs to them, we can’t do anything about it.”
Mas lovers were taken aback to hear in late 1991 that the Hart partnership had come to an abrupt end. Edmond and Lil separated, then she suffered a severe heart attack which led to her death a few months later at the age of 61. On his own, Edmond produced his final band, Bacchanal, in 1992. That same year, three of the Hart children, all of whom had grown up helping their parents, formed their own band, Young Harts, presenting a tribute to Lil called Total Recall.
Today, Harts — they dropped the “young” after a few years in the business — is one of Trinidad’s most successful bands. And the simplicity of design and emphasis on enjoyment which were Edmond and Lil Hart’s trademarks have become dominant forces in 21st-century Carnival. “We are masqueraders first, and anything else after,” Edmond once said. “We look for a simple costume and have fun.”

“The Hart presentation is a people mas; designed to be worn like fashion, to make the ladies lovelier, and loveliest of all in numbers; and the men more macho.”
— Trinidad Carnival magazine

__________________
"If u put a small price on ur value.. rest assure that the world wont raise ur price! Love U 2day!" ~ Rev. Run

"If you keep believing in yourself and seek enthusiasm inside your soul, things will get simpler, more spontaneous." ~Paulo Coelho

"Knowledge is like the wind, once you obtain it, you can go anywhere." ~Yellow Hare(Native-American Chief)

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit
the floor each morning the devil says:
"Oh Crap, She's up!"

The globetrotter
Stephen Derek, born 1952

Few of today’s bandleaders can claim to have mastered all the traditional costume-design skills that thrived in Carnival’s post-war era. Generic bikini costumes sprinkled with beads and sequins don’t call for wire-bending, papier mâché moulding, cane work or carving. The complete masman has become a rare figure; even more rare are designers who learned their craft in the mas camp of a legend.
Stephen Derek was born in 1952 on Woodbrook’s Buller Street, not far from George Bailey’s headquarters. For a boy with a passion for the mas, there was no better place in the world to be. He was just 18 when his mentor died in 1970, but Derek was a keen apprentice, taking in all that he could. “I learned from the masters,” he says. And when he finally had the chance to design his own band, D’ Midas Touch, in 1978, spectators who remembered Bailey’s masquerade noted how deeply Derek’s work was influenced by the late Sir George’s style.
Alongside men like Cito Velasquez and Albert Bailey, Derek is one of the few remaining bridges to that extraordinary time. Some have criticised him for not stepping out of Bailey’s long shadow. But Derek has always seen his work as a continuation of an artistic tradition which could easily be lost; every year his costumes provide in living colour a glimpse of the glory that was Carnival in the 1960s.

Stephen Derek at work in his mas camp
Mark Lyndersay


Even more crucially, Derek has taken the art and the spirit of Trinidad Carnival far beyond the island’s shores. Other bandleaders have produced presentations for carnivals and festivals abroad, but none as assiduously as Derek. Starting in 1990, when he designed a band called Exotic Dancers for the Brooklyn and Boston carnivals (it won band of the year in both cities), Derek has become a year-round masman, moving from one carnival to the next, showcasing his work around the Caribbean and North America. His company,
D’ Midas International, has a base in every North American city with a significant Caribbean presence, from Miami to Oakland; Derek may even be better known in some of these communities than he is back at home. He created costumes for the 1999 Miss Universe Pageant, held in Trinidad, and his designs have appeared in at least one Hollywood movie. It’s all good business for D’ Midas, which has embraced the challenge with true entrepreneurial spirit, but for Derek these carnivals in New York and Toronto, Houston and Atlanta are above all an opportunity to give the world a hint of what Trinidad Carnival looks and feels like. And it’s reassuring to know that the crafts and techniques Derek absorbed from George Bailey are now giving joy to people all over the world.

__________________
"If u put a small price on ur value.. rest assure that the world wont raise ur price! Love U 2day!" ~ Rev. Run

"If you keep believing in yourself and seek enthusiasm inside your soul, things will get simpler, more spontaneous." ~Paulo Coelho

"Knowledge is like the wind, once you obtain it, you can go anywhere." ~Yellow Hare(Native-American Chief)

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit
the floor each morning the devil says:
"Oh Crap, She's up!"

Just to add, I think Trinidad should consider building a costume museum, to showcase the many talents and costume wonders that has pave the way for mas today.