A History of West Indian Carnival in New York City to 1978

Donald R. Hill

Department of Anthropology and

Dept of Africana/Latino Studies

State University College

Oneonta, NY 13820

(607) 436-2018

January 1993

© Donald R. Hill

(the published version is "West Indian Carnival in New York," New York Folklore Vol. XX Nos 1-2, 1994, pp. 47-66 (text + 10 photos), including journal cover photo), Winter-Spring 1994.) Draft version copyrighted by Donald R. Hill.

Introduction.

West Indian Americans have been putting on some sort of annual Carnival in New York City for at least 65 years. It is one of the important ethnic festivals in the United States, full of wonderful traditions, some of which are hundreds of years old in the West Indians or in the Old World. Carnival's patrimony is constantly renewed and Carnival's spirit infuses all who are touc hed by it. Through Carnival, West Indian American define themselves and through Carnival, other Americans are made aware of their presents.

The current version of West Indian Carnival in New York is Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn. In the 1970s, I lived in New York and saw Carnival first hand. Carnival was a street exhibition of music and masquerades along much of the length of Eastern Park way, from the environs of East New York to Grand Army Plaza. Really, the name "Labor Day" Carnival i s a misnomer, as aficionados will tell you in a 'pat' response: preparation for next year's Carnival begins the day after this year's Carnival. Furthermore, activities sponsored by the people who manage Carnival and related events are scattered throughout the year. There are very many ventures associated with Labor Day Carnival - as wide ranging as bus or boat rides, to music concerts in Madison Square Garden. The core of performance arts consist of masquerades, steelband music, and dances or concerts fe aturing reggae or calypso music. All of these activities except reggae had their origins in Trinidad's creole carnival. However, the public events that attract the most attention, begin a few weeks before Labor Day. There are competitions of masqueraders, singers (calypsonians, reggae singers), beauty queens, and steelbands. On Labor Day, there is Carnival itself with its center piece of fancy masquerade bands, floats holding steelbands or combos, and all manner of food stalls, sound systems set up to s ell records, and other attractions along the sides of Eastern Parkway.

There is a constant interplay between Carnival trends in Trinidad and what happens in Labor Day Carnival. Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn, as it existed in the 1970s, is the most recent version of New York Carnival. And New York Carnival has always maintained a connection with its 'parent,' Trinidad's Carnival. For this reason it is important to see just how the history of Carnival in Trinidad intertwines with the history of Carnival in New York.

This paper is a reminiscence of the few years that I spent in New York and is based on Carnival between the years of 1973 and 1978. Those were wonderful years: the West Indian community had been reinvigorated by a hugh upsurge in immigration in the middle 1960s and Carnival was their most visible cultural contribution to the City. While working as a Curator of Education at the American Museum of Natural History, I had the opportunity to work with people within the West I ndian community, especially Trinidadians and Grenadians. This paper, then, is a descriptive summary of a few of the Carnival related activities I enjoyed in those years, together with brief accounts of the history of Carnival in New York. I have included sketches of New York's Carnival's major components - masquerading, calypso, and steelband - and its relationship to its parent Carnival in Trinidad. I make no attempt to tie this history and description of New York Carnival in the 1970s and its origin an d connection to Trinidad's Carnival, to other scholarship on these same Carnivals nor do I attempt a comparative study of Carnivals in the Americas, other than to occasionally make broad statements that frame New York's Carnival in time and place.

History of Carnival in Trinidad.

In general form, pre-Lenten carnivals in the Caribbean are descendants of medieval European winter rites, remnants of pagan celebrations that were squeezed into the few days before Lent to satisfy Christian (Ro man Catholic) sensibilities. But the élan of Carnival, as well as some of the traditional masquerades and music, is West African in origin. In colonial eighteenth century Trinidad, under the eyes of a Protestant British administration, Carnival began as an Afro-French, pre-Lenten celebration. Most Carnival activities were held on estates owned by French planters who had come to Trinidad under a policy set down by an earlier Spanish government of the island.

The bucolic, plantation Carniva l went through many changes after emancipation in 1838. An urban version evolved in Trinidad among all classes of Catholics in Port-of-Spain and other cities and towns in the middle nineteenth century. By the 1880s newly arrived migrants from nearby islands and indentured Africans joined emancipated slaves in a raucous street bacchanalia. Rivalries between gangs of stick fighters - a battle between individuals or groups, each with a two foot stave intent on busting open the head of an oppon ent - were played out in the streets until this jamet (lumpen proletariat) carnival was suppressed by the British police.

Modern Carnival in Trinidad began in the 1890s as a middle class reaction to the jamet carnival. Only this time, the major players were not the old line elite who had once propelled Carnival before the jamets got a hold of it, but rather a newly emerging Creole middle class; a group made up of people of African, French or other ethnic backgrounds who shared a love for the excitement of the old Afro-French jamet carnival. Their new fancy Carnival differed from the jamet Carnival in that it usually followed the rules laid out by the British colonial authority. These rules circumscribed Carnival by telling revelers when, where, and how they were to celebrate. As a result of this British colonial intervention, Carnival was anglicized and a new colonial British cultural layer was laid over the old Afro-French carnival. Nevertheless, many of the jamet forms of entertai nment persisted through the twentieth century even as those same jamet diversions were modified to suit the tastes of the middle class Creoles.

By 1900. the new creole Carnival had two major ingredients. The first was the expansion of fancy masquerade bands. These groups of masqueraders were called social unions and were sponsored by Port of Spain business men. A few businesses in Port of Spain also supported competitions between different masquerade bands, thereby establishi ng a practice which is a central feature of all Trinidad type Carnivals today. The social unions were clubs of like minded men from the same social class or ethnic group.

The second part of the turn of the century Carnival in Port of Spain Trinidad, was calypso, the newly composed Carnival songs in English. Calypsos were sung in the mas camps, places were fancy masquerades were assembled. These were vacant lots or barrack yards, single room row houses constructed behind the grand houses of the middle class. A corner of the mas camp was set aside for the masqueraders to practice the songs that they would sing on the streets during Carnival. The lead singer was called a chantwell. He wore the fanciest costume and was sometimes the leader of the band of masqueraders. During Carnival, the chantwell fronted the assemblage, followed by groups of masqueraders who would answer his songs in chorus:

Iron Duke in the land (chantwell)

(Call the) Fire Br igade! (chorus)

Calypso in Trinidad and New York.

By the close of World War I that part of the mas camp where the chantwells practiced was called a calypso tent. Not only did the masqueraders practice their songs at the tent, but outsiders were invited to enjoy the singing. Palm fronds or a tarpaulin covered the area and admission was sometimes charged. Soon, the chantwells became important in their own right and took on a new, panegyric title: calypsonian. The new ca lypso songs were topical and borrowed heavily from many other genres: they were made over lavways or bouncy songs to be sung at the close of Carnival (after the developed of the steelband, the lavway was again transformed into the road march, an ideal tune for the new metal instruments). Other calypsos were belairs, Afro-French topical songs sung for many occasions. Then there were kalindas, the songs of the stick fighters. There were many other genres modified as calypsos or simply taken over and renamed "calypso." As with ancestral songs of the minstrels of West Africa and France, a wide variety of issues were taken up in calypso: male views of women, braggadocio or praise, criticism of the government or the social order, human peccadillos.

In its island home, then, calypso was born of the mas camp and from around 1900, calypso has existed in two primary Carnival venues: the Carnival streets and the calypso tents. Up tempo calypsos evolved into the road marches fa vored by steel bands today or into soca, a modern dance oriented calypso with simple, often sexual lyrics. The tent calypsos were more contemplative and are sometimes championed by the same performers that compose good road marches.

Very early in the twentieth century, New York became a center for putting calypsos on record; in fact, calypso was recorded in New York two years before it was recorded in Trinidad by George Bailey, professionally known as "Lovey," in June 1912. Lovey's Band wa s made up entirely of stringed instruments; they played calypsos and related styles. Back home in Trinidad Lovey's Band was the leading string band to play for colonial balls and other elite events. During the Carnival season, Lovey played for these official gigs as well as for ethnic associations, such as the Portuguese Club. Fortunately for lovers of Afro-Caribbean music, their sound was distinctly 'hot' and they were probably similar to other, lesser known bands that roamed the streets during Carnival or fronted masquerade bands.

Band leaders were usually musically literate; indeed, orchestra leaders and pianists were often multicultural and were conversant with European art music as well as Caribbean folk music. But the singers - the calypsonians - usually did not read music and tended to come from the poorest creole groups in Trinidad's heterogenous society. Trinidad's calypso was a seasonal Carnival music, grounded in the social fabric of creoles of all classes.

In 1914, the Victo r Talking Machine Company recorded instrumentals, vocal calypsos, and kalindas (the songs of the stick fighters). They also recorded music from Trinidadians of East Indian descent. The latter music that had no connection to Carnival. Recordings were not made again in Trinidad until the late 1930s.

Later in the 1910s and throughout the 1920s instrumental calypsos and related Trinidadian genres (waltzes, Venezuelan paseos and castillians, and other forms as well) were recorded in New York. Beginni ng in 1922, stage songs from Trinidad or Guyana were recorded in New York by several performers: Phil Madison, a comedian or vaudevillian, who was born in British Guiana (Guyana) but who lived in Trinidad; Sam Manning of Trinidad, the island's top stage singer and actor who blessed stages in the West Indies, Central America, and England as well as New York; and Johnny Walker, another comedian. Sometimes these vaudevillians performed or recorded calypsos in New York but there is no evidence that any of the three sang in calypso tents in Trinidad, although they appeared in many other venues in Trinidad, especially in vaudeville shows that were scheduled between silent films in motion picture theaters.

From 1912 though about 1934, most of the calypsos recorded in New York were intended for the Trinidadian market. There was no organized street Carnival in New York then and calypso was therefore not associated with Carnival in the metropole.

New York, of course, was a center for mass me diated popular music generally. By the turn of the century, greater New York was a major world center for dissemination of sheet music and phonograph records to many parts of the world, in English and in several other European languages. In was in New York that calypsonians and a hand full of Trinidadian orchestra leaders and performers gained international fame and it was in New York that calypso was transformed from a seasonal topical Carnival music - something that calypso continues to be in Trinidad - into one genre of popular world music, taking its place alongside many other New York mediated styles (jazz, classic blues, tin pan ally songs, other ethnic based popular music such as the songs that came from Yiddish theater, English language musicals, Irish and Italian popular songs, etc.).

In the late 1920s, when Trinidadian Wilmoth Houdini first recorded, New York's diet of calypso records was fed by Trinidad's carnival: the songs were performed at Carnival and then later put on wax in New Yor k. Houdini was a Trinidad born entertainer who had masqueraded in Trinidad in the "African Millionaires" masquerade band and who had sung in tents. In New York he was picked by orchestra leader, piano player, and composer Lionel Belasco, a Venezuelan born Trinidadian, to sing with his group. Belasco's band sometimes included Gerald Clark, a guitarist and quatro player who later would head the most important West Indian band in the Big Apple in the 1930s and 1940s.

Gerald Clark was born in Trinida d and immigrated to New York in 1927, intent on following his friend and mentor, Walter Merrick by establishing a band in the City. By the early 1930s, Clark had his own orchestra, the Night Owls (later called the Caribbean Serenaders), a group that played calypsos and other Caribbean tunes, sometimes in a jazz style.

Gerald Clark and friend, Lionel Belasco, were responsible for bringing to tent-based calypsonians to New York to record in 1934. This act set off the first large push toward making calypso a form of popular music that would stretch far beyond its island home. Soon, many of the great tent singers recorded for Decca (and to a lesser extent in the late 1930s, for RCA Victor's Bluebird label): Lion, Axilla, Caresser, Executor, Tiger, Growler, Beginner, Invader, the appellations roll off the tongue like Panic War generals. Most of these people were unique unto themselves: Lion, the greatest calypsonian-showman before the era of Sparrow; Executor, representative of the first generation o f calypsonians to sing primarily in English; Tiger, master of minor key calypsos, winner of the first generally recognized island wide calypso competition in 1938; Beginner, road march expert before Kitchener's era; Invader, whose "Rum and Coca Cola" was plagiarized by an American scamp; Growler, whose name speaks for itself; Caresser, whose smooth, creole singing style rivaled Lion's; and Axilla, scholar, legislator, and moral leader of many of the other major calypsonians. These singers recorded over 10 00 sides, most of them in New York and many of them with Carnival topics. And while most of these Trinidadians performed in clubs and shows in New York, their main audience was at home in Trinidad. Typically, they would sail from Trinidad to New York after Carnival, record and appear in a club, show or over the radio, and then return to the West Indies.

By the late 1930s, however, calypso caught on in New York with the general population. The tent singers from Trinidad and Houdini recorded titl es that appealed to Americans: "Roosevelt in Trinidad," "King Edward VIII", "Walter Winchell," "How I Love to Read Magazines" and songs about the 1939 New York World's Fair. These tunes were not received by white New Yorkers and non-Trinidadian Black Americans as "Carnival" songs but as just another fad in popular music. Thus, performers like Lord Invader, the Duke of Iron, and the Roaring Lion gained fame in the United States or Britain separate from their identities in Trinidad; indeed, the Duke of Ir on, Sir Lancelot, and Macbeth the Great were important singers only in the United States or England: there is no evidence that any of them sang in calypso tents in Trinidad.

After World War 2, the pre-War boomlet became a full calypso boom in the United States. In 1948 there were shows at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere; by this time interest in calypso had spread to Chicago and to the West Coast. Just at was New York's acceptance of the genre a decade earlier, these calypso performances were only su perficially connected to Carnival: perhaps the singers wore costumes, perhaps here was some masquerading in stage shows, perhaps there were allusions to Carnival in the songs.

In the United States in the 1950s, the Trinidad inspired calypso boom went atomic with the popularity of the West Indian born American, Harry Belafonte. This branch of popular calypso, though fed by Lord Melody, Lord Invader, and other West Indians, was more or less separate from the Carnival based calypso of Trinidad. Withi n the Caribbean community in New York, however, Gerald Clark and others featured calypso as a part of their large Carnival dances. These dances were held both before Lent and, increasingly, in late August and early September (see below).

Eventually, a Trinidadian style of calypso performance did get stuck onto West Indian Carnival in New York. By the early 1970s, a calypso competition was staged each year behind the Brooklyn Museum. Local calypsonians competed for cash prizes and major stars were brought in from Trinidad to sing at the Sunday night Dimanche Gras show, when the winner reprised the best song. A world class calypsonian, such as the Mighty Sparrow or Lord Kitchener, might cost the Association $3,000. Sometime in 1976, the Mighty Chalkdust aka Hollis Liverpool, had won his first Calypso Monarch crown at Trinidad's Carnival. Chalkdust - now a college professor - was then a school teacher turned calypsonian. At that time he was not the critically acclaimed star that he was to become and he could not command the fee of an established calypsonian such as Kitch or Sparrow. Quite the opposite was the case. A part of his prize was a paid trip to New York and a performance at the Dimanche Gras Show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Chalkdust's critical calypsos weren't too popular with some conservatives in New York's West Indian community and some did not want him to sing. But his performance went on and was well received. One of his winning calypsos, which he reprised in Brooklyn, was a parody of the nursery rhyme, "Three Blind Mice." Chalkdust's lyrics referred to the leaders of Jamaica, Guyana, and Barbados. Like "three blind mice" they had come to the leader of oil rich Trinidad, Eric Williams, with their hands out, begging for some of Trinidad's money.

Most calypsos in these years were identical to those sang in Trinidad and were recapitulations of the songs sung at the pre-lenten Carnival. For this reason, calypso in New York did not really exist in the context of a tent tradition. In Trinidad, there always seemed to be from three to ten calypso tents opened each year for a month or so before Carnival. At the tents, performers could hone their songs, in preparation for Trinidad's Dimanche Gras Competition in the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain. In New York, calypso was more a performance or show for an audience of West Indians who were not a critical mass of fans that hung on every lyric for important clues about life's foibles, the way they do in Trinidad. Inde ed, probably the largest group in the audience, Jamaicans and Trinidadians who had been out of touch with current events back home, did not really know all the nuances of a lyric like a home based Trini did. Calypso in New York, alas, was more derivative than masquerades or steel bands in New York: those latter activities, while perhaps not as grand as their likeness in Trinidad, were as fresh in the Big Apple as they were back home.

The Origins of Street Carnival in New York.

In 1 919, to commemorate the Allied victory in World War I, the Trinidad Guardian sponsored a Victory Carnival in Port of Spain. By this time fancy masquerades and calypso tents comprised the core of fancy Carnival. These activities remained at the center of Carnival until the late 1930s, when they were joined by the nascent steel band (see below) and they were taken up by immigrants in New York as the core of their Carnival as well.

The first Trinidadian known to have play mas in New York was Rufus Gorin who during Carnival season of 1928, dressed as a bat in the hall of his apartment house in Harlem, mimicking in this modest way, what he had done in the streets in Trinidad. Gorin's bat was reminiscent of a costume he wore as a child back in Trinidad, a character in his mother's dragon band. Gorin's bat was a first cousin to the one of the characters in the dragon band that was created by Chiney Patrick Jones and Gilbert Scamaroni for Port-of-Spain's Carnival of 1906. Their first devil band was called "Khaki and Slate," named for the the band's colors: "that was a devil band with large wings, better than what we have today [1956], with spring wings, had the 'Imps,' 'Lucifer,' the 'Dragon' and another big costume taken from a book called 'Dante's Inferno' . . ." (in Cook: n.d.). Later Chiney Jones "opened" the first "Red Dragon" band and then still later, a "Demonite" band. Some bat characters have a special walk or "dance"; some bat costumes are simple with the wings sewn on the arms of t he performer while others have spring devices and "fancy" elaborations (Crowley: 219).

In the 1930s, Gerald Clark's orchestra headed a group of calypsonians and other entertainers at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village in a show that sometimes featured carnival masquerades. Clark also sponsored Carnival like shows and dances in Harlem and on the upper West Side.

In 1942, Clark was able to move his Harlem dance to downtown Manhattan:

The tickets for this affair were priced at $1 at the door. In addition to featuring calypsonians Macbeth the Great and Houdini "in a battle of calypsos, prizes were awarded for best fancy costume - $100 for first place - and for "comically dressed" masqueraders (so-called ole mas - $15 for first place.

The indoor dances, parties, fetes, and picnics were no substitution for outdoor Carnival. When Gorin first played mas in New York ther e was no organized street festival; that is, there was no parade permit to shut off a public area and commit police and sanitation workers to overtime duty to cover the event. In 1934 or 1935, Jesse Wardle organized some sort of street affair in Harlem (interviewed by Bob Abramson, May 15, 1977). Then, after World War II, she got a permit to parade on Lexon Avenue, from 140th Street to 110th Street (Nunley 1988: 166).

Wardle, Gorin and the others who organized this parade modeled it after Trin idad's Carnival. But they moved it to on Labor Day, the first Monday in September. The weather was certainly better in September than February or March, when the pre-Lenten celebration was traditionally held in the islands. The change put New York's Carnival in sync with New York's vacation rhythm since many New Yorkers took advantage of the three day holiday to mark the social end of summer and the beginning of the fall work year. Several indoor Carnival dances, such as the ones sponsored by Gerald Cla rk, and later, Daphne Weekes, continued to be help before Lent.

In the 1964, as a result of changes in the American immigration law, many more West Indians were able to migrate to the United States. In New York, many Jamaicans, Trinidadians, and others settled in Harlem but many more came to Brooklyn, which was increasingly becoming the home for the majority of islanders in the City. At the same time there was great turmoil in their adopted country. President Kennedy had been assassinated a cou ple of years earlier and the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement against American involvement in the Viet Nam war, and the hippie movement on both coasts of the United States, were all brewing in the land. The Labor Day Carnival parade in Harlem that September was halted by people, usually described as "hoodlums" by Carnival participants, who pelted the masqueraders with bottles and rocks. Gorin's parade permit was lost and he moved to Brooklyn.

The Structure and Politics of Brooklyn Carnival in the 1970s.

After moving to Brooklyn, Rufus Gorin organized the United West Indian Day Development Association (UWIDDA). Gorin and his group masqueraded in several blocks near his apartment. Gorin's masquerades probably were not much different from those he made in the mid-1970s, when I visited his apartment in Carnival season. Gorin's apartment was very sparse and denude of pictures, fancy furniture, and other possessions. The main room, however, was full of costumes in various stage s of completion. Gorin was talking to a wire bender, a masquerade specialist who prepares a stiff wire framework for the costume designer to apply the paper mache and other materials. The costume designer and wire benders work very closely with each other. Usually the costume designer commissions a graphics artist to draw pencil sketches of how the final costume is to look. But these are just rough approximations, meant more to give consumers an idea of what the costume will look like than a guide for t he designers. So much of the contacts between masquerade specialists is verbal, a hashing out through give and take over the design. Gorin, who was retired, worked all day long on his costumes. In addition to creating a masquerade band for each Carnival, he also made costumes on commission throughout the year. In February when I visited him, he was preparing some masquerades for a special children's carnival.

Rufus Gorin was not able to hold onto his charter for Carnival. Rival organizations held Carnival competitions in Manhattan, even at Madison Square Garden. There did not seem to be an over-arching organization to coordinate all the activities. Then, in the late 1960's, Carlos Lezama, a Venezuela born Trinidadian, in the face of criticism from Gorin's group who said it could not be done, obtained a parade permit for Labor Day Carnival on Eastern Parkway, the Grand Dame of Brooklyn boulevards. Flush with this success, Lezama took over Gorin's organization and Gorin quit. With Gorin's sa me poor acronymic sense, Lezama renamed the organization, "WIADCA" (the West Indian American Day, Carnival Association, Inc.), or simply, "the Association."

The heart and soul of Carnival, as envisaged by the people who control the Carnival Association, are the masquerade bands and the interface between the West Indian leadership that favors the large fancy masquerades and various city services: the police and sanitation, funding, legitimacy. To engage these services is inherently political and the re is, therefore a structured opposition between the forces of legitimacy, the Association, and the forces of commercialism, a myriad of promoters and organizations that often come into conflict with the association.

Carnival came off every year because of the dedication of certain key people both from within the Association and outside. Of course, there was Carlos Lezama, he spiritual leader of Carnival and the head of the Association. There was Mr. Lezama's spouse, Hilary Lezama, the Association 's financial manager. There was Officer Frank Seddio, 67th Precinct, the police liaison with the Association. While most police officers that were charged with maintaining order during Carnival time were indifferent to it or openly opposed Carnival, presumably because of its potential for danger when so many people were jammed together in what seemed to an outsider to be total chaos, Seddio was a strong supporter of Carnival. There was Herman Hall, Lezama's legs in the early 1970s. It was Hall who scar red up much of the funding; it was Hall who smoozed the politicians and officials by scheduling cocktail parties at the United Nations and at City Hall. And it was Hall who placed strategic advertisements and appeared on radio and TV shows promoting Carnival.

There was Charlene Victor, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association, Inc. (BACA), who had an office in the Brooklyn Museum and who obtained various grants for the Association's activities at the Museum. There was Erro l Payne, one of the important masque makers and the only one that was a member of the Association. Payne was Director of Art and Culture for the Association. He worked at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard and I do not know if that was his job there or not, but he was a graphic artist and costume designer. Payne designed the official program for the Association for several years and, working together with various agency officials, especially Charlene Victor, Payne was responsible for staging the various shows of the association. These include the performances at the Brooklyn museum.

There was Ellie Manette, one of the original creators of the steelband; Manette had very little to do with Association politics but the cooperation of him and other steelbandsmen and tuners was vital. There was Ken Williams, Jamaican American radio disc jockey and promoter who looked out after Jamaica's interest in the whole thing. There was Borough Council President Paul O'Dwyer who curried favor within the West Indian Co mmunity and who received it. There was Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm who represented the district within which Carnival was held. There was Manhattan Borough President, who was running for Mayor and who needed the votes of the West Indian community. And there were many others.

Carlos Lezama worked as a subway motorman for the New York Transit Authority. He had a solid job; it was a job that paid a good salary, was secure and had abundant fringe benefits. Motormen could change shifts and had go od sick, vacation and leave time. Without such flexibility I doubt that Lezama would have been able to both work and manage Carnival.

Mr. Lezama has been often been criticized for mismanagement, for nepotism, and more: Mrs. Lezama was a key financial official and the Association was stuffed with Lezama's friends and relatives. He seemed to run the Association as his own personal fiefdom. Some said that he manipulated people and others said that he encouraged rivalries between potential rivals in order to enhance his own power. Perhaps there was a misappropriation of funds, it was believed. Yet neither Carlos Lezama nor any of the Association members seemed to be getting rich and none skipped the country. And while the accountability for the spending of funds was extremely loose - at one time an outside accountant was brought in to straighten it all out and could not make hide nor tail of it - there certainly was no significant thievery. As any Carnival lover will tell you, aficionados always seem to spend more than they take in. When one considers that in the 1970s Lezama worked full time while orchestrating the hugh block party that is Carnival, his abilities look more impressive than on the face of it. Cynicism concerning government or other important officials seemed to be a cultural value in Trinidad - a characteristic that may be both healthy and appropriate - and perhaps much of the fuss over the Association's management style reflected this value more than the facts.

Mr. Lezam a had an Association rule that members could not compete in an event that they sponsored. The purpose of the rule was to make sure that no favoritism was shown to Association members but the effect was to shut out steelbandsmen, costume designers, and calypsonians; in short, all the entertainers. But they needed to know what was going on and they needed to be involved in the planning. To a certain extent they were involved, but always as Association outsiders; the members had the final say concerning ve nues, prizes, and the timing of the events.

To help overcome this structural problem some of the steelbandsmen and some of the masqueraders had their own organizations. As far as I am aware, there was no active organization of calypsonians. It was usually the leadership of the steelbands and masquerade bands that met with Mr. Lezama and the other Association members. Arguments within and between these groups were many and it seems to me that the masqueraders and the steelbandsmen had a fundamenta l conflict of interest, to say nothing of their collective conflict of interest with the Association. The leaders of the fancy masquerade bands, unlike people who made traditional masquerades or the steelbandsmen, tended to be comfortably working class or middle class. It cost a great deal of money to mount a masquerade band and most of the band leaders probably loose significant sums on any given year. It takes a reliable income to be able to sustain the occasional losses, an income that usually comes f rom holding down a steady job. Steelbands, on the other hand, were more usually sponsored by a business or government agency. While the steelband leaders may be middle class, having worked their way to that status, many of the band members, especially in Trinidad and especially in the early history of steelbands' development, came from poorer roots. Yes, in New York in the 1970s there were plenty of middle class kids and some middle class adults in steelbands but there were many others that lived hand to mouth. And there were a few full time steelbandsmen who made a good living at it.

These class and interest based differences between the members of the Association, steelbandsmen, and masqueraders were played out in almost routine disagreements between the masquerade leaders and the Association, between the steelbandsmen and the Association, between the masquerade leaders and the steelbandsmen, and within the ranks of the steelband and mas band leaderships themselves. And, oh my, I have not menti oned the traditional rivalry between Trinidadians, the islands near to Trinidad (generally, the English speaking Lesser Antilles), and the Jamaicans. For one thing, there were no Jamaicans in the Association in the 1970s. Oh, sure, Mr. Lezama or one of his aids made overtures to people within the Jamaican community concerning reggae concerts or licensing Jamaican sound systems along the Carnival route on Eastern Parkway, but just as with the schisms within the various Trinidadian interest groups, there wa s an even greater gulf between Trinidadian and Antilleans generally, and the Jamaicans. And, I guess I do not even have to mention the Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. The effects of colonialism and great power intervention in the Caribbean for 400 years, run deep. The inherent factionalism of Caribbean peoples is well documented; when understood together with Caribbean family systems, factionalism is both a problem and a delight. This is not the place to explore this issue beyond noting how that factionalism plays out in the affairs of organizing Carnival.

Added to the structural intrigue of various factions of West Indians that come together to make Carnival, there is the byzantine nature of New York politics and the advantages gained by native born Americans in affiliating themselves with Carnival. If one summarizes up most of the leaders on all sides in terms of their social statuses, we see that the active members of the Association are working class Trinidadians; honorary and spor adic members, who affiliate with the Association as a part of their general community work, are elite West Indian Americans; people contacted by the Association to handle the logistics and major public expenses of carnival are, for the most part, middle class White Americans and very powerful Black and White community and civic leaders.

Each year groups of steelbandsmen or mas band leaders meet and develop strategies for participation in Carnival and for dealing with the Association. It seemed that each year their negotiations with the Association would break down. Each year there would be boycotts or rumors of boycotts. And each year, always at the last possible moment, the groups would temporarily resolve their differences long enough for Carnival to take place.

On August 4, 1977, the top officials of the Association and other interested parties met at the 67th Precinct with Officer Frank Seddio. Carlos Lezama was there; so were several Association members. Charlene Victor of BACA was th ere and so was Inspector McGowan, Frank Seddio's superior, and a police secretary. And there were other masquerade band leaders there and more came in as the meeting proceeded.

The meeting was organized to sort out problems that band leaders were having and to seek solutions for those problems. There were aspects of West Indian management style, to use a 1990s phrase, that did cause the police problems: everything seemed chaotic and disorganized and yet the Carnival activities had to come off. It was Seddio's job, and that of the police generally, to see that it ran as smooth as possible and with as little street crime as possible, given the fact that a certain level of crime accompanies outdoor New York activities. The police told will tell the band leaders the assemble time and the areas to assembly, the rules for marshals to keep people out of the moving bands, and the routing of the bands to and then down the Parkway. The band leaders insisted that they wanted protection from "infiltrators, " people who jump up in Carnival but are not members of the band that they join. There should be an appeal to the public to stay away from the bands.

All agreed that permits should be issued for vendors. Association members told the mas band leaders that they should take advantage of the television coverage: TV reporters leave the scene on Labor Day at 3 P.M. to file their stories.

Officer Seddio noted the problem of getting the bands moving down the Parkway. He said that no one will be admitted in the formation areas - between Schenectady and Troy Avenues - after 12 noon. Service roads must not be blocked since they will remain open. The same goes for the intersections: the city buses must get through. Some of the mas band leaders suggested that the police should help to keep people off the street in order to help the bands move faster. Maybe horses should be used. Officer Seddio said that use of mounted patrolmen was not possible. One mas band leader noted that the peopl e came to enjoy the beauty of the masquerades and not for the music and they should be allowed to see the mas bands; however, the press of the crowds obscured the view of the bands. Furthermore, the people who make the masquerades spend a lot of time and money making their art; some are late arriving on the Parkway because they have to attend to family matters or they were up the night before at the Dimanche Gras show; it is plenty tough masquerading and the police should know this and keep the way clear f or the masqueraders - it is especially dangerous for mothers with prams to be out on the Parkway. Masqueraders, however, should be allowed to pass freely.

Officer Seddio mused that if the bands cannot move in good time past the reviewing stand set up in front of the Brooklyn Museum, them perhaps the judges should go out onto the Parkway to meet the bands. But Seddio also said, in quiet desperation, "If the bands arrived at the reviewing stand at regular intervals there would be no crowds at the re viewing stand" and there would be no need for the judges to leave the stands. Officer Seddio also mentioned that bands have to pay a $30 registration and the insurance and the Association must post a $110,000 bond with the Dept of Parks, something that is not required in Manhattan where the financing is different.

One masquerader, Black Frankie of the Disco Fantasy masquerade band, asked the police how he was to get to his camp in his masquerade. He said that the crowds were so thick that he could n't physically make it from his mas camp to his band's staging area. Officer Seddio promised him a police escort. But he could not guarantee that some rival mas maker would not destroy an opponent's costume.

The rest of the people in the meeting quieted down as Carlos Lezama, who had not said anything yet, spoke up in support of officer Seddio: he said that the police were aware that the masquerades could not be moved in trucks since they were so big and needed police assistance to get to the ass embly areas. Mr. Lezama said that the 67th Precinct had stood four square behind the Carnival and had fought for it when the 71st Precinct "were ready to deny the permit for carnival." This drew a cheer from the Association members and the mas band leaders who were present. Even so, one masquerader mumbled that there was no way that he could assemble his band by 10 A.M., the appointed starting time, much less 12 noon.

The meeting between the Inspector and Officer Seddio, Association Members, and some of the mas band leaders went on longer than scheduled and finished after a couple of hours. No steelbandsmen were present; no vendors were present; no Jamaicans were present.

The Jamaican issue is something that has not been detailed. Mr. Lezama had a problem all right, with getting and maintaining Jamaican interest, on the one hand, but at the same time trying to keep Trinidad style masquerading as the Labor Day Carnival's central feature. He dispatched Herman Hall to talk with Ken William s and other leaders in the Jamaican community. Unfortunately, in the year 1976 the Jamaicans, led by Ken Williams, and defected from cooperation with the Association. For a couple of years previous to this date, the Jamaican Queen competition and the reggae competition had been held in part in cooperation with the Association, who had provided prize money. Now Williams was threatening to schedule events in Queens completely separate from those held by the Association and, indeed, he intended to hold some of the Jamaican activities on the very nights that the Association had the traditional shows behind the Brooklyn Museum. From the Association's point of view, the Jamaicans were taking advantage of the great publicity that Labor Day Carnival had throughout the hemisphere, but they were going to grab some of the local and tourist crowd.

In addition to the loss of the Jamaican Queen and reggae competitions - and some of the Association felt that this was not a loss - there was the problem of a bra sh new promoter who had managerial contracts with the two top calypsonians - the Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener. The promoter had Kitch and Sparrow scheduled to sing at Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Academy of Sciences, and other small halls in Brooklyn during the time which the Association was sponsoring the Brooklyn Museum events. He also tried to pin down the facilities of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Mr. Hall tried to outmaneuver the promoter by getting the Association to sponsor activi ties at Brooklyn Museum and at Medgar Evers College at the same time, thereby shutting out the other promoter. But this meant that he would have to plan and pay for activities at each venue.

When one looks at it, there was room for all these activities. It is likely that thousands of West Indians converged on New York for the Labor Day Weekend; most came from Hartford, Montreal, Toronto, or Washington D.C. but others came from the islands or England. For many of these people the Labor Day Carniva l was just an excuse for many other, important activities: getting together in island benevolent societies, seeing their favorite performers at Madison Square Garden, taking in the sites of the city, and other reasons. The Association sponsored shows on Labor Day Weekend were actually a very small part of the total West Indian scene over the holiday. True, their activities were needed; they had the charter, the approval of the powers that be, but beyond that, there were more important things happening and there was the Labor Day event itself, something as we shall see was far beyond the control - and some might say completely out of control - of the Association, the police, or any other single group or organization.

Carnival Activities Throughout the Year.

The Association meets throughout the year although most carnival preparation takes place one or two months before Labor Day. Carlos Lezama, and two or three of the key members, are responsible for securing the annual parade perm it for Eastern Parkway. In the Spring, they sponsor a boat ride up the Hudson River and schedule cocktail parties at City Hall in lower Manhattan and at the United Nations to stir up interest in Carnival. They stage pre-Carnival shows at the Brooklyn Museum on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening before Labor Day, a Children's Carnival on Saturday and Sunday afternoons before Labor Day. And, of course, there are many other dances, meetings, concerts, and sight seeing events scheduled by many different gr oups that become very active around Carnival time or even take vacations as a group and go to New York to attend some of the Carnival events.

Funds for many of the Associations activities were obtained by Herman Hall, who did much of the busy work in creating enthusiasm for Carnival among the media, politicians, and businesses. For example, in the early 1970s Schaefer Brewery and Citibank (now Citicorp) sponsored trophies and prize money for some of the winners in the calypso, reggae, and masquer ade competitions at the Brooklyn Museum. Through Charlene Victor at BACA, money was obtained from the National and New York State Endowments for staging the shows behind the museum. The City itself kicked in for police and sanitation, the greatest expense for the Carnival. And so it goes.

Someone - often Herman Hall - had to butter up many different people, from City Council President Paul O'Dwyer (he was made Grand Marshall one year), to Percy Sutton, Borough President of Manhattan (he had his own float at the Labor Day Carnival, promoting him for Mayor), to Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (her district), and so on. The cocktail parties or meetings were held to bring together Association members, politicians and other financial backers, entertainment stars that would participate in Carnival. Mr. Hall scheduled and arranged for the refreshments, sent out the invitations and attended a meeting held in the old judicial office building, Civic Center, in lower Manhattan. Politicians O'Dwyer and S utton, arts and Association members Lezama, Payne, Victor, calypsonian the Mighty Duke, masquerader Payne, and West Indian community Leader Dr. L. Stanislaus (formerly of Petite Martinique, Grenada) were there as were many others I could not recognize. The purpose of this cocktail party was to promote the carnival for the businessmen and politicians present in order to raise funds. Finally, the Association obtains over a thousand dollars from the Hudson River boat ride.

Beginning about mid Ju ly, some of the mas band leaders rented store fronts or used their apartments or brownstone home basements to begin work on their costumes. A few of the steelbands rented store fronts while others used school yards or other locales for practice; others continued their regimen of year-round practice. The mas band leaders had sketches made of their proposed costumes and began to figure out the quantities of materials needed for each costume or groups of costumes. A medium sized band might have two or three different costumes of simple costumes for young men or women, hoping to sell 20 or 30 units of each style. The more fancy costumes were singular and were made in consultation with the person that bought the costume and intended to wear it on Labor Day.

As activity began to boil up in the mas camps and steelband yards, Herman Hall was very busy going from camp to yard to Association member to mas camp again. There were long, animated conversations, phone calls, and plenty of walking around the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Hall tried to hammer out the events which will take place during the Carnival weekend. Finding places for steelbands to practice was difficult, owing to the noise and the crowds they sometimes drew. They had to practice as a unit whereas a mas band's work could be distributed over several households.

Herman Hall spoke or visited regularly with people like Leo Joseph of the Carriacou Carib Organization; Rufus Gorin, the costume designer; various steelbandsmen; Ken Willia ms, the disc jockey, emcee, and reggae promoter; Holly Thomas, Trinidadian disc jockey; and many others. He frequently visited radio stations and appeared on talk shows, such as those on WOR, then New York's major talk radio station. He formed a fairly close association with a major television newscaster, Gil Noble, who is of West Indian heritage. Hall included an article on Gil Noble in Everybody's Magazine and kept him informed on the doings of the Association. There were also visits with Paul O'Dwye r to solicit city funds for Carnival activities or to get an update on the status of the parade permit.

A major fund raising activity for the Association was a boat ride up the Hudson River. Mr. Lezama himself managed the event. All members of the Association pushed tickets but Herman Hall seemed to sell the most, at about $7 each. A Circle Line Boat was rented by the Association for the three or four hour cruse. On June 19, 1976 the ride began, leaving from the n Street Pier at about 6 P.M. M ost of the people on the boat were West Indians but there were a few African Americans as well, perhaps the children of West Indians. The boat was filled to capacity, approximately 300 people. A calypso band (e.g. a band with brass and electric strings) played calypso and reggae on the top deck. On the lower deck there was a very tall dark man dressed in a white outfit and a very prominent hat, dressed in the manner of the sagaboys of the 1940s. He stood out in a crowd of conservative men dressed in slacks and short sleeve shirts. His clothing was so outrageous that one man made a kalinda like song about him: "I don't want no man to wear me pants now." A chorus of women and a few men responded to the lead singer's verse. Some people hit a bottle and spoon and it sounded just Carnival. Most people brought their own food and refreshments and sat quietly eating as they looked out over the river.

With the exceptions of the fund raising affairs, off season meetings of the Association are called by Mr. Lezama mostly for socializing. But there is an occasional crisis to meet a grant proposal deadline, to submit the papers to get the parade permit, to confer with the 67th Precinct or O'Dwyer's office, and to determine the amount of bond money necessary for Carnival cleanup.

As the time for Carnival draws near, the activity builds. Here are some of the things that were going in 1977, on independent from the Association's shows: on Saturday night, August 13, from 9 P.M. to 3 A.M., th ere was a "Caribbean Superstars Show and Dance" at the Albemarle Ballroom in Flatbush held to support the candidacy of Manhattan Borough President, Percy Sutton. Calypso Rose was featured, backed by "Elli Matt" & the GI's Brass. Trinidad based calypsonian, the Mighty Duke, who had won a series of calypso competitions in the early 1970s, sang, as did New York based, calypsonian Count Robin. There was another "Pre-Labor Day dance" at the same venue on Sept. 2nd, just two days before Labor Day. This on e featured Robert John's "Rare Combination" and "108 Square Miles and D.J. Sweet Andy" in a "jump up" (a Carnival dance). To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Jamaica's independence from Great Britain, there was a show with "Jamaica's No. 1 Band - Hugh Hendricks and the Buccaneers" and the Trinidadian Calypso King, the Mighty Sparrow. This one was in Manhattan, at the Americana Hotel's Imperial Ballroom, corner of 7th Avenue and 52nd Street. This dance was sponsored by the Jamaica Progressive League.

Finally, there is planning for the pre-Carnival shows at the Brooklyn Museum and Charlene Victor meets frequently with Herman Hall, Earl Payne, or Carlos Lezama. In 1976 she obtained a grant for about $15,000 for use of the Museum's grounds, portable toilets, stands and the stage. Hall got businesses to donate trophies and cash prizes and the police provided extra officers to patrol the place during events. Clean up was the responsibility of the Association members or whomever could be grabbed to he lp out. Children's Carnival was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts and that is the proposal that Hall originally put in for in 1974 and received for the first time in 1975, about $5,000.

One of the groups that was to perform at several of the shows behind the Brooklyn Museum was the Carriacou Carib Organization. The financial manager of the organization was Cyril Sylvester; the leader of the steelband was Leo Joseph; and the head of the traditional drum and dance troupe was Winston F leury. I had known Leo since 1970 when I lived in Carriacou, Grenada. He was one member of a very active family that included his business oriented mother, his dress shop manager sister, two brothers that played in rock bands in Europe and his sea captain father. Leo had one of the two or three steelbands in Carriacou that played for Carnival and for tourists. About the time that I left Carriacou for Trinidad, he left the island were he worked in construction. Indeed, he worked as a laborer on several of the skyscrapers that were then going up in Manhattan. By the late 1970s his family had bought several apartment houses in Brooklyn and he was a full time manager. Anyway, all of the people in his steelband had 'regular' jobs and all were younger than Leo who was probably in his mid to late 20s. The Carriacou Carib Steelband played for schools, for local Carriacouan dances in Brooklyn, and for Carnival events sponsored by the Association.

Winston Fleury has recently come to New York by way of a ten year stint in England, where he worked in a variety of jobs and where he maintained a Carriacouan style drum and dance company. He had been born in Carriacou, also from a seafaring family. As a child he had attended many Big Drum Nation Dances in Carriacou. The Big Drum consisted of three drummers, one or more lead singers, and dancers. In Carriacou, they performed for many different occasions including the ship launchings, shop openings, funeral rites and Carnival. In New York, Fleury had organ ized a group that was attempting to maintain the traditional island culture, even if the Big Drum was performed in Brooklyn mostly for entertainment than for ritual and entertainment as it was back home. This drum and dance troupe, then, also was booked by Herman Hall for a couple of the Brooklyn Museum Shows.

I did not know Cyril Sylvester very well. He was creating a small masquerade band in his apartment. Trinidad Carnival influence have probably been very strong in Carriacou since the late 18 30s but Trinidad style fancy masquerade bands probably come to the island in any organized way until the 1950s, when Carriacouan immigrants to Trinidad returned home, bringing with them the skills of making the larger costumes. In the early 1970s, Carriacou's Carnival duplicated Trinidad's Carnival, with an underlayer of their own traditional Carnival. It had the steelbands, the fancy masquerades, and the formal calypso contests. There were prizes and everything else modeled after Trinidad's Carnival. J oseph, then, although a native Carriacouan, was really part of a greater Trinidadian tradition in his development of a small masquerade band in Brooklyn. But as far as I know, all of the people who bought costumes in his band were Carriacouans or the children of Carriacouans.

These Carriacouan groups were quite small: there were probably no more than a few thousand Carriacouans in New York (there were only about five or six thousand people in Carriacou itself). They represent the smallest of the organized groups that participate in Carnival and contrasted markedly with the larger groups. But what you have to do is to duplicate what I have written about Carriacou for Antigua, Haiti, Dominica, St. Lucia and on and on perhaps twenty or thirty times, and then you get an idea of the extent of the Trinidad style small masquerade bands, steelbands, combos, or other organized island or club based groups that participate in Carnival, most of them totally outside of the official structure set down by the As sociation. Then add to it the participation of the Jamaicans - perhaps the largest single group - and the non-official Trinidadians. This will give you some idea as to sheer size of Carnival and the depth of participation.

The Mas Camps.

From the point of view of the Association, and perhaps a majority of the people who participate in Labor Day Carnival, the masquerades are the key element of Carnival, especially the fancy masquerades. A group of fancy costumes is called a masquerade ba nd. A mas band may be composed of anywhere from ten to hundreds of costumed people, all portraying a single idea or theme. There will be two or more unique and specular costumes, and several units or subgroups of simple, identical costumes. It is the larger of the fancy masquerade bands - perhaps five or six bands - that gain most of the attention of the Association. But there are also smaller fancy masquerade bands that do not register with the Association nor work with the police in mustering at an as signed spot on Labor Day morning. Then there are traditional masquerades, perhaps a small group of friends or a family. Usually, a devotee will play the same character year after year. Then there is ol' mas, cheaply made costumes - often just a stenciled tee shirt - that make some humorous, often obscene, point. Finally, there are many other costumes worn by people from Jamaica or the lesser Antilles that are traditional to their home island. Usually these costumes are not registered.

The fancy masquerade bands are modeled after those made in Trinidad and virtually all of the major designers are born Trinidadians. Most of the participants in large masquerade bands live in the United States and are of Trinidadian descent. Cruzans, Jamaicans, Grenadians, and Barbadians participate more actively in the smaller masquerades, many of them being traditional to their home island. Some participants have lived in the United States for as many as 30 or 40 years. More often they have come wi thin the last five or ten years. Each year there are several individuals who make costumes in the United States for the first time. Some costume designers have apprenticed in the very large bands of Trinidad and find that they can work on their own here more easily.

From the point of view of the costume designer, carnival is a time to make a profit. Indeed, second only to the wish to create costumes "of a very high standard" (the reason most designers give for making costumes) is the desire to ma ke several thousand dollars by selling costumes to all comers. But many designers do not make a profit; in fact they lose money, maybe even a lot of money. They say they do it because it is their culture, because they want to teach their kids or Americans what Trinidadians can do, because they were born to make mas. Perhaps the most satisfying reason for going about the trouble to mount a masquerade band is tradition: like the old saw about mountain climbers, "because it is there."

The usual pr ocedure in developing a fancy band, is for the designer to create an overall theme for his band, such as "Wonders of the Sea" or "Pictures from a Greek Vase" or "Warriors of the Ancient World." The significant details of the theme and the major costumes are kept secret from other designers and the public. There is great fear that other band leaders will attempt to steal one's ideas or sabotage the band in some way.

Most of the participants in the same fancy masquerade bands are friends or relati ves of the costume designer. However many others are "walk ins" and simply play mas with any band that appeals to them. Each person pays for their own costume. They pick out the costume they want when they arrive at the mas camp and look at the colored pencil sketches mounted along one wall of the room. There one sees a drawing of how the costume will look on a masquerader. The price of the costume is also put on the sketch. Sometimes a potential masquerader will come to the designer with their own idea. If the designer can translate this idea into a costume that fits the theme of his band, he will add it to his array. Usually, however, the designer maintains artistic control over the ideas. A typical large band will consist of four or five costumes about eight feet round. In the 1970s, these might cost from $150 to about $800. Modest costumes cost between $15 and $30. There may be anywhere from about 20 to several hundred individuals wearing these cheaper costumes. A band of Indians - ima ginary American Indians are the central theme of many different masquerades - might have 30 warriors, 50 maidens (usually more women play mas than men), and four or five very elaborate chiefs (male or female).

Costume construction is a cottage industry. For the larger bands, a store front is rented, usually in early July. Smaller costumes are put together in a home or apartment. One year I saw a large wire frame soldered together in the auto body shop owned by a friend of the designer. Sometimes parts of costumes are farmed out to several locations. There are many specialists involved in costume making: the wire benders make the stiff medal frames to which are attached cloth, paper, or other coverings. Seamstresses do the intricate sewing required of most outfits. Graphic artists draw the sketches than the designer uses both as a model for the finished product and as a way to market the costume to would-be customers. Some people are good at applique. Others know what materials to buy cheaply and whether to use cloth, paper, plastic, or what. The one rule that masque makers all follow it that each costume must be worn by one person and that masquerader must be able to move about freely. Technically, Trinidadian style costumes are not 'floats' or mobile vehicles or carts that are self propelled in the same sense that, say, the Pasadena's Tournament of Rose Parade has flower floats. Of course, there are floats in the Labor Day Parade. These are flatbed trucks that hold a steelband or a musica l combo or a beauty queen or a makeshift decoration advertising a product or a politician. But the heart of the street Carnival is the individual and group masquerades.

Most designers of fancy masquerade bands worked at other jobs: a dental clinician, an auto mechanic, a carpenter. A few were full time masqueraders and made bands for Carnival in New York, Trinidad, and other places that the Trinidad style Carnival has caught on.

An example of a small fancy masquerade band was the one des igned by Cyril Sylvester of the Carriacou Carib Organization in 1976. He made three different kinds of American Indian costumes and charged about $22 for each one. A customer would buy one of the basic designs and the costume would be fitted by the seamstress to her. Mr. Sylvester figured that he could sell 40 of each kind of costume, a total of 120 costumes in all. His gross would be about $2640 and profit, excluding labor, would be about one half of the total. In fact, his band had far fewer members and he probably lost money. Nevertheless, most of the people who purchased costumes from Mr. Sylvester were Carriacouans or the American raised children of Carriacouans. By participating in Carnival they were reaffirming their family and cultural ties and having fun at the same time. In a way, Carnival becomes a kind a arena in which a partial replica of the island's social organization is reconstructed, except now, it is developed to face the contingencies of living in the City rather than in bucolic Ca rriacou. In this way, Carnival is not much different than other Carriacou Community get-togethers whether they are social dances, fund raising events to assist the only hospital in Carriacou, or drought assistance for resident islanders. And as it was with the Carriacou organization so it was with many other organizations in Brooklyn.

The dozen or so larger masquerade bands followed more or less the same pattern, except the chances of making a profit was greatly increased and these organizations of Trinidad immigrants all seemed to have an opinion as to the value of the Carnival Association. Most of the largest groups, those that seemed to win prizes each year, seemed to support the Association. Most of the others did not. Each year there was dissention: was Gorin going to start another rival group? Was the Association misusing the funds? Why did the same bands seem to win year after year. Why did Lezama and them seem so close with the police? Why were the police or the Association appointed marshalls unable to keep the crowds away from the bands? Would there be a boycott of the masquerade bands of all Carnival activities?

The Steelband in New York.

The steelband was invented in the late 1930s and early 1940s in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Its inventors were unemployed or underemployed young men who lived in the city's slums. They modified the tamboo bamboo, a small orchestra made of bamboo tubes cut different lengths. The bamboo was struck with sticks and on the ground and was by augmenting the sound with biscuit tins and other metal containers. The tamboo bamboo was a central part of carnival in some quarters, ever since drums had been outlawed after the 1880s riots. In the 1930s again there was massive unemployment and unrest in Laventille, Belmont and other districts. The steelband movement, in a way, was a kind of resistance to the colonial authorities. By 1950 it had become legitimate and, along with fancy masquerades and tent calypso, became a central fea ture of carnival. But unlike calypso and masquerading, steelbands were played year round. Some groups were sponsored by the government while other orchestras had the backing of large corporations. One of the first individuals to be involved with the steelband in the early 1940s was Aiel Maenad. Maenad is a pan tuner, one of a select number of men that pound out notes on the top of the oil drums and tune them to different pitches. A steelband will have several different sorts of pans, from a tenor to a bass. Maenad came to New York in 1967 and was living in Queens in the middle 1970s. The steelband predated him in the Big Apple by more than ten years. Some of the other pan tuners in New York in the early 1970s were Kim Loy Wong, Michael Enouch, Conrad Jordan, and Vincent Taylor. Maenad was the tuner for three different steelbands: the Brooklynaires, the Golden Stars, and Heart and Soul. These bands played as a group for Carnival but for other events they played in small configurations or even solo . Mr. Maenad one time band, the Trinidad Hummingbirds, once had his own band and has played in Philharmonic Hall, Town Hall, the Plaza Hotel and others locations.

Maenad said that there is much internal strife within the steelband movement and a lot of competition. The winning band of a large competition, such as the one sponsored by the Association, will win $3,000. This is not much money when you consider that a large steelband in the early 1970s might have 30 members. Moving that many peop le with, say, some 70 pans plus a couple of drum sets, required a couple of trucks and a bus. Then there was set up time, food, etc. Because of the expense involved most of the people who played in the group worked full time at some other job or, increasingly, were school children. In the old days, the members came from the roughest elements in society but nowadays are quite a heterogenous bunch. A few panmen work at it full time by playing small venues or even the streets of Manhattan when the weather is warm.

In the 1970s, Clyde Henry was the head of the Steelband Association. Important arrangers in that era were Beverly Griffith, Hallman, Boogie, Chapman. In the larger bands, the arranger would write out the main parts and then proceed to teach the individual players how to play their parts by rote. Important players in New York were included Dudley Smith, Victor Brady from St. Croix, Jack Hope, Vincent Taylor, Donald Teleman, Carl O'Shea, and Patsy Haines.

Vincent Hernandez is fr om San Juan, Trinidad where he had his own steelband called "The Satisfiers." He took the same name for his New York band, which has fifteen members, most of them young men in their early 20s. Mr. Hernandez was 48 years old in the middle 1970s. As with Aiel Maenad or Leo Joseph, sometimes he uses a few panmen, sometimes the whole band. The only member of Hernandez' band that played the streets was Victor Brady. Hernandez been in Brooklyn since 1966 and "came over" at the request of a man named "Murray, " the same promoter that brought in Aiel Maenad, who had a band called Grace Line that both men played in. Mr. Hernandez works full time on the steelband but most of his men are part time.

One steelband tuner that we talked with felt that the Association was not fair to the steelbandmen; he thought that they were "scampish" and not completely truthful and were not to be trusted. "Lezama and them" didn't know anything about the steelband yet they tried to impose the Association rules on the steelba nds.

Another steelband is that of Kim Loy Wong who works in a settlement house on the lower east side of Manhattan. Conrad Jordan makes drums at Kim Loy Wong's establishment, a settlement House in the Lower East Side. Mr. Wong was an early leader in the use of the steelband as a means of getting potential delinquents off the streets by turning them into musicians and artists.

The Jamaican Connection.

During the early 1970s, through the efforts of Mr. Hall, Jama ican American disc jockey and promoter Ken Williams, and several other people, Jamaican reggae has been introduced into the formal Carnival programs. The importance of drawing in the hugh potential Jamaican American audience was not lost on the members of the Association. After all, reggae, then as now, was much more popular in the general American public - it was just becoming a major part of the rock music stew in this country and it had long been an important style in England. For the Jamaican promote rs and artists, some sort of affiliation with the Association would help legitimize the genre, provide prize money for the competition winners, and help promote home grown reggae artists in New York City. In 1975, for example, there was a competition of reggae singers and bands sponsored by the Association.

Ken Williams, although Jamaican born, had seen Trinidad Carnival first hand and he liked it. Furthermore, he was well aware that many other New Yorkers who were not of Trinidadian descent enj oyed Carnival also. So,

In addition to the reggae competition there was a talent pageant for women set up to complement the As sociation's West Indian Beauty Pageant:

You can read between the lines in Mr. Williams statement: in truth, the Association held Jamaican cultural participat ion at arms length and only for a few brief few years did the two groups make a feeble attempt at cooperation. Let Mr. Williams tell his own view of Jamaican participation on Labor Day:

They have been enco uraged by us, you know, I talk to the Association and they tell me the condition under which some of those guys can operate, you know, and over the past two years, since I have, outside of that, also the annual New York Reggae Disco competition, a lot of new disco people are springing up. And it is a great outlet for them, they come out and everyone have fun playing their music. Besides, a lot of these guys live along the Parkway so they just put their sound-systems out and have a ball, you know what I me an...You know all the organization does in effect is provided an audience for them, provides people for them, because, I don't know, disco operators are some of the most frustrated people because not all of them have an outlet, not all of them have gigs or dances to go out and play. So on a day like that when people out there, oh man! they have a field day. A man who collects records always has a desire to play for somebody else and that is, hey! you know, and that is, he is in heaven on a day like that.< /P>

On August 6, 1977, the Reggae Finale Competition and the Miss Jamaica, U.S.A. Festival Queen competition took place at McMillan Hall, Columbia University and Monica Gordon covered the event. Miss Marcelene Walter, who had trained some of the contestants, was one of the judges. The show didn't really get cooking until late in the evening. There was the Queen competition and then the reggae competition. The Black Eagles reggae group won first prize. Monica wrote in her notes: "They were dressed i n green, blue and peach : pants with a lose fitting over dress reaching below the knee and decorated at the neckline and the end of wide long sleeves with gold and white braids..."

In the years that followed 1977, the reggae contests were held independently from the Association's events. This seemed due to squabbling between artists, Mr. Williams and other Jamaican promoters, and the Carnival Association. I suspect that these differences, ultimately, had their roots in cultural differences between the minority Trinidadians who basically ran Carnival and the numerically superior Jamaicans who were more interested in reggae, dup music, and sound systems than in calypso.

Labor Day Week.

The build up leading to Labor Day Carnival takes place in the week before Labor Day. There are shows by independent promoters all over the City and there are dances and other get-togethers sponsored by Island Benevolent societies and other social clubs. The official Association events begin on Thursday night before Labor day and are held each succeeding night until the Dimanche Gras finale on Sunday. In 1975, I believe, the first was the reggae competition on Thursday night, then on Friday night I believe there was the calypso and masquerade competitions. Saturday night there was the international band competition which included bands staffed by immigrants from Panama, Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica. Sunday night there was the Dimanche Gras show at which all the winners were suppose to perform. Except for the afternoon Kiddies Carnival, each of these programs began around 9 or 10 P.M., usually an hour or so after the intended opening, and ended about 2 or 3 A.M. The content of these shows staged behind the Brooklyn Museum, changed from year to year but the form did not.

Charlene Victor of the Brooklyn Borough Arts Council (BACA) was the liaison between the Brooklyn Museum and the Association. Ms. Victor worked as advocate for many different individuals and cultural groups in Brooklyn, the Association was just one of them:

I will summarize the activities of one of the Association sponsored shows behind the Brooklyn Museum; in texture one is very much like any other but in substance, of course, each event is unique.

I arrived for the 1977 Dimanche Gras show at 10 P.M., two and a half hours after the scheduled sta rting time. I don't think I missed much. The M.C., the Mighty Panther (Vernon J. Roberts) was introducing a drum and dance group, probably the La'tropical Dance Co. People seated in about 3,000 seats in front of the stages were not especially interested in the entertainment; they were waiting for the main events of the evening, the presentation of the major winners of the masquerade, steelband, reggae and calypso competitions. Others were milling around the small park that is the rear of the Brooklyn Mu seum.

The drum and dance group was followed by a bottle dancer. I think I remember seeing this guy in Carriacou of all places. His routine was very impressive. He proceeded to break beer bottles, sometimes against each other, sometimes he would even carefully break off pieces with his teeth. After a while where was a pile of mashed glass on the stage. Then he would sort of walk in place on the bottles!

Between the bottle dancer, indeed between most acts, there w ere usually great pauses, sometimes lasting a half an hour or more. Much of this delay was necessary since musical combos had to hook up on stage, steelbands and masqueraders had even more problems moving to and fro. The job of the M.C. was to fill these gaps and people like Panther or Bill Trotman, both Trinidadians, are the best in the business. They joke - Trotman's forte. They sing -Panther is one of the great calypsonians. They introduce celebrities. They tell stories. In short they are masters of killing time. And just like an American football game most of a big Carnival show is dead time. For their work Trotman or Panther are paid as much or more than most stars, including Sparrow or Kitchener and their services are much sought after in England, Canada and the United States, wherever there is a Trinidadian style event.

Here's one of Trotman's cleaner jokes: "Ah Ha! as soon as they put on this spotlight you could see me! . . . But I went to Coney Island and as I got down to Coney. . . I saw that the folks down there getting together, the white folks with their sun tan lotion getting dark and the black folks in the cool with bleaching cream getting fair..."

Congressman the Hon. Fred Richmond from the 14th district, was introduced: "Isn't it wonderful that we have people like Carlos Lezama..."

Trotman: "I wonder if I go back to Trinidad what people think of me and a Congressman hugging up on the stage?"

The backup band, the Wild Cats, rip into another number. Some of the crowd follow closely the events on stage, most do not.

Then there are thanks to sponsors: Citibank, Brooklyn Museum, BWIA, etc.

The size of the crowd increases and now it is Panther's turn: "Get off that light tower; I tired of telling you all that." Now it is after 11 P.M. and Officer Frank Seddio gets a plaque from Carlos Lezama; Trinidad's Carnival Development Committee's president greets the crowd; last years' Carnival Queen is introduced; plaques are given to dignitaries including Count Robin from Sonatas Steel Orchestra for long term contribution to Association over the years

Sometime before midnight, Panther turns over M.C. duties to Ken Williams who is to announce the winners of the reggae competition. First place goes to the Black Eagles, who sing their winning song, "Shock Them, Shock Them, Show Them That We are One" whose words are summarized as follows: "we are stepping from the ghetto; what kind of life is this? they say when the lion is sleeping never you try to wake him. Jah!" This was a very good, local reggae combo and the crowd, made up mostly of Trinidadians and other people from the Lesser Antilles, was warm but not overly enthusiastic. The Black Eagles play for the other singers. Fourth place went to the Mighty Soul Cat with their song, "Rockers Festival." Third place went to Mr. Casey White, with "Freedom Ah Come Again." And second place went to The Living Truth and their wonderful song, "Ring the Freedom Bell:"

We are not from here, we are no America

We didn't fight with no Red Indian

But from the day they made a decree

That fate I and I free

We are always moving upward

In the modern society, yeh

Ring the Freedom Bell....

Millions of voices must sing today...

Just take the shackle and chain from off my feet

I man want to dance to this here reggae beat

For right now in J A

Natty is the order of the day (?)

And here in the USA

Look ho w we block off Easter Parkway...

Mr. Williams turned the show back to Panther, who presented with winner of the Saturday night steelband panorama competition, the Moods. It is now 12:26 in the morning and we must wait through a recorded musical interlude while the Moods gets set up on the stage. I feel depression, pain, and extreme boredom punctuated, when the Moods finally played, by absolute ecstasy. Now remember, this is Dimanche Gras night, and there is just one steelband performing. For the panorama competition there may be six or seven bands and the beat of pan goes on to the early morning hours.

Following the Moods, one of the handful of international calypso stars, Calypso Rose, Trinidad's Calypso Monarch winner of 1977, sang a set of Caribbean songs. It was a strange performance, as she sang some of American Harry Belafonte's hits - "Jamaica Farewell" right along with her monster recordings - "Fire in Me Wire" is my favorite Rose song.

By the time Calypso Rose completed h er twenty minute set, the stage had become quite crowded. You see there were acts to get off the stage and acts to get on. There were friends and helpers of the performers and there were kids. Meanwhile, Trotman yells out toward the crowd seated directly in front of the stage and the flag pole between the seats and the back of the Brooklyn Museum: "get off the flag you damn little villain you! Heh, call the police and have them arrested..." And now, turning to the ramps that lead up to either side of t he stage, "Unless these ramps are cleared there's going to be no show so you could stand up there all you want..." Perhaps fifty people are standing on the ramps.

The calypso competition around 1 A.M. and Panther is the M.C. There are four competitors, all residents of New York but all born Trinidadians: Tranquil sings "Myself" a parody of an old Spoiler song. Robin is next, followed by Crusader and Super K. Crusader, who won the year before, defends his crown with "How the Labor Day began:"

People used to work in coal mine and factories

So they all talk of a plan

Organize a Labor celebration.

B.J. McGuire he was the founder

The Brotherhood of carpenters

So he said the day will be the first Monday in September

In New York City and in Foreign Land

Signed and approved by President Cleveland

That is how Labor Day Began.

Well the reason for that c elebration is for more wage,

better condition

And one way to do it they say

Let us establish a holiday

A day that the secretaries will acknowledge

A day that the Workers they all suggested

McGuire was the one who had the say so

He say that Monday will be Labor Day.

B.J. McGuire he was the founder

The Brotherhood of Carpenters...

The State of Oregon was the first to recognize

Labor Day officially

The first Labor Day Parade

Took place in New York City

On Union Square everybody were jumping

Now we have the Parade in Brooklyn

So we should all join together that day and

Jump on Eastern Park Way.

B.J. McGuire...

While the judges deliberate as to who is to be the winner, Panther clowns around by la dee duming some of his old songs. The crowd loves it. Then the calypso great from Antigua, who did well in Trinidad until they changed the rules and only allowed res idents or natives of that island to compete in its competitions. Short Shirt was one of the inventors of the then new calypso craze, soca or soul calypso.

And so it went, until about three in the morning. Born Trinidadians have something akin to a spiritual experience in the long, grueling ordeal that is a Carnival show. The rest of us are permanently changed as well.

Carnival on Labor Day.

Let me tell you something about Labor day in Brooklyn

Everybody jumping, Labor Da y in Brooklyn, eh?

Every West Indian jumping up like mad

Just like carnival day in Trinidad

Yankee and all listening to the steel band beat

Rolling in carnival just like in Charlette street

(a prominent street in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad).

You could be from St. Cleo of John John

In New York all that done

They haven't know who is who

New York equalize you

Bajan, Grenadian, Jamaican, "tut mun" (everyone)

Drinking they rum, beating they bottle and spoon

Nobody could watch me and honestly say

They don't like to be in Brooklyn on Labor Day

(the Mighty Sparrow)

On Carnival Monday, Labor Day, the bands are removed from the trucks, garages, or houses where they have been assembled or stored. Members gather on or near Eastern Parkway at a prearranged spot in the late morning. Assembly takes a couple of hours as members of the band struggle to gang together and begin their road march towa rd Eastern Parkway. A few of the larger bands are fronted by a steelband. Perhaps Officer Seddio has stationed a policeman to keep the curious away from the bands as they don their costumes and prepare to move out.

Once on the Parkway - sometimes between noon and about 3 P.M. - each of the larger bands attempts to move toward the Brooklyn Museum from their assigned spot on the Parkway. By the time the bands are in place, however, the Parkway and the grassy verges to either side are jammed with several hundred thousand people. The bands can not move. The idea is that they will form a parade that will pass in front of a reviewing stand of dignitaries at the Brooklyn Museum, after which they will filter onto the grounds behind the Museum. But since spectators become participants and crowd onto the streets to watch or to "jump up" themselves, most masquerade bands do not reach the Brooklyn Museum until well after dark, if then. Although the parade begins at about 10 A.M. or 11 A.M. by 5 P.M., usu ally only one or two bands make it as far as the Museum, normally a 20 minute walk, until late in the day. Thus, most bands stake out a territory along Eastern Parkway and "road march" in place or, as I saw in 1974, cut away from the Parkway and road march several blocks up another street. The chaos which results from jamming several hundred thousand people onto Eastern Parkway while a parade of masqueraders, steelbands, and small brass orchestras on flatbed trucks takes place, is typically Trinidadian.

In 1977, approximately 1500 police officers patrolled the Carnival area around Eastern Parkway, about 500 on the morning shift and about 1000 at the height of the day, about 5:30 P.M. Officer Frank Seddio, 67th precinct, the main police liaison with the Association and the person most responsible with managing traffic flow and other police services on Labor Day, said that police estimates of the size of the event were at from about 500,000 to 700,000 people, far lower than the over a million estim ate made by members of the Association. Still, this was the areas largest street affair, far surpassing the few thousand that gather for the Norwegian Day Parade and much more than the 50,000 that attended Brooklyn's first West Indian Carnival. The cost for the police and sanitation alone was $75,000, a lot of money in financially strapped New York in the middle 1970s.

The fancy masquerades are only a part of the whole of Carnival. Other masqueraders are present also, the unofficial bands that di d not seek or did not obtain permission to mas, the ol' mas performers, the jab jab, moko jumbie (stilt walkers), the bad behavior sailors, indians of all sorts, the flat bed trucks with musical combos, beauty queens, Haitians and Carriacouans, they all are on the Parkway amongst the crowds. The combos play Jamaican reggae or Bajan spooge (this is Barbadian popular music) while the brass bands play instrumental calypsos or Haitian meringues (Haitian popular music). Mr. Lezama once said that the Haitian groups do not work through the Carnival Association but rather just show up on Eastern Parkway and "do their own thing."

Sometimes each group traditional masquerader have a routine to portray. Some individual performers take the name and act out the character that they portray. They perform for a part of the Carnival crowd or against one another. This is the case in the Jamaican and Bahamian masquerade known as "John Canoe." In Brooklyn, competitive verbal performances are rare, as they have increasingly become in Trinidad. In both places the roar of the steelband and electrified instruments has eaten away at the grand old traditional oratory that once was a highlight of Carnival.

The idea of community takes on special meaning in Brooklyn. One could participate in Carnival with a group of people from your family, from a single village or area of Trinidad or another island, or with a group of immigrants from Montreal, Toronto, or Washington D.C. In 1977, there were mas queraders identified as Trinidadians, Grenadians, Antiguans, Vincentians and groups of West Indians New York, Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia, and Washington. If one looks at Carnival participation from this perspective, then, it is a kind of an expanding and relativistic sense of ethnicity, not class, which permeates grouping of Caribbean peoples in Carnival activities. Thus, as we jump between ethnicity on the one hand and class on the other, we are use different measures to look at West Indian Carnival.

An interesting feature of Labor Day Carnival, one which reflects its New York setting, was that different cultural influences predominate in different locations. On Labor Day Monday, say around midday, between the Brooklyn Museum and the Grand Army Plaza, one finds West Indian Carnival to be nothing more than a typical New York summer street fair, with the usual sale of ethnic foods and souvenirs. The people in this area tend to be native born Americans. Clustered near the Brooklyn Museum and li ning the streets that run parallel to Eastern Parkway one finds temporary record stalls which play Jamaican reggae music and sell records. Young couples dance the Latin hustle or in the Jamaican style to this recorded music. These stalls are set up by record stores as a means of advertisement.

Carnival is a time for West Indians throughout the United States and Canada to get together. Labor Day Carnival draws English speaking West Indians, Haitians, and a few Latin Americans, especially from p laces like Panama where there is a large English speaking West Indian population. This corresponds to the custom, rooted in Caribbean history, of ethnic groups forming around people who speak the same language. Carnival is a way of reinforcing island-specific "ethnicity." Of course, people from the English-speaking Caribbean may all be considered one ethnic group. Thus, Carnival reinforces island-based allegiances while providing opportunities for people from one island to meet people from other islands as well as Americans. Carnival creates a sense of being a "West Indian" rather than a Trinidadian, Jamaican, or Haitian in a manner that cannot occur on the natal island. Creating, maintaining or reinvigorating social groups are perhaps the most important functions of Carnival in New York. When larger groups are formed, the French and Creole speaking islanders tend to group together. Spanish speakers tend to be divided by nationality or island, such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, or Ve nezuelans, although Afro-Cuban music and salsa, (Afro-Cuban music developed in New York) unite many Latinos on special occasions, such as Puerto Rican Day Parade, which in 1992 was held in Spanish Harlem on Labor Day also.

Coda.

An exchange between the transportation commissioner and Charlene Victor: