The Organist's Daughter--Yankee Girl
There's a picture of my father in one of his bands that I keep close to me, on my desk. It's a group of 8 young men, and the band includes conga drums, a guitar, drum set, bass and keyboard. My father is the keyboardist. It is an old picture, he must have been around 17. My mother told me that my father started playing professionally by the time he was 15 or 16, hanging out in Port-of-Spain in a time when it was really a port. It was full of rum shops, prostitutes and music-- commodities engendered by the frequent visit of foreign ships and its crew.
My father is the son of a musician. His father, my great-grandfather is from St. Vincent and played what is called the box guitar. He was a carpenter by trade, but walked the streets the streets of Port-of-Spain, playing his guitar in his free time. My father is from a part of Trinidad referred to as "behind-the-bridge", I believe the bridge is the East Dry River bridge, and it is a place that my Grandfather always referred to disparingly, although he himself hailed from Caroni. It is a funny thing for me to write right now, from my desk in Copenhagen because I try to imagine how this seems to someone not familiar with these concepts. I grew up in a family who considered itself neither East Indian or African (I always considered myself Black much to my family's chagrin)but with obvious traces of both. My family relied on this racial ambivalence to critique both groups, with much hilarity, racial pain and colonial relics. For example, if someone thought they were better than someone else, you would immediately say that that person thought they were white, because as far as people of color are concerned, white people always offered shining examples of people insane enough to actually feel themselves better than others.
Behind-the-Bridge is Black, ghetto. Ironically it is the place Trinidad is most indebted for its culture (this is a universal truth, is it not?) and Caroni is an Indian Village, much like many other Indian villages in Trinidad, where many of its inhabitants, at least back when I lived in Trinidad, lived very much like they lived from the moment their ancestor's feet landed on Trinidadian soil. This place too, is full of culture and history and again, Trinidad owes a lot of its cultural heritage to these East Indians who left their homes in search of better living. But anyway, my grandfather, when drunk and wanted to get at me, would always yell, "That is why your father is from behind-the-bridge" as if that explained my big mouth, lack of desire to be a "young lady" i.e. seen but never heard! and basic irreverence for all things British.
My relationship to Britain is directly related to my grandfather Ewart G. Balbirsingh. G for Gladstone. My grandfather was a handsome man, a sentimental orphan whose attempts at macho waned under my own Grandmother's general rage at being married to a man whose ambition dampened under the presence of rum. I grew up with my Mummy Hildred asking, "Why you can't be like Mr.So & So? He does drive his wife to Church e-ver-y morning. But you see you Ewart? You wutless (worthless)!" Don't be fooled though, there was a lot of love between them and when my Grandmother explained his last few days here on earth, and how he rested his head on her lap, you understand the complex wealth of flawed existence.
But anyway, my Grandfather, poor dear, a victim of his times, really believed Britain to be the measuring stick for all things civilized. And I? Although only 10, I had already been exposed to the pro-Black teachings of my father and neighbors and I could not take my Grandfather's reverence to Britain seriously. His admonishments to be more lady-like made me even more resolved to be more masculine and I was determined not to be like the women he wished me to model myself after--my cousin for example.
When I look back on this struggle between my grandfather and I, I wonder how much of it had to do with his being scandalized by my very presence, or his wanting to just protect me from society's sexist norms? What I despised the most, was his complacence to it all, his acceptance. I wished him to be more of a rebel--like my father.
So it doesn't matter what he said about my Daddy--cause Daddy was always my hero. Daddy was a fighter. If someone messed with me in school, my mother would always be like, "Oh Lesley, forget it nah!" Whereas if my dad got wind of it, he'd be there. That's just how things went down in Brooklyn--parents got involved in modern day feuds and for many of us who had nothing else, powerful fists ruled the day. Unfortunately I never won a fight, although I started many (my mother's suspicions were right).
My father though, he left Trinidad in the 60s. I don't really know why he left, but he never returned. I asked him once, I asked him, Daddy, don't you miss Trinidad? "Who me? I will never go back to that place for as long as I live." Something happened there, cause my dad could hold a grudge like a pitbull to someone's neck. He just never would let go.
But when he lived in Trinidad, he played with some of the biggest bands there at the time. It's interesting to read about Trinidad and it's musical past (Dick Hebdige's Cut 'n' Mix, particularly chapter 3 "The Music of Trinidad") My father grew up around stick-fighting gangs and the advent of steel pan. Since he grew up near Port-of-Spain, he could get his hands on all the American music and so his love affair with Jazz began. My father worshiped men like Miles, Jimmi Hendrix and Jimmy Smith. One has to remember that my father was born into a poor family, and he taught himself to play the guitar. He would later teach himself to play the organ.
For my father, American offered Black musicians a chance. For my grandfather, America was uncouth, decedent, crass--all adjectives I am sure he would have used for Jazz. For my grandfather, to be American was an aberration. When I lived in Trinidad, my family called me "Yankee girl". For my father, it was a source of pride that I was born in Brooklyn. One of the things I appreciated about being amongst my Trinidadian family was that it gave me distance to look at the U.S. and it's politics. I remember when Grenada had it's Revolution and the U.S. stepped in. Not many people around me appreciated that. This gave me the insight to see how the U.S. appeared to many outside of the U.S.
But if I was not my grandfather's girl, I was my father's. I remember someone's response after reading my poem "The Organist's Daugther." She said to me, "I tend to do the same as well. I tend to romanticize my relationship with my father, now that he is dead." I wanted to tell her, "yo, I'm not romanticizing. I am explaining the very real, complex relationship between a tortured, most probably clinically insane immigrant man and his baby daughter--perhaps the only other person in his life he had ever put himself aside for." But I didn't.
Last night I listened to "Music Makers Extraordinaire: Nostalgic Hits from Popular T&T Bands of the 1950s and 60s." Apparently my father is on a few of the recordings. It is the only music that has survived my father. He gave me once a tape of his music. I held onto it but once, in a fit of rage, destroyed it, as I managed to do every thing he had ever given me. Except my life.
I discovered this cd by chance. The last few years of my father's life he stayed in that home right behind the Hospital on Dekalb. I remember once I was there for a week for a kidney infection and the day I signed myself out, I bumped into him: We were in the hospital at the same time! Anyway, he stayed at this home because he needed to have dialysis twice a week and after a few episodes of being found passed out, he was made to stay in this home otherwise his medicare would be cut. My father hated to be there and once asked me, can't we live together? "No Daddy, I can't live with you." I said. I don't regret telling him no. I was grown up, fumbling through life, and I couldn't imagine submitting myself to the emotional volitility of my father. Mine is enough of a burden. But he hated being there and he made you feel it whenever you went to visit him. He soon grew a reputation there after attacking a few of the staff and they would ask me, "Why is your father so angry?" One day a nurse said to me, "See what happens when you mistreat all those around you? You are left all alone." There were many reasons why my father rarely had visitors. The most common was that no one wanted to risk being the target of one of his rages.
But his caseworker was this young Trinidadian man--a man whom I have never met although have spoken to him on the phone. Of all the people my father gets to handle his case, he gets a young man in love with the classic music of Trinidad. He was astounded when he found out who my father was and the bands he had played with. One day, he bought this cd to my father and played it and my father asked, do you know who that is on guitar? That's me.
So this is the only recording of my father's music I have.
It is really hard for me to write this. I'll end it now.
Bye,
lab
My father is the son of a musician. His father, my great-grandfather is from St. Vincent and played what is called the box guitar. He was a carpenter by trade, but walked the streets the streets of Port-of-Spain, playing his guitar in his free time. My father is from a part of Trinidad referred to as "behind-the-bridge", I believe the bridge is the East Dry River bridge, and it is a place that my Grandfather always referred to disparingly, although he himself hailed from Caroni. It is a funny thing for me to write right now, from my desk in Copenhagen because I try to imagine how this seems to someone not familiar with these concepts. I grew up in a family who considered itself neither East Indian or African (I always considered myself Black much to my family's chagrin)but with obvious traces of both. My family relied on this racial ambivalence to critique both groups, with much hilarity, racial pain and colonial relics. For example, if someone thought they were better than someone else, you would immediately say that that person thought they were white, because as far as people of color are concerned, white people always offered shining examples of people insane enough to actually feel themselves better than others.
Behind-the-Bridge is Black, ghetto. Ironically it is the place Trinidad is most indebted for its culture (this is a universal truth, is it not?) and Caroni is an Indian Village, much like many other Indian villages in Trinidad, where many of its inhabitants, at least back when I lived in Trinidad, lived very much like they lived from the moment their ancestor's feet landed on Trinidadian soil. This place too, is full of culture and history and again, Trinidad owes a lot of its cultural heritage to these East Indians who left their homes in search of better living. But anyway, my grandfather, when drunk and wanted to get at me, would always yell, "That is why your father is from behind-the-bridge" as if that explained my big mouth, lack of desire to be a "young lady" i.e. seen but never heard! and basic irreverence for all things British.
My relationship to Britain is directly related to my grandfather Ewart G. Balbirsingh. G for Gladstone. My grandfather was a handsome man, a sentimental orphan whose attempts at macho waned under my own Grandmother's general rage at being married to a man whose ambition dampened under the presence of rum. I grew up with my Mummy Hildred asking, "Why you can't be like Mr.So & So? He does drive his wife to Church e-ver-y morning. But you see you Ewart? You wutless (worthless)!" Don't be fooled though, there was a lot of love between them and when my Grandmother explained his last few days here on earth, and how he rested his head on her lap, you understand the complex wealth of flawed existence.
But anyway, my Grandfather, poor dear, a victim of his times, really believed Britain to be the measuring stick for all things civilized. And I? Although only 10, I had already been exposed to the pro-Black teachings of my father and neighbors and I could not take my Grandfather's reverence to Britain seriously. His admonishments to be more lady-like made me even more resolved to be more masculine and I was determined not to be like the women he wished me to model myself after--my cousin for example.
When I look back on this struggle between my grandfather and I, I wonder how much of it had to do with his being scandalized by my very presence, or his wanting to just protect me from society's sexist norms? What I despised the most, was his complacence to it all, his acceptance. I wished him to be more of a rebel--like my father.
So it doesn't matter what he said about my Daddy--cause Daddy was always my hero. Daddy was a fighter. If someone messed with me in school, my mother would always be like, "Oh Lesley, forget it nah!" Whereas if my dad got wind of it, he'd be there. That's just how things went down in Brooklyn--parents got involved in modern day feuds and for many of us who had nothing else, powerful fists ruled the day. Unfortunately I never won a fight, although I started many (my mother's suspicions were right).
My father though, he left Trinidad in the 60s. I don't really know why he left, but he never returned. I asked him once, I asked him, Daddy, don't you miss Trinidad? "Who me? I will never go back to that place for as long as I live." Something happened there, cause my dad could hold a grudge like a pitbull to someone's neck. He just never would let go.
But when he lived in Trinidad, he played with some of the biggest bands there at the time. It's interesting to read about Trinidad and it's musical past (Dick Hebdige's Cut 'n' Mix, particularly chapter 3 "The Music of Trinidad") My father grew up around stick-fighting gangs and the advent of steel pan. Since he grew up near Port-of-Spain, he could get his hands on all the American music and so his love affair with Jazz began. My father worshiped men like Miles, Jimmi Hendrix and Jimmy Smith. One has to remember that my father was born into a poor family, and he taught himself to play the guitar. He would later teach himself to play the organ.
For my father, American offered Black musicians a chance. For my grandfather, America was uncouth, decedent, crass--all adjectives I am sure he would have used for Jazz. For my grandfather, to be American was an aberration. When I lived in Trinidad, my family called me "Yankee girl". For my father, it was a source of pride that I was born in Brooklyn. One of the things I appreciated about being amongst my Trinidadian family was that it gave me distance to look at the U.S. and it's politics. I remember when Grenada had it's Revolution and the U.S. stepped in. Not many people around me appreciated that. This gave me the insight to see how the U.S. appeared to many outside of the U.S.
But if I was not my grandfather's girl, I was my father's. I remember someone's response after reading my poem "The Organist's Daugther." She said to me, "I tend to do the same as well. I tend to romanticize my relationship with my father, now that he is dead." I wanted to tell her, "yo, I'm not romanticizing. I am explaining the very real, complex relationship between a tortured, most probably clinically insane immigrant man and his baby daughter--perhaps the only other person in his life he had ever put himself aside for." But I didn't.
Last night I listened to "Music Makers Extraordinaire: Nostalgic Hits from Popular T&T Bands of the 1950s and 60s." Apparently my father is on a few of the recordings. It is the only music that has survived my father. He gave me once a tape of his music. I held onto it but once, in a fit of rage, destroyed it, as I managed to do every thing he had ever given me. Except my life.
I discovered this cd by chance. The last few years of my father's life he stayed in that home right behind the Hospital on Dekalb. I remember once I was there for a week for a kidney infection and the day I signed myself out, I bumped into him: We were in the hospital at the same time! Anyway, he stayed at this home because he needed to have dialysis twice a week and after a few episodes of being found passed out, he was made to stay in this home otherwise his medicare would be cut. My father hated to be there and once asked me, can't we live together? "No Daddy, I can't live with you." I said. I don't regret telling him no. I was grown up, fumbling through life, and I couldn't imagine submitting myself to the emotional volitility of my father. Mine is enough of a burden. But he hated being there and he made you feel it whenever you went to visit him. He soon grew a reputation there after attacking a few of the staff and they would ask me, "Why is your father so angry?" One day a nurse said to me, "See what happens when you mistreat all those around you? You are left all alone." There were many reasons why my father rarely had visitors. The most common was that no one wanted to risk being the target of one of his rages.
But his caseworker was this young Trinidadian man--a man whom I have never met although have spoken to him on the phone. Of all the people my father gets to handle his case, he gets a young man in love with the classic music of Trinidad. He was astounded when he found out who my father was and the bands he had played with. One day, he bought this cd to my father and played it and my father asked, do you know who that is on guitar? That's me.
So this is the only recording of my father's music I have.
It is really hard for me to write this. I'll end it now.
Bye,
lab
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