If you haven't pur­chased your copy of the 50th an­niver­sary com­mem­o­ra­tive mag­a­zine by Harts Car­ni­val, go out and get one. All pic­to­r­i­al, with very lit­tle text, there are no pho­to cred­its in the glossy, 88-page pub­li­ca­tion–but the pic­tures are beau­ti­ful. Danielle Parkin­son has pro­vid­ed read­ers with an in­ti­mate and com­pre­hen­sive chrono­log­i­cal ac­count of the 50-year his­to­ry of this leg­endary mas dy­nasty, be­gin­ning with its founder, liv­ing leg­end Ed­mund Hart.

One in­ter­est­ing point is that Ed­mund didn't be­gin his mas play­ing ca­reer in Port-of-Spain, but in South Trinidad, where he lived. He on­ly moved to the na­tion's cap­i­tal at age 20. His first years of play­ing mas, 1950-1960, were with Bob­by Am­mon. When Am­mon de­cid­ed to pro­duce his fi­nal band in 1960, Ed­mund stepped in­to the breach, pro­duc­ing a band of one sin­gu­lar cos­tume de­sign, but com­pris­ing two dif­fer­ent colours. This was 1961 and, with 140 mas­quer­aders in tow, the Harts en­tered the "big mas" are­na, the band's most ex­pen­sive cos­tume cost­ing $40.

It took Ed­mund and his wife, Lil, just five years to win their first Band of the Year ti­tle, do­ing so in 1966 with the pre­sen­ta­tion Play­ing Cards. This was a first of sorts in Trinidad mas, as the Harts de­part­ed from the time-worn tra­di­tion of pro­duc­ing his­tor­i­cal mas. When Lil died in 1991, Ed­mund turned the reins of the band over to his chil­dren–Louis, Ger­ald, Thais and Aixa, who have con­tin­ued their par­ents con­cept of "fun in mas." In half a cen­tu­ry, the Harts dy­nasty has been in the fore­front of T&T Car­ni­val, in­tro­duc­ing a num­ber of rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cepts to mas on the road, in­clud­ing am­pli­fied steel­bands on trucks; syn­chro­nised DJ mu­sic through the band; and, drinks carts.

This year, Harts Car­ni­val pro­duced a mul­ti-themed band, con­sist­ing of some of the nu­mer­ous por­tray­als the band has treat­ed an ad­mir­ing and ap­pre­cia­tive pub­lic to. To com­plete this year's pre­sen­ta­tion, HC added a fifth mu­sic truck to its line-up, dubbed The Retro Truck, from which back in times ca­lyp­so was played ex­clu­sive­ly. The T&T Car­ni­val tra­di­tion awaits the en­trance of Harts Car­ni­val's third gen­er­a­tion, the grand-chil­dren of Ed­mund and Lil Hart. (PRB)