One of the revered and leg­endary names of steel­band his­to­ry in T&T, Neville Jules, the for­mer long­time leader of the pop­u­lar Trinidad All Stars band, will be ho­n­oured by the T&T Folk Arts In­sti­tute for his sin­gu­lar de­vo­tion to and im­pact up­on steel­band cul­ture, at a gala cel­e­bra­tion on April 26, at Brook­lyn's Trop­i­cal Par­adise Ball­room.

At the din­ner event Jules will be for­mal­ly ac­cord­ed the Folk Arts In­sti­tute's fore­most recog­ni­tion and is ex­pect­ed to be the re­cip­i­ent of sev­er­al oth­er awards and com­men­da­tions.

"We have pre­vi­ous­ly cit­ed Mr Jules," said Les Slater, chair­man of the Folk Arts In­sti­tute. "most no­tably in our Leg­ends of Pan pre­sen­ta­tion some years ago when he was among our se­lect group of steel­band lu­mi­nar­ies. But the span of his years of mean­ing­ful in­volve­ment and in­flu­ence makes this trib­ute most ap­pro­pri­ate at this time."

Jules was present prac­ti­cal­ly at the dawn of the pe­ri­od of ex­per­i­men­ta­tion in the ear­ly 1940s that saw the steel­band come to fruition. His lead­er­ship of Trinidad All Stars, from the post-WWII pe­ri­od and through the 1950s and 60s added a num­ber of mem­o­rable chap­ters to steel­band lore in T&T.

Di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for the band's mu­si­cal out­put, Jules made his­to­ry when he led the way in re­con­fig­ur­ing a num­ber of clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions to fit the ca­lyp­so genre–a trend that would be soon fol­lowed not on­ly by oth­er steel­bands but the coun­try's lead­ing dance or­ches­tras as well.

That path carved by Jules led to the so-called "bomb" tunes played by steel­bands on Car­ni­val day–a prac­tice that en­dures to the cur­rent time. Al­so the tuner of the band's in­stru­ments for many years, Jules was re­spon­si­ble for the tra­di­tion that came to be as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad All Stars of a dis­tinc­tive, read­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able bass sound. These and oth­er fea­tures made Jules a ti­tan­ic fig­ure in the lead­er­ship ranks of the steel­band world.

Jules re­lo­cat­ed to New York in 1972, end­ing his marathon run as the All Stars leader. His tremen­dous ex­per­tise in the art form would soon ben­e­fit school-age young­sters in Brook­lyn, af­ter he was en­gaged as a steel­band mu­sic in­struc­tor for cer­tain pub­lic schools in the bor­ough. He was lat­er in­stru­men­tal in set­ting up a Trinidad All Stars out­fit in Brook­lyn that made his abil­i­ties ac­ces­si­ble to an even broad­er base of steel­band mu­sic en­thu­si­asts, in­clud­ing both adults and chil­dren. The con­nec­tion long es­tab­lished be­tween Jules and his for­mer band in Port-of-Spain has re­mained in­tact and, re­mark­ably, even in­to his 80s, he was fur­nish­ing mu­sic that Trinidad All Stars per­formed.

The April 26 trib­ute to Jules is the lat­est of a num­ber of pre­sen­ta­tions the Folk Arts In­sti­tute has done, since 1991, in the process of high­light­ing T&T's rich folk cul­ture tra­di­tions. The or­gan­i­sa­tion's in-depth fo­cus on those tra­di­tions has been en­hanced with var­i­ous sym­posia and oth­er fo­rums con­duct­ed most­ly in con­junc­tion with Medgar Evers Col­lege in Brook­lyn. Pre­vi­ous re­cip­i­ents of the or­gan­i­sa­tion's pre­mier award that will be pre­sent­ed to Jules, the Ci­ta­tion of Mer­it, have in­clud­ed Beryl McBurnie, Emory Cook, Bob Git­tens, El­lie Man­nette, Dr JD El­der, Joey Lewis, Daphne Weekes, Ju­lia Ed­wards, Stephen Lee He­ung, Earl Lovelace, Leroy Clarke, Fred­die Kissoon, Cheryl By­ron, Wins­ford Devine, Lord Kitch­en­er, Mighty Spar­row and Shad­ow.

The cel­e­bra­to­ry din­ner in ho­n­our of Neville Jules be­gins at 6 pm. Trop­i­cal Par­adise Ball­room is lo­cat­ed at 1367 Uti­ca Av­enue, Brook­lyn.

�2 For in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing tick­ets for the event or any oth­er de­tails, call 718-252-6161.