Pop­u­lar Trinidad mu­si­cian Rus­sell Hen­der­son, 91, died yes­ter­day morn­ing. A son of Bel­mont, Hen­der­son learned to play the pi­ano as a young man grow­ing up in Trinidad and, by the late 1940s, had formed his own quar­tet. He went on to pro­vide back­ground mu­sic for many lo­cal record­ings by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans such as Roar­ing Li­on, Mighty Growler and Lord Pre­tender.

He was the pi­anist for Beryl McBurnie's Dance Troupe at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre, Wood­brook where he gained some valu­able knowl­edge of the steel­band while teach­ing cor­rect melodies to El­lie Man­nette of the In­vaders Steel­band who al­so per­formed there.

He found­ed the Rus­sell Hen­der­son Quar­tet in the 1940s and was soon well known in Trinidad. In 1951, Hen­der­son trav­elled to Eng­land to study pi­ano tun­ing at the North Lon­don Poly­tech­nic, but land­ed a job as a pi­anist with­in two weeks of his ar­rival.

In 1952, he quit his stud­ies and formed his own band, play­ing both jazz and ca­lyp­so mu­sic. Hav­ing set­tled in Eng­land, Hen­der­son found­ed Britain's first steel­band com­bo (The Russ Hen­der­son Steel Band) with Mervyn Con­stan­tine and Ster­ling Be­tan­court in late 1952. They played their first gig at The Sun­set Club at 50 Carn­a­by Street.

While in Eng­land, Hen­der­son teamed up with Fitzroy Cole­man and Ru­pert Nurse to ac­com­pa­ny Lord Kitch­en­er in his record­ings. He is cred­it­ed with be­ing one of the founders of the an­nu­al Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val af­ter they were asked to play in a chil­dren's fes­ti­val in Not­ting Hill in 1965.

In 1970, Hen­der­son be­gan teach­ing pan in the schools of Croy­don in South Lon­don. For his con­tri­bu­tions to mu­sic in Eng­land, by in­tro­duc­ing pan in schools and his role in the an­nu­al Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val, Hen­der­son was award­ed the MBE in 2006. As he grew old­er, Hen­der­son fell out of love with the ca­lyp­so rhythm and con­tin­ued play­ing jazz and Latin mu­sic on the night­club cir­cuit well in­to his eight­ies.

On Au­gust 24, 2012, just pri­or to the Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val week­end, the com­mem­o­ra­tive trust Nu­bian Jak or­gan­ised the un­veil­ing of two blue plaques in Not­ting Hill, at the junc­tion of Tavi­s­tock Road known as "Car­ni­val Square," to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val by two "liv­ing gi­ants," Rus­sell Hen­der­son, the Trinida­di­an mu­si­cian who led the first Car­ni­val pa­rade in 1965, and Leslie Palmer, al­so from T&T, who is cred­it­ed with help­ing trans­form the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty fes­ti­val in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised event.

In his re­tire­ment Hen­der­son gave nu­mer­ous in­ter­views with BBC Ra­dio 4 and BBC Four on his Not­ting Hill past. Hen­der­son was al­so fea­tured in film and starred in The Pan Man: Rus­sell Hen­der­son, a 22-minute doc­u­men­tary, di­rect­ed by Michael McKen­zie.

In an in­ter­view, Hen­der­son told in­ter­view­er Kim John­son: "By the 60s I was do­ing well. We had played for the Queen. Pan was re­spectable in Eng­land and James Cum­mings, who I al­so knew from Trinidad, asked me to teach pan in a school in Croy­don in 1970.

He was a so­cial work­er and on the board of the school. That had nev­er been done be­fore. Peo­ple do­nat­ed pans and I start­ed teach­ing."

He al­so told John­son: "Now I find the ca­lyp­so rhythm bor­ing; the melodies are beau­ti­ful, but I pre­fer the Latin rhythms. I like the great jazzmen, Os­car Pe­ter­son, Th­elo­nious Monk, Kei­th Jar­rett, and of course Miles Davis, Duke Elling­ton an Count Basie. When I play so­lo pi­ano it's pop­u­lar mu­sic, but in the 606 (club) it's straight jazz. And I love Cuban mu­sic, that's my mu­sic."

Hen­der­son's niece, Di­ane, a hu­man re­source spe­cial­ist at An­gos­tu­ra, fond­ly re­mem­bers her un­cle and said: "My fa­ther was his el­dest broth­er and when­ev­er Un­cle Russ came to Trinidad from Eng­land he would vis­it our home. I used to en­joy his com­pa­ny and would spoil him.

"Un­cle Russ was a sim­ple, en­joy­ing the sim­ple things in life but very full of hu­mour. Be­side his mu­sic, he en­joyed the lit­tle things he did, like walk­ing from St James to Cas­cade. Some­times he would just sit in the gallery sip­ping Black La­bel rum. He re­al­ly en­joyed the small things in life."

Vet­er­an cul­tur­al ac­tivist Mervyn Telfer re­mem­bered Hen­der­son as cul­tur­al am­bas­sador of T&T. He said: "Rus­sell reigned in the hey­days of small mu­sic groups, like trios and quar­tets. He had a trio and he was at the fore­front of mu­sic in that era. Rus­sell made a par­ty swing and if you didn't have Rus­sell at your par­ty it just wouldn't swing.

"My broth­er Ju­nior was one of the peo­ple in­volved with Rus­sell with the form­ing of Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val. Rus­sell was al­so pop­u­lar play­ing mu­sic in Eng­land and in­cor­po­rat­ed pan in­to band mu­sic. At the time this was unique in Eng­land.

"Ter­rase­ca was one of the songs Rus­sell was pop­u­lar for. As a mat­ter of fact, Rus­sell loved that song so much he used to call one of his daugh­ters Ter­ri. Rus­sell cer­tain­ly made a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the mu­sic and keep­ing T&T mu­sic alive in Eng­land." (Re­port­ing by Pe­ter Ray Blood)