SAN­DRA L BLOOD

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“He was more than a mu­si­cal col­lab­o­ra­tor. He was like a broth­er to me. He was like a fa­ther to me. He was a very, very good friend to me; we were best friends. I worked ex­ten­sive­ly with him, trav­el­ling in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and ar­rang­ing his mu­sic. He took me across five con­ti­nents with him. Our re­la­tion­ship ex­tend­ed far be­yond the record­ing stu­dio.” These are the sen­ti­ments of ac­com­plished vet­er­an trum­peter, arranger, com­pos­er and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, Er­rol Ince—the very last mu­si­cian alive who worked con­sis­tent­ly with the world’s undis­put­ed, cap­ti­vat­ing ca­lyp­son­ian, the Mighty Spar­row (Spar­row), from 1955 to his last tune. The world was mes­merised by Spar­row’s mu­sic.

Ince joins hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple world­wide in mourn­ing the loss of the Ca­lyp­so King of the World and re­mem­ber­ing the mu­sic he cre­at­ed as this coun­try cel­e­brates Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month.

“I was born on April 18, 1939, and from 16 years old to present-day, I as­so­ci­at­ed with Spar­row,” Ince told Lon­don-based Caribbeans Con­nects, val­i­dat­ed by his wife Jah­mela Ince (known as Moth­er 9), in a his­toric hour-long in­ter­view on Oc­to­ber 3 with founder Jer­maine Young-Bushay. “That’s a 71-year steady re­la­tion­ship, but most of our con­tem­po­raries from that era have passed away. At 16, I was called up­on to play on an ear­ly record­ing of Spar­row’s land­mark ca­lyp­so, Jean and Di­nah.”

Moth­er 9 set the tone. She thanked Ince for hav­ing ex­posed her to many great artistes, but none stood out and were treat­ed like kings like Spar­row. Among her thrilling spurts of in­put, some of which jarred Ince’s mem­o­ry, were how she ac­tu­al­ly met Spar­row—first in 1992 at a fash­ion show she host­ed in Brook­lyn, then with her par­ents at car­ni­val in St Croix, Vir­gin Is­lands, at age 16.

She al­so re­called Spar­row’s ges­tures of the close friend­ship and mu­tu­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Ince such as gift­ing him a Rolex watch; Spar­row hav­ing been the best-man in their New York-based wed­ding, dur­ing which he shared how long he knew Ince, toast­ed and blessed them, sang May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You to them, threw pi­cong on Ince’s ex­quis­ite taste in choos­ing a wife, but con­trast­ing­ly to the bride of the groom, which raised laugh­er, of­fered salient big-broth­er­ly ad­vice which got Ince’s at­ten­tion: “It’s im­por­tant to stay com­mit­ted, so ‘don’t let she get away,’ and got a spe­cial pho­to with the bride.”

Spar­row and Ince through the years:

First col­lab­o­ra­tion (1955-1959)

Ince plays the trum­pet on Jean and Di­nah, and by 20, plays on al­most every sin­gle record Spar­row pro­duced with the ex­cep­tion of one al­bum - There­sa.

1960s

Ince mi­grates to Amer­i­ca, plays with mas­sive jazz or­ches­tras such as Tom­my Dorsey and Li­onel Hamp­ton, forms his own band and re­unites with Spar­row. They be­gin trav­el­ling the world to­geth­er, per­form across five con­ti­nents, and in­tro­duce car­ni­val to Nige­ria. In 1963. Ince spends two years in Eng­land and serves in the British Army, sub­se­quent­ly re­turn­ing to Trinidad and im­me­di­ate­ly re­sumes work­ing with Spar­row.

1970s

In the mid-1970s, Spar­row stopped com­pet­ing but con­tin­ued record­ing, mak­ing mu­sic and per­form­ing.

The Chief Arranger Era

(1989-2004)

Ince arranges every con­sec­u­tive song for Spar­row, in­clud­ing All the Way for the T&T World Cup qual­i­fy­ing round, which saw them speak­ing on the phone al­most dai­ly.

1990s

Grand Con­cert: Ince and Spar­row per­form a his­toric set to­geth­er at Yan­kee Sta­di­um to wel­come Nel­son Man­dela to the Unit­ed States short­ly af­ter his (Man­dela’s) re­lease from prison. Spar­row puts down a mon­ster hit about Man­dela’s in­ter­view with Ted Kop­pel.

The last two decades

“We did a lot to­geth­er,” said Ince. “We spent more time trav­el­ling the world and spoke with each oth­er every sin­gle day, but on Sep­tem­ber 3, 2022, Spar­row turned his life com­plete­ly to God and was bap­tised in the Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist faith. Spar­row sent me re­li­gious mes­sages and emo­jis, and we both be­came very re­served. As we grew old­er, our lives be­came much qui­eter and peace­ful. I wrote mu­sic to oc­cu­py my time, while Spar­row fo­cused on his fam­i­ly and be­ing a faith­ful Ad­ven­tist. I last spoke to Spar­row the day be­fore he was hos­pi­talised, but he didn’t ex­it alive.”

Mighty Spar­row through Ince’s eyes

“The Mighty Spar­row is the ul­ti­mate pro­fes­sion­al. There is no oth­er artiste in the world who could go on stage, com­plete­ly lose their voice, and still con­trol a crowd for an hour us­ing on­ly jokes, sto­ries, and pure charis­ma. He was bril­liant and ed­u­cat­ed. De­spite not hav­ing a for­mal uni­ver­si­ty de­gree, Spar­row was high­ly in­tel­lec­tu­al. He was a flu­ent mul­ti­lin­gual, was an avid read­er of the New York Times, and could have de­bat­ed cur­rent af­fairs with any­one.

“In the stu­dio, he want­ed things his way and was very hands-on with melodies, but he was rea­son­able,” ex­plained Ince. “Once I built the foun­da­tion­al arrange­ment and ex­plained why cer­tain melod­ic lines need­ed ad­just­ing to fit the mu­sic, Spar­row al­ways un­der­stood and adapt­ed.”