Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The rhythm of Or­isha drums, songs of praise and the voic­es of some of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing cul­tur­al fig­ures filled the air yes­ter­day as fam­i­ly, friends, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and mem­bers of the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered at the Mor­vant Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to cel­e­brate the ex­tra­or­di­nary life of cul­tur­al icon Bill “Paul” Trot­man.

Trot­man was laid to rest in a cer­e­mo­ny that was a fit­ting trib­ute to a man whose life em­bod­ied the cre­ativ­i­ty, hu­mour and spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Through mu­sic, sto­ry­telling and per­son­al mem­o­ries, those gath­ered ho­n­oured an en­ter­tain­er who spent more than six decades shap­ing the na­tion’s cul­tur­al land­scape as a ca­lyp­son­ian, ac­tor, co­me­di­an, painter, mas­man, po­et and mas­ter of cer­e­monies.

Among those present were vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Crazy and oth­er cul­tur­al per­son­al­i­ties, while mem­bers of the Laven­tille East/Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ty re­flect­ed on Trot­man’s deep con­nec­tion to the area. Al­so in at­ten­dance was Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Chris­t­ian Birch­wood.

Vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian the Mighty Con­tender, re­al name Mark John, chair­man of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) North Zone, de­scribed Trot­man as a “dis­tin­guished son of the soil” whose con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture would con­tin­ue to in­spire gen­er­a­tions.

John said Trot­man’s in­flu­ence went far be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The world was his stage as his ca­reer stretched be­yond shores to North Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. In­deed, he left a huge foot­print that is root­ed in the high­est stan­dards of ex­cel­lence.”

He said one of Trot­man’s great­est qual­i­ties was his will­ing­ness to share his knowl­edge with younger artistes.

“Bill was not self­ish with his tal­ent as he will­ing­ly shared his knowl­edge with young up-and-com­ing artists.”

John re­flect­ed on the era in which Trot­man emerged, sur­round­ed by some of the biggest names in ca­lyp­so, in­clud­ing Mighty Spar­row, Lord Nel­son, Blakie, Black Stal­in, Mighty Duke and Lord Kitch­en­er.

Re­mem­ber­ing Trot­man’s mu­si­cal con­tri­bu­tion, John high­light­ed clas­sics such as Back to School, It Feels So Good, The Hun­gry Man from Clapham and Rat Race, while al­so urg­ing peo­ple to ap­pre­ci­ate his work as a vi­su­al artist.

John al­so shared a per­son­al sto­ry about how Trot­man’s mu­sic in­flu­enced his own jour­ney.

He re­called be­ing about 12 years old at Rose Hill LRC School when he made his first ap­pear­ance on stage, singing the cho­rus of The Hun­gry Man from Clapham dur­ing a school con­cert.

“I wasn’t even the lead singer. I went up to sing cho­rus for him, and that was my first ap­pear­ance.”

He said the re­sponse from the au­di­ence was over­whelm­ing.

That ex­pe­ri­ence helped pro­pel him in­to ca­lyp­so, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing him to win the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle in 1966 and 1967.

“You see the rel­e­vance that peo­ple like Bill Trot­man would have had on some peo­ple’s lives,” he said.

An­oth­er emo­tion­al trib­ute came from ca­lyp­son­ian Twig­gy, Ann-Marie Parks-Ko­jo, who spoke about her per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with Trot­man and the im­pact he had on her own ca­lyp­so jour­ney.

Parks-Ko­jo re­called first meet­ing Trot­man in 1986 through Spar­row’s Young Brigade Ca­lyp­so Tent, where he served as em­cee, en­ter­tain­er and a com­mand­ing pres­ence on stage.

She re­mem­bered watch­ing Trot­man per­form Back to School, in­clud­ing the fa­mous line: “Mom­my, Mom­my, I want to go back to school.”

Parks-Ko­jo said she lat­er had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend time with Trot­man at his home short­ly be­fore his pass­ing, where they re­flect­ed on decades of ca­lyp­so his­to­ry.

“He in­tro­duced most of his work to me, which I have al­ready known some of them. I have a cou­ple of his books and it was re­al­ly, re­al­ly in­spir­ing to be at his home.”

She said she hoped to con­tin­ue pre­serv­ing some of the jour­nals and his­tor­i­cal ma­te­ri­als Trot­man want­ed her to re­view.

She al­so re­called a spe­cial act of gen­eros­i­ty from Trot­man when he vis­it­ed the TU­CO of­fice while us­ing a wheel­chair.

Trot­man pre­sent­ed a cheque for $5,000 to the Twin Bay Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion wel­fare fund.

“I will nev­er for­get that to­ken, that ca­lyp­son­ian Bill, in his wheel­chair, brought to the Twin Bay Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee (NACC) al­so re­flect­ed on Trot­man’s abil­i­ty to com­mand an au­di­ence, re­call­ing a mem­o­rable 1979 per­for­mance in To­ba­go.

Dur­ing the first year, NACC host­ed full ca­lyp­so tents at Shaw Park, a tech­ni­cal prob­lem with the sound sys­tem caused frus­tra­tion among thou­sands of pa­trons. As ten­sions grew and bot­tles were thrown to­wards the stage, Trot­man stepped for­ward.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive re­called that Trot­man used hu­mour, sto­ry­telling and his fa­mous ca­lyp­so Mom­my, Mom­my to calm the crowd and re­store or­der.

“He be­gan to give jokes, and bit by bit, the au­di­ence be­gan to re­spond.”

He said Trot­man’s abil­i­ty to man­age the sit­u­a­tion demon­strat­ed his pro­fes­sion­al­ism and un­der­stand­ing of per­for­mance.

The trib­ute end­ed with a call for the val­ues Trot­man rep­re­sent­ed to con­tin­ue.

Born in Port-of-Spain and raised in Wood­brook be­fore mov­ing to Mor­vant at age ten, Trot­man be­came one of T&T’s most ac­com­plished cul­tur­al fig­ures.

Per­form­ing as Lord Fly­ing Fish, he cre­at­ed time­less ca­lyp­so clas­sics while al­so leav­ing his mark as an ac­tor, co­me­di­an, vi­su­al artist, mas de­sign­er and cul­tur­al men­tor.

He spent 23 years with Spar­row’s Orig­i­nal Young Brigade Ca­lyp­so Tent, served as mas­ter of cer­e­monies for Di­manche Gras for 11 years and per­formed on some of the world’s most pres­ti­gious stages. His con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture was recog­nised na­tion­al­ly in 2005 when he re­ceived the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Sil­ver).

The trib­utes con­clud­ed with mu­sic, prayer and cul­tur­al per­for­mances. Those gath­ered re­flect­ed on a man whose laugh­ter, cre­ativ­i­ty and gen­eros­i­ty en­riched T&T.