"MAS MAN is several possible movies synthesised into a description of three decades of visual 'synchronised wonderment. Dalton Narine deftly integrates contextual commentary by Keith Smith, Christopher Cozier, Meiling, Alwin Chow Lin On, Alyson Brown, Martin Daly, Pat Bishop, David Rudder, Pelham Goddard, Sheila Rampersad, Milla Riggio and other cognoscenti of the culture and arts of Trinidad and Tobago.
Mr. Narine's story telling is edifying and gratifying from the opening sounds of Adesh Samaroo's "Rajin Jeem Jeem Joom" to Allison Hinds' "Roll it Gal' closing. MAS MAN is more than David Rudder "Trini to the Bone"; it's about "all ah we".
Peter Minshall should agree with that opinion given how his work is depicted in this movie."
The above is taken from the promotional blurb of "Mas Man", a film by my friend Dalton Narine who has long shared with me a love for the steelband in general and "All Stars" (in his case) and the long defunct "Hilanders" (in mine). It is not that I am not an "All Stars" fans or he a Hilander's. It is just that my pan immersion was in Hilanders and his in All Stars_although, even here the distinction cannot be so clinically marked since both Dalton and I lived close to Hilanders at one point which resulted in his having a Hilanders loyalty even as I remain steadfast in my appreciation of the great steelband that All Stars continue to be.
As well as pan, Dalton and I share a lover for mas. In my case that began with my playing a variety of "sailor" mas with the Success Village, Laventille, band, back then when village tailors used to bring out their own sections while keeping to the Bertie Marshall-mandated overall theme of the band, a helicopter pilot mas I played, complete with parachute, vivid in my memory to this day.
Hilanders folded and I gravitated to "Irvin McWilliams," Port of Spain's so-called "black" people band and when that , too, folded, I became part of the Minshall merriment first as a masquerader and then as the manager of the Laventille Rhythm Section which was part of "Minsh's" musical ensemble until he brought down the curtain on his Carnival involvement, that period being the second high point of my Carnival career, the early Hilanders experience being the first.
What a time I had in Minshall. Imagine, if you will, the euphoria I felt on Carnival Monday afternoon, 1986, when David Rudder, crowned calypso king the night before, invited me on the "Charlie Roots" truck when in tandem with Chris "Tambu" Herbert he delivered stunners such as "The Hammer" and "Bahia Girl." the two day extravaganza crowned with a Wrightson Road last lap lagniappe that saw "Roots" playing ad singing, as the evening sun went down, some o the great kaiso hits of yesteryear Rudder, even at the height of his own success, paying tributes to the masters who came before him and whom he acknowledged as the people who had "seeded " him.
What a collaboration that was _Minshall and Roots! The latter responsible for the aural orgasm (I can think of no better word) and the former for the visual. And what visuals! Old-time mas made modern magic in the hands of a man who, just like Rudder with Kitchener, Lion, Executor, Sparrow and the royal rest, understood and appreciated his debt to the breakthrough mas men, first and foremost the late and great George Bailey, both the calypsonian and the designer, reaching for their genre's future by seeking (and finding!) nourishment in its roots.
As we now wallow through a dread time when "mas" is made in China and the road march is a melange of mostly North American pop, I stand forever grateful to Dalton who persevered with what must have been a daunting task, Trinidad and Tobago not known as a country with a penchant for preserving things not least in the Carnival cavalcade which sees everything poised to be thrown away as not just last year's but Carnival Tuesday's costumes, Mr Narine knowing, more than most, that it is by setting our creativity in the "stone" of today's film technology that we can show future generations all that used to be brilliant about us.
