Neville Jules Speaks on Pan
Mr. Neville Jules and friend
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TrinbagoPan.com Reporters
Interview Date: May 26, 2007
Posted: June 11, 2007
TRINBAGOPAN: How did the band itself develop from when you all started Cross of Lorraine?
NEVILLE: Well, our first name was Second Fiddle and when we left here we used the name for a time. 'Fisheye' was the captain of the band back then and we kept meeting until we eventually decided to change the name and call the band Cross of Lorraine. 'Fisheye' really didn't know how to be a captain and so on. He was a kind of a greedy or selfish person. I think it was the Carnival in 1946 when we played for a sailor band in Belmont and he charged the band thirty dollars. Come Ash Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, he had the money but he didn't pay. Eventually, he started to pay the players twelve cents here and there and so on. At that time, I was tuning and arranging and I was also playing on the streets. I said to myself, "Let me see how long it is going to take this guy before he gives me something." I followed him like his shadow. There was a parlour right in the corner here named O' Neil parlour and it had a long counter. O'Neil had a famous orange juice that he used to sell. He would mix the orange juice with the sugar and put them in bottles and so on. 'Fisheye' went and ordered an orange juice and he paid with a two dollar bill. The change that he got had a sixty cents piece. I was at one end of the counter and he was at the other end and he skated the sixty cents to me. That was my pay for arranging and playing. We had some problems and the guys said "no more" because we could do something and have better guys and call the band Black God or something. They wanted to call me a Black God and I said I didn't want to be any god. Then somebody suggested Trinidad All Stars and that was how we got the name of the band. When they asked me to captain the band I said, "No, I want to be a Lance Corporal." I still arranged and did everything for the band until I felt I was ready to captain the band; that was when I took over.
TRINBAGOPAN: Where was the Trinidad All Stars band set up at that time?
NEVILLE: It started right here. 'Fisheye' Yard was where the Salvation Army was, opposite Payless. At first, we called it Upper and Lower Charlotte Street; so we were there. Then we moved and we went looking at several different places. Eventually we came back here and we built a tent. When we finished the tent and we were about to bring the pans in, this was the yard that Hamil told us that the people were going to be annoyed with the noise and so on. Of course, we couldn't even use the tent. There was a vacant place on the Plannings on George Street and we moved across there and stayed for a while.
TRINBAGOPAN: How long did you remain the captain of the band?
NEVILLE: Once I had taken over the captaincy; I held it until I went to America in 1971.
TRINBAGOPAN: Up until the time you left, did you continue to tune and arrange for the band?
NEVILLE: Yes. As a matter of fact, I was tuner, arranger and sponsor. At the time, we had no sponsor and a lot of the guys were not working, but I was working. There was a tuner called Alan who was in Point and I told him I didn't have a sponsor. I said to him, "I want you to ease me up and tune some pans for me," and he agreed. I bought some drums and I took them down there. He tuned them for me and I paid him for what we arranged on.
TRINBAGOPAN: Where did you work in those days?
NEVILLE: I worked on the Port.
TRINBAGOPAN: Do you recall how the Panorama and the different pan competitions came into being?
NEVILLE: I really do not know because I was always skeptical from early o'clock. Pan had a kind of stigma to it and then suddenly people started to embrace the Steelpan. Unsure as to why that was happening, I stayed out for a while and that was one of the reasons why I didn't go with TASPO. The band didn't go to Panorama until about the third or fourth competition.
TRINBAGOPAN: The youth today probably never heard of any of your Panorama and Calypso arrangements. Have you ever thought of having the band replace some of those pieces?
NEVILLE: Not really. I was thinking of just going forward. I did certain things and tried to concentrate on the Bombs and to get certain classical pieces to play on the road. You could say we started the Bomb. After a certain time, all the bands were looking for All Stars. Those were the things I was concentrating more on to make the pan sound better.
There were instruments that I made and things that I started before other people but I put them in a corner. Before I could go back to that, somebody else did it so I couldn't make any claims on them. Double Seconds would have been me if I had done the work properly. I tuned the instrument but I used one pole. I bore holes on one side on the pole but when I bolted it up, the pans didn't remain level. The notes on the outside were good but the way it was bolted the notes changed. I rested them in a corner and about two or three months later somebody else came up with the Double Seconds and that was that.
You would hear a lot of people saying things about rubber, especially Ellie Mannette. He was not the first person to beat pan with pallet stick or to put rubber on sticks. I was using rubber on sticks before him. It was not my idea, it was deceased Price Batson. He used to live in Mango Rose with me. You could say he was the first captain of Trinidad All Stars. He was a 'jack of all trades' and he gave me a lot of ideas. When I first started the bass, he suggested I bore a hole at the top of the pan and run a wooden rod right away down and I might get a better tone. He told me if I shaved off a certain part where the high notes are maybe I might get a tone. He couldn't play but he had certain ideas. For instance, when we started Cross of Lorraine, we used house paint. He said, "Why use house paint, go and get motor car paint; that will dry in no time." Many things he talked to me about I listened and I tried some of them. I was the first person to play the pan with two sticks. Prince said to tie the rubber on the sticks and it will give it a more mellow sound. From in the early days with the tenor kittle the guys were beating a pan with a piece of a broom stick. After a while the edge of the broomstick would start to frazzle. When you come to a mellower or better instrument you want to get a better sound so he said to wrap it with piece of rubber and I did that. You find now that everybody wants a piece of the action.
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