Goan Dance Bands of Yesteryear: Some Personal Reflections.
This is a spontaneous piece on hearing of the death, at ninety-four of Artie
Shaw in America. Shaw was an outstanding clarinettist and big band leader.
Also, a contemporary of Benny Goodman, an equally brilliant fellow American
clarinettist and a big band leader too. I was able to recall tunes made
famous by Shaw such as Begin the Beguine, Lady Be Good, Moonglow, and
Frenesi among so many other tunes he played. These were also the tunes that
generations of Goan musicians played in Goa, Bombay, Karachi, Calcutta,
Nairobi, Mombasa, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Colombo, and on the high
seas on many ocean liners. However, any composite picture of the many
outstanding Goan musicians, including classical and film musicians, has yet
to be produced and it is my hope that an article like this will provide some
impetus to a musically inclined Goan, or other historian to generate a much
needed account of this area. Indeed, earlier posts on Goanet, stemming from
Tony Barros in New Jersey, indicated much interest in this theme, and
hopefully, this will be boosted further.
It has often been said that music runs in Goan veins. I agree of course, but
want to add that it has flowed with much sentimentality and nostalgia for
'Goaness'. Early training in Goan villages on the violin, and in hymnal
singing generated and supported a distinctive Goan musicality and
sociability in my view and also created a productive symbiosis between the
musicians, in a group, and those enjoying what they generated. This has also
been true for sport where many Goans have excelled, then and now, but
perhaps more may be on record for sport, because of greater press
availability, than for music, but hopefully, this anomaly will be rectified
in the near future.
Every one of the places mentioned above has a narrative to tell and if only
we could delve deeper into memory lane, what a lovely story we would be
able to tell of so many musicians who gave and have continued to give so
much pleasure to fellow Goans and others.
In the little town of Mombasa, where I was brought up, I recall Goan amateur
bands from Abel Correa and his Toe Ticklers, Neves Pereira and his Pieces of
Eight, Raul da Costa and his Luar Blues, Edmund Silveira and his jazz
trio, and Nelson Pereira and his Gay Caballeros i.e before the word gay
took on modern connotations!
Interspersed with the above bands, was my group, the Melody Dance Band
(MDB) between 1957 and 1961 but we musicians did play in support of each
other when necessary, and I personally played the saxophone and clarinet
across three bands. Additionally, as Mombasa was a major port, we had the
good fortune of having periodic visits from large ocean liners like the SS
Kenya, SS Karanja and SS Kampala which variously plied between India, East
and South Africa, the Meditteranean and the UK. On board these ships were
outstanding Goan professional musicians who played alongside the local Goan
bands from time to time when their ships docked. Further, Goan dance bands
between neighbouring East African countries like Kenya, Tanganyika and
Uganda helped to add variety too.
Until about 1960, wind instruments like the saxophone, trumpet and clarinet
dominated the dance band scene with the support of rhythm, percussion and
other instruments. Subsequently, a major change came about with the
electric, lead, rhythm and bass guitar and these effectively replaced the
traditional lead wind instruments. Phillip Mascarenhas and his Shiftas, in
Mombasa, represented this transition which was undoubtedly related to
developments in the technology of amplification and the new found immense
versatility of stringed instruments including the keyboard, and changing
taste of course. For instance, in all my playing in Kenya, I had never once
blown my saxophone, into a microphone. The explanation for this was
simple--we had access to just one mike, provided by the organisers of a
dance and intended primarily for the master of ceremonies (MC) to make
necessary announcements. When possible, we would use the single microphone
to amplify our pianist's best efforts. For the rest of the time the wind
instrumentalists blew as hard as they could, and particularly exhaustingly,
if a dance was held in the open air as on a tennis court bedecked with palm
fronds and lighting.
Our single (rhythm) guitarist had built a most basic amplifier, with the
help of an electrician, and which was housed in a plywood box shaped liked
a little coffin! This would be manoevoured with utmost care to avoid any
disruption to the delicate wiring and the valves (yes valves!) which were
in general use in radios before the advent of transistors. What I say may
sound pitiable today but one distinct advantage at that time was that every
musician could actually hear what he/she was playing. I point this out if
only to indicate that
