Joanna, Ganja and Steel Bands

It was Kirsten Marshall who can really take the credit for the formation of the Wynberg Steel Band. The school was on cricket tour in Barbados taking part in the Sir Garfield Sobers International Cricket Tournament and it was a day off for the team.  We were lounging around the hotel’s swimming pool – the boys were talking and tanning while Dave Russell and I were reading.  There were a number of other hotel guests around the pool, including a young, nubile Argentinean lass, who was attracting the lascivious attention of our hormone-charged cricket team.

Barbados 1994

Opening bowler, Kirsten Marshall, led the attack.  It was difficult to concentrate on reading while he was turning on the charm with a patter of inane comments. 

‘So where are you from then?....  Argentina?  I love Argentina....Don’t you play soccer there?.... No, we are not Americans…. We are from Cape Town…  Where is it? …..  It is quite near Argentina, but at the bottom of the next continent…’

I couldn’t take it anymore.  I closed my book and suggested to Dave Russell that we forego eavesdropping on these fumbling teenage conversational attempts and spend the afternoon walking around Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, which was about five miles from our hotel.

It was always fun to walk along the noisy quays of the yacht basin of Bridgetown. The stalls and shops and people were a riot of colour.   We were browsing through t-shirts when I heard it.  I had never heard a steel drum before and, leaving Dave to enjoy his shopping, I followed the melodic sounds to find a solitary drummer, wearing a beanie of Jamaican colours, enthusiastically thumping out the reggae tunes of Bob Marley.  I sat down to listen at a nearby table.

I was still there half an hour later when he took a break.  Somehow or other, we caught one another’s eye and he wandered over to me. Perhaps he recognised a fellow musical artiste?

I was brought down to earth.

‘Would you like some ganja, mon?’ he drawled in his thick West Indian accent.

I thought I hadn’t heard him properly.

‘Would I like what?’

He proceeded to tell me, in some detail, about the quality of his merchandise. I was quite put out.  I had come to listen to his expertise on the steel drum – not to take part in some seedy drug deal. Stammering some inaudible excuse, I fled back to the hotel, stopping only to buy a CD of steel drum music on the way.

Roll on six or seven years. I was now Headmaster of Wynberg and had flown up to Grahamstown to participate in the annual Conference for Headmasters of Boys’ Schools.  It was being hosted by Peter Reid of Graeme College and during one of the breaks, as is the wont of visiting Headmasters, I wandered around the school to feel the vibe of the place. I then heard that unique sound again…. the exciting pulsating rhythm of steel drums emanating from a nearby room.

Steel Band performance, 30 October 2015

I followed the sound and it was a sight to behold. About fifteen boys were playing and dancing while they made music.  I was mesmerised.  Fortunately I wasn’t offered anything untoward this time and watched the group with fascination.  I later engaged the music teacher in conversation and soon found out that the manufacturer of steel drums in South Africa worked very near the school in Grahamstown.

I bunked the next session at the conference, borrowed a car and tracked the manufacturer down.  He tempered my enthusiasm by giving me good advice.  ‘Before you buy, first see if your boys like the concept.  I can put you in touch with a steel drum teacher in Cape Town, who will bring his own drums to practices at your school.’

And so it proved. Peter Catzavelos, always available to try something new, did not need much persuading to be manager of this new and exciting group of musicians.  Every Tuesday evening for a number of years, Kenny Gibe arrived with his trailer of drums and the coaching sessions took place in the front car park – right outside my office. The neighbours of Wynberg have had their patience sorely tested as generations of schoolboys have regaled them over the years with their early faltering (and stuttering) musical offerings as they struggled to master the bugles in the cadet band, the pans of the steel drums and, of late, the bagpipes in our newly formed pipe band.

Wynberg's Junior Steel Band

I remember the first weeks of the Steel Band with less than fondness.  ‘Amazing Grace’ was the first tune learnt by our pipers this year and it sounded positively like a Carnegie Hall virtuoso performance compared to those initial Steel Band rendition of ‘Give me Hope, Joanna’.  Those early performers in the parking lot were not able to read music and painstakingly followed the diagrams on the pan without any regard to rhythm.  The result was stiff, stilting and excruciating:  ‘Gi-ve-me-ho-pe-Jo-an-na’.

I recalled the injunction of Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, that true musicians move their ‘cheeks’ in time with the music:  ‘You can’t sit or stand still when making music,’ he said to us in the audience at Artscape one year when he was out on a visit.  Following this advice, I used to  shout out of my office windows at my steel drummers: ‘Dance! Show that you are enjoying it!’

Rigid and inflexible, they ignored me as they needed every ounce of concentration to read the markings on the pan.

How to navigate the pan ...

As I look back after a number of years, I have been truly gratified to see how many boys have started off their musical journeys on those steel drums and graduated to playing in our Concert and Jazz Bands.  Now everyone who plays in one of our steel bands can read music and they have fortunately moved on from giving Joanna hope.  The Steel Bands now stand proudly on their own as musical features of Wynberg.

After two years of car park practices, three events happened which changed the face of steel drums at Wynberg. 

The first was the sizable bequest of a Wynberg Old Boy, Stefan-Rolf Nussbaum for the development of music at his old school.  With this money, we were able to construct a 150 seat theatre in the Alf Morris Centre with six music rooms attached.  We now honour his memory every year with our annual Nussbaum Concert, ‘The Best of Wynberg’s Music’.

The second event was the attendance of Charles MacGregor, a long-standing friend from my own schooldays, and his wife Trish, at the first Nussbaum Concert. Both were captivated and enthralled by the Steel Band performance on that night. They offered to pay for the manufacture of our own steel drums which has resulted in future generations of Wynberg musicians enjoying the privilege of learning a different genre of music. 

The third significant event was the arrival of a young boy at Wynberg who had come from the Junior School. He was besotted with music – in all its forms.  The Steel Band was another musical avenue for him to explore.  By the time he was in Grade 11, Keenan Oliphant, was teaching and coaching the boys himself. He offered his services to the school after matriculating and, under his tutelage, we now boast a steel band for every Grade.  Traditionally, the first performance of the Grade 8 band is at Grandparents’ Day in September. Grandparents are about as appreciative an audience as any aspiring musician could ever hope for. Wynberg Steel Bands now play at a variety of events around the Peninsula and have been heard as far afield as Greyton, Hermanus, Ceres, Franschoek and Clanwilliam.

Keenan has now also started an annual concert (in the Nussbaum Theatre, of course) to display the talents of his five Steel Bands.  I sat through the recent performance and could not help thinking back to that Bajan wharf and the journey which the succession of Wynberg Boys’ High School steel bands has undergone since that early idea took root.

Wynberg's Senior Steel Band

I am pleased to note that Wynberg music has progressed beyond Joanna and that she has now been dispatched to the dustbin of musical history at the school.  It is wonderful to see that the current boys have the ability and expertise to play a wide variety of tunes reflecting the full spectrum of classical, modern and pop music.

At this recent Concert, I was astounded by the rendition of the theme tune ‘The Mission’ as executed by the Matric Steel Band.  They interpreted it with a sensitivity and feeling which belied their years.  Dancing and moving those cheeks like seasoned professionals, they finished off the evening by going back to the populist roots of steel drums and playing ‘Like a Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus.

Wrecking Ball

It was enthusiastically received by the audience – none more so than by the appreciative members of other steel bands standing in the wings watching their more accomplished compatriots turning in a breath-taking performance.  Clapping and weaving, they snaked their way down the aisle collecting members of the audience (mostly young and female) into their group.  What an atmosphere!  The band fully deserved their well-earned standing ovation at the conclusion of the evening.

Thank you, Mr Ganja Man.   If you are still around on that Bridgetown wharf, I am giving you advanced warning that we are planning to send the Wynberg 1st Cricket team back to Barbados in 2017.  I would just ask, though, that you refrain from playing them ‘Give me Dope, Joanna’.