Remembering Lt. Joseph Nathaniel Griffith and TASPO

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by Roger Gibbs- Singer-Songwriter-Guitarist at Shak Shak

Provided by and published with the expressed permission of, the author


Lt. Joseph Nathaniel Griffith

Joseph Nathaniel Griffith brought a vision and musical rigor to the steelband concept. In 1951, steelbands were basically rough musical percussion collectives, fit for street Carnival but little more. The top steelbands of the day were made up of a number of lead pans or ‘ping-pongs’. These lead pans played melodies in unison with limited alto versions adding a few harmony notes. The rest of the band was made up of biscuit tin drums with 2-3 notes each adding some basic lower parts and accompanied by an assorted percussion. The sound of this early steelband music was raucous, lively, spontaneous, polyphonic, polyrhythmic – but also very uneven in tones, lacking instrumental clarity and pitch, and with inconsistent balance and blend. Add to that, steelpan protagonists had reputations as hooligans and lawbreakers and were not considered respectable members of society. Band rivalries were fierce and violence was common when bands clashed. There was a deep stigma of shame and revulsion towards the steel drum community from the wider society, a legacy of colonial attitudes.

At this seminal moment in 1951, Joseph Griffith was brought to Trinidad to lead TASPO. He was recruited from St. Lucia where he was then working as Director of the St. Lucia Police Band. He had an impressive résumé and earlier on had spent many years in the 1930s and 40s in Trinidad teaching music, forming several musical groups and presenting concerts. He was a virtuoso musician who played sax and clarinet and with an extensive musical education. Griffith had spent his younger years cutting his teeth from 14 years old with the Barbados Police Band, and later in Harlem, New York in his 20s as a freelance musician. In addition to his stint in Trinidad, Griffith had a fascinating career leading bands and orchestras in Martinique and St. Vincent. Put in charge of TASPO, Griffith implemented a vision of the steelband we recognize today. He was a no-nonsense type of guy who was also known to love a drink and had a good sense of camaraderie. He transformed the ragtag sounding steel percussion band into a full Western European-styled concert orchestra. He took the street bacchanal steelband sound of the late 1940s and re-imagined it as a concert presentation.

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