Remembering the late great Andre Tanker with "Ben Lion" as arranged by the legendary Clive Bradley
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| Master arranger Clive Bradley on New York Panorama stage with Pantonic Steel Orchestra performing "Ben Lion" by Andre Tanker |
Bruce Paddington on Andre Tanker:The Bob Dylan of Trinidad
The Trinidadian musician Andre Tanker, who has died of a heart attack aged
61, described his work as "Caribbean world music", combining African,
Indian, European and the region's Amerindian traditions. The soca star David
Rudder compared the influence of Tanker in Trinidad to that of Bob Dylan on
contemporary American music.
Tanker experimented with Latin American, African, jazz, calypso and,
recently, rapso while giving his music a
Trinidad and Tobago
character that embraced the steelbands of his 1940s Port of Spain boyhood
and today's rapso/soca music. In 2002, his song Ben Lion was a hit for the
band 3 Canal. The work combined a dance rhythm with political references and
was one of the most popular carnival tunes. It brought Tanker to the
attention of a young audience.
Tanker was born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain. His mother was a dancer and a
descendant of the 19th-century painter Michel Cazabon. At eight, Tanker was
given a steelpan by the steelband pioneer Ellie Mannette, and while a
schoolboy at the prestigious St Mary's College he arranged pieces for the
Invaders Steel Orchestra. At 17, he formed the Coronets combo, and in the
1960s his group the Flamingoes played weekly at the Trinidad Hilton, the
first local group to perform there. His main instruments were the vibraphone
and the harmonica.
After time in north America, from the mid to the late 1960s, Tanker returned
to Trinidad. The haunting Forward Home, his first major hit, captured the
mood of the local black power movement, rejecting foreign influences and
promoting indigenous development.
Tanker also began a long collaboration with Derek Walcott (who later became
a Nobel prize winner for literature) and his Trinidad Theatre Workshop. He
composed the score and cowrote the lyrics for Walcott's musical Ti-Jean And
His Brothers, which was produced by Joseph Papp in New York's Central Park
in 1972. He composed music for a number of other productions, including
Mustapha Matura's Playboy Of The West Indies at Lincoln Center, New York;
the Central Park adaptation of Measure For Measure with Kevin Kline and
Blair Underwood; and Earl Lovelace's The Dragon Can't Dance. He was also the
musical director of Geraldine Connor's British production of Carnival
Messiah.
He wrote the music for Hugh Robertson's 1974 Trinidad and Tobago feature
film Bim, and for Frances-Anne Solomon's What My Mother Told Me (Channel 4,
1994). Local choreographers developed dance pieces set to his music,
including the beautiful Morena Osha by Astor Johnson's Repertory Dance
Company.
In 1996 he released Children Of The Big Bang, an album of his best work.
Tunes such as Basement Party and Steelband Times were popular party
favourites, but they always included positive messages. Others like
Sayamanda, with its Baptist chants, became anthems.
I knew Tanker for more than 30 years. Quiet, unassuming, deeply spiritual,
he will be missed. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Christine, and
his daughter Zo-Mari.
· Andre Tanker, musician, born September 29 1941; died February 28 2003
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