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Jason Griffith: Voyage of the Sailor Mas'
Sketches of Fancy Sailors by Lovelace
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1946 after World War II
Staff Article
Interview Recorded: April 10, 2005
Posted: April 15, 2005
I never came into carnival until 1946 after World War II and I decided to play the mas' that I loved over the years. So, I went to register with Jim Harding. In those days he was up at the corner of Belmont Circular road and Norfolk Street. Now, when you go to register in those days, from all the bands, you see a lantern and there was a candle in it. When a candle went out they had to come and light it again; that used to direct the way to the band headquarters. Another thing too, with this particular mas', well a lot of the historical mas'... all the mas' in those days, you couldn't go to the camp just so and pay for it. If you going to the camp, you had to hide because they don't want you to see what their portrayals were; it was always a surprise for Carnival day. So when I went in they were decorating; this is what I learned after I got inside. So I heard this scampering inside, and when they open the door it was like normal as if nothing was going on. When I went in, I had a friend who was helping Jim Harding at the time, a guy by the name of Cecil Jobes, he had a band after too, so I asked, "what is all this commotion", he say, "nothing."
Let us say the headpiece in those days was five dollars, well I pay down my little thing, and sat down talking. So they find time passing and they want to work, and I am not leaving, so Cecil told Jim, "well listen nah man, Jason could be one of the boys man." They were decorating at the time when they brought out this mas'. Well, we call them floor members mas' because they were small. They brought out these headpieces and the next thing you know, when they decorated one I decorated three! Not too much decoration, just over the eyes and over the ears. I say well, I will be there until about eleven o' clock to eleven-thirty and I had to go to work the following morning. When I reach out in the yard, Jim Harding said, "Jase, what's happening man, you coming tomorrow night?" I replied, "I don't think so man." He said, "Oh gosh come an' help the boys nah man!" That is how I got into this Sailor Mas'. Up to this day, decorations are still my thing. With all the people that I helped before I had my own band, they would make a head piece and put it in front of me, and I had to design that; I had to decorate it first. I had a long stint in carnival, but this is how I really started.
The same Cecil Jobes I am telling you about, he was a much younger fellow than Jim, and I must be the youngest on the team. He decided the following year to bring out his own band. Jim Harding band was a band that was well organized already, and he was U.S.S. Mischievous. Cecil decided to bring out a band U.S.S. Michigan. I played mas with Jim Harding one year. I then played with Cecil Jobes for two years and in 1949 I had my own band. When you have two hundred members in your band, it is a large band. You have a band of about a hundred going down, you have a nice band.
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Pages: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
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