Fay­ola K J Fras­er

With­out hav­ing any fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the Span­ish lan­guage, al­most every Trin­bag­on­ian can sing a few lines, or maybe the cho­rus and per­haps even a verse of Ale­gría—one of the most well-loved parang songs by the late and great mu­si­cal gi­ant Daisy Voisin. In­ti­mate­ly in­ter­twined in our cel­e­bra­tion of Christ­mas as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, parang is tra­di­tion­al folk mu­sic, born and raised in Trinidad and To­ba­go through the in­flu­ences of Venezue­lan mi­grants cen­turies ago.

Al­though we may be very fa­mil­iar with its sweet sounds, many peo­ple may not know of the ori­gin of the art form. The word ‘parang’ comes from the Span­ish word ‘par­ran­da’, mean­ing a fes­tive gath­er­ing or a group of peo­ple mov­ing from house to house mak­ing mu­sic. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, parang bands would trav­el from home to home singing in Span­ish, shar­ing songs that tell the sto­ry of the birth of Je­sus Christ, spread­ing joy, good­will and cel­e­bra­tion. If the host en­joyed the per­for­mance, the singers would be in­vit­ed in­side and treat­ed with food and drink. That tra­di­tion con­tin­ues to­day in many com­mu­ni­ties.

Over time, Trinida­di­ans added their own in­flu­ence, blend­ing Span­ish lyrics with lo­cal rhythms, writ­ing orig­i­nal songs and shap­ing a dis­tinct T&T style of parang.

To­day, parang is both a mu­si­cal tra­di­tion and a cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion, rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try’s pow­er­ful and unique his­to­ry of cross-cul­tur­al ex­change and its deeply root­ed spir­it of com­mu­ni­ty, which is in full dis­play es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing Christ­mas.

One great par­ran­dero, now cel­e­brat­ing a mile­stone 35 years as a voice in parang, is Joanne Brig­gs, vo­cal­ist in the band Los Par­ran­deros de UWI. Brig­gs re­mem­bers mu­sic as ever-present in her child­hood home in Ma­coya Gar­dens. She fond­ly re­calls wak­ing up to the ra­dio al­ready play­ing, fill­ing the house with a wide mix of sounds and rhythms, but what re­mained es­pe­cial­ly etched in her mem­o­ry was “every­thing lo­cal”.

Ca­lyp­so gi­ants like the Mighty Shad­ow, Spar­row and Lord Kitch­en­er flowed eas­i­ly along­side parang dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, cre­at­ing an ear­ly sound­track root­ed firm­ly in T&T. Brig­gs’ moth­er was in­ten­tion­al about that ex­po­sure, en­cour­ag­ing her chil­dren to un­der­stand who they were as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans through mu­sic.

That ground­ing in cul­ture ex­tend­ed be­yond the ra­dio. Brig­gs’ moth­er sang in a choir, while her fa­ther played steel­pan with In­vaders, mak­ing mu­sic a lived, breath­ing part of fam­i­ly life. At Christ­mas, parang came nat­u­ral­ly; it was what she heard at her grand­moth­er’s house, what played on TTT dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son, mark­ing the time be­fore broad­cast sign-on and sign-off. Al­though she en­joyed parang, she re­calls hear­ing a lot of Glo­ria Al­cazar, whose voice would lat­er be­come deeply in­ter­twined with her own parang jour­ney.

One of her ear­li­est for­ma­tive mem­o­ries was at­tend­ing a ju­nior parang fes­ti­val at Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain. Schools per­formed with lyric sheets in hand, and al­though Brig­gs wasn’t yet an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant, some­thing was qui­et­ly tak­ing root. When she en­tered sec­ondary school and be­gan learn­ing Span­ish, the lyrics start­ed to make sense to her, and parang was no longer sim­ply a sound, but the sto­ries start­ed to un­fold. Al­though she came from a mu­si­cal back­ground, she wasn’t pushed in­to the art form; the at­trac­tion was nat­ur­al, grad­ual, and deeply per­son­al.

That at­trac­tion crys­tallised in her fi­nal year at uni­ver­si­ty in 1990, a year marked by grief af­ter the pass­ing of her grand­moth­er. Seek­ing com­fort, Brig­gs stum­bled up­on Los Par­ran­deros de UWI singing parang. She sim­ply want­ed to en­joy the mu­sic and be part of the mo­ment, nev­er imag­in­ing that she would re­main with the band for decades, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing its lead singer. Thir­ty-five years lat­er, that de­ci­sion stands as a defin­ing mile­stone in her life.

From that day for­ward, parang gave her im­mense joy. With time, Brig­gs grew com­fort­able with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of lead­er­ship. In 1991 she ex­e­cut­ed her first lead per­for­mance in An­chor­age around 1991, singing Ale­gría, dressed in the band’s tra­di­tion­al white uni­form. The but­ter­flies were in­tense; she was no longer part of the cho­rus but stand­ing alone in the spot­light.

“Peo­ple al­ways ex­pect that you have to mea­sure up to Daisy Voisin,” she says, which brought her some nerves, “But I was de­ter­mined to do jus­tice to the song,” and she re­mem­bers the re­lief and pride when the au­di­ence ap­plaud­ed and her band­mates egged her on.

Los Par­ran­deros de UWI be­came a main­stay on the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion cir­cuit, of­ten plac­ing sec­ond be­fore fi­nal­ly win­ning the com­pe­ti­tion in 2006. Brig­gs her­self won Best Lead Singer three times. Still, the nerves nev­er left. She re­calls one year step­ping on­to the com­pe­ti­tion stage slathered in calamine lo­tion af­ter break­ing out in hives, and an­oth­er when she bat­tled laryn­gi­tis and had to re­main silent far in­to the sea­son—an al­most un­bear­able chal­lenge for her as a singer.

Brig­gs is not on­ly a par­ran­dero but al­so an ad­vo­cate for the art form. She is quick to chal­lenge com­mon mis­con­cep­tions. Par­ran­deros, she said, are of­ten un­fair­ly paint­ed as drunks, when in re­al­i­ty they are dis­ci­plined, tal­ent­ed peo­ple com­mit­ted to the struc­ture and beau­ty of the craft.

For Brig­gs, parang is not con­fined to Christ­mas, even though the sea­son am­pli­fies its mean­ing. In com­mu­ni­ties like Lopinot and Paramin, peo­ple still gath­er with a cu­a­tro and mara­cas, turn­ing any mo­ment in­to a jam ses­sion. At its core, parang is one of the great­est rep­re­sen­ta­tions of T&T’s abil­i­ty to har­ness the beau­ty of oth­er cul­tures and blend it with a lit­tle of our own flavour. Brig­gs of­ten be­lieves that “the roots and routes” of Venezuela and T&T re­main for­ev­er in­ter­twined through the mu­sic.

Brig­gs counts her great­est high­light over the years as her long tenure with Los Par­ran­deros de UWI, a band com­mit­ted not just to per­for­mance but to ed­u­ca­tion and con­ti­nu­ity. In this 35th year, she has been pass­ing on what she has learnt to younger gen­er­a­tions, sup­port­ing ju­nior parang com­pe­ti­tions and work­ing close­ly with stu­dents from Tu­na­puna Girls’ RC School on singing, pre­sen­ta­tion and per­for­mance. Though she may not have writ­ten songs her­self, she sees her role as vi­tal; pro­ject­ing the mu­sic with hon­esty and re­spect is a team ef­fort she is proud to be part of.

Look­ing ahead, Brig­gs con­tin­ues to re­main ex­cit­ed and hope­ful about the fu­ture of the art form. “Parang”, she in­sists, “is not dead; like any­thing else, it is grow­ing and evolv­ing.” Younger voic­es are emerg­ing, ju­nior singers are ea­ger to join se­nior bands, and con­ver­sa­tions about au­then­tic­i­ty sig­nal that peo­ple are lis­ten­ing.

What she wants most is deep­er un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion: recog­ni­tion of the skilled gui­tarists, cu­a­tro play­ers, man­dolin learn­ers, mara­cas play­ers and tocs who form the en­gine room of the mu­sic. Parang, she said, is not noise; it is melody, rhythm, dis­ci­pline and heart. Her wish is for the art form to keep grow­ing, car­ry­ing its mo­men­tum for­ward with en­er­gy, re­spect and joy.