When Trinis think of Alaska, they think mostly of Eskimos and igloos. But when you meet retired Alaskan trial judge, Ray Funk, those stereotypes disappear quickly. The tall and bearded Alaskan is anything but an Eskimo. He has been a serious calypso, steelband and Carnival researcher for two decades or so, coming here annually for Carnival.The Sunday Guardian caught up with Funk, who is currently in Trinidad.
Funk has amassed a unique collection on calypso, pan and Carnival. He has been writing books (with collaborators given his limitations, according to him and scores of articles on Carnival, co-curated an exhibit, produced or wrote notes for reissue recordings, and done lectures and exhibits in New York, Florida, London, Leeds, Grand Cayman, and in Trinidad (at UWI, UTT and Nalis) on aspects of Trinidad music, theatre and Carnival.He was co-curator of a travelling and online exhibit with Steve Stuempfle at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida on the Calypso: A World Music that toured colleges and libraries in the United States and down to Trinidad several years ago. Funk also worked on a BBC4 cricket calypso radio show in 2005. He was named an honorary fellow of the Academy at the University of T&T in 2006. He has worked closely with Dr Hollis Liverpool (The Mighty Chalkdust), multiple-time calypso monarch winner at UTT on various projects and public presentations. He did a 13-episode TV series with Christopher Laird for Gayelle several years ago called Dingolay with Ratiray which has been aired several times. For the last couple of years, he has done annual presentations of rare film clips during Carnival for the T&T Film Festival. But that is just the beginning.
Recently, he finished a number of collaborative book-length projects. Two are finally coming out. Two more on pan are completed but are looking to be published. The first is a book of George Tang's photos of the famous Stephen Lee Heung masquerade bands for which he wrote the historical text. George Tang is Stephen's cousin and these are unpublished photos of a number of the classic years when Carlyle Chang, Wayne Berkeley and Follette Eustace designed the band. The book features a number of photos of the first band that Peter Minshall designed, Paradise Lost.
The second is a large study of the Calypso Craze of 1957. This is a coffee table box with over a thousand images and an exhaustive text that was just issued in Germany by Bear Family as part of a box set that has six cds and a dvd of very rare calypso footage. It was just releasedinternationally and Lexicon is arranging for copies to be available in local bookstores.
The following is a condensed version from a wide ranging interview...
Q: First, let's get a bit of background...tell us a bit about your early years.
A: I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I went to the University of Notre Dame undergraduate, got a Masters degree in English from the University of Chicago, and a law degree at University of California, Berkeley. I came to Alaska in the middle of law school as an intern for the chief justice, returned after I graduated as his law clerk and been in Alaska ever since, working as a lawyer and judge. I started music research 30 years ago, specialising in early African American a capella gospel music and worked on over 50 reissue albums based on interviewing hundreds of singers. I switched my focus to Trinidad about 20 years ago.
What are your current and future projects, why are you in Trinidad in the "off season"?
I am here, as always, for the joy of being in Trinidad, but especially to launch the George Tang photo book We Kind ah People, The Carnival Bands of Stephen Lee Heung at Nalis on October 7 at 6 pm, and support the work of the Music Literacy Trust who are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a gala event on October 10 at 6:30 pm at the Renaissance. The book launch at Nalis will feature some extraordinary film footage from George Tang that will be shown for the first time and will show when mas was mas. I am working on several new projects such as a book with Jeannine Remy on steelbands from South (we completed a study on Invaders) and several more that are just getting off the ground. I am just in from a few weeks in Brooklyn, where I have been working with Prof Ray Allen on the history of calypso and pan music in New York and its relation to Carnival, first in Harlem and then in Brooklyn.
How and why did you become involved with the 'Carnival' art forms?
I keep telling everyone your country seduced me from the first time I visited a couple decades ago. With its overwhelming joy of calypso, pan and mas, I started coming for a week, next two and for several years, it is a month every year for Carnival. Now, hopefully, I will be coming at other times.
Who were the people who have influenced you the most in your career and life in general and how did they?
I am constantly influenced by a large number of people who I have worked with and those who have guided and supported me, so it is hard to name just a few. I had many mentors in my legal career. But let me mention one who has passed but who should always be remembered, and was central to my coming to Trinidad. That is the late Errol Hill. He was head of the theatre department at Dartmouth before he retired, he wrote the seminal study on the Trinidad Carnival and served as an adviser for the globalisation of calypso exhibit that Steve Stuempfle and I co-curated. We traded materials and he gave me many insights and support from the moment I first wrote him. Errol, along with Don Hill and John Cowley and Richard Noblett, helped me explore the early history of calypso and Carnival before I ever came to Trinidad. Collector/researcher George Maharaj brought me out to a calypso tent the first night of my first trip to Trinidad. We have been colleagues ever since and he now has me starting to research Trinidad 'combo' music.
Do you play mas when you are here for Carnival?
I have played mas for many years, often on J'Ouvert with 3 Canal and with Ashrath's wonderful, small band as cow, corbeau and bat. I have been privileged to play in Minshall's Sacred Heart band, fancy sailor with Jason Griffith, Boss and Senor Gomez. I was a midnight robber with Brian Honore several times. I was also in Marlon's Griffith's Hypnotic Night band this year. I let the spirit move me as each season approaches.
What goals and or ambitions do you still have in the areas of the carnival art forms?
To continue to find and uncover hidden pieces of the rich history of Carnival arts and help share them. I am starting to work with Hayden Strasser on a piece of his uncle Wilfred Strasser, and I hope to work the next year with Rosalind Gabriel and Exodus steelband as well as the other things I have mentioned. Yes, all this sounds like a lot, but different projects proceed at different paces. I am currently working with Ray Allen, a professor at Brooklyn College, staying with him for the second year and doing research on calypso and pan in New York. We have been doing exciting interviews on the transition from Harlem to Brooklyn Carnival, the labels like Strakers and Charley's and the singers, arrangers and musicians on those recordings.When I can get to London, I have worked with Mighty Tiger and the Association of British Calypsonians on the history of calypso in Britain. Andy Martin and I have done ongoing research on the history of pan, writing many articles for the Trinidad Guardian, and that will continue. I am working to give back the complex and rich history of Carnival arts to Trinidad.
What other information about yourself would you like to share with our readers?
I am constantly looking to find old film, photos, audio of calypso, pan and mas, and to get in touch with singers, musicians, panmen! Feel free to e-mail me at rfunk99707@gmail.com if you have things like that or know who does.