His­to­ry was cre­at­ed at SWW­TU Hall in Port-of-Spain last Thurs­day night when the North­ern Re­gion of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) staged the sec­ond edi­tion of Ex­tem­po­ra­ma. It was prob­a­bly the first time in ca­lyp­so his­to­ry that two politi­cians ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a du­el on stage, with Black Sage (COP Coun­cil­lor Phillip Mur­ray) and Gyp­sy (Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters) fac­ing off against each oth­er, and a dozen oth­er as­pi­rants. With no cash or prizes up for grabs, and no out­right in­di­vid­ual win­ner de­clared, the ex­tem­pore ex­po­nents squared off against each, rep­re­sent­ing their zones in a re­laxed man­ner.

FROM TOP: Per­haps giv­ing some point­ers on judg­ing, Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip, right, chats with, from left, Black Stal­in, Tu­co South Zone head Ras Kom­man­da and The Mas Camp di­rec­tor Rod­er­ick Ward.

�2 Two of the old­est ac­tive ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Bro Su­pe­ri­or, left, and Con­queror thor­ough­ly en­joy Ex­tem­po­ra­ma at SWW­TU Hall in Port-of-Spain.

�2 At­tend­ing Ex­tem­po­ra­ma to lend sup­port to his par­lia­men­tary col­league Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, right, is Min­is­ter of Sport & Youth Af­fairs Anil Roberts. Smil­ing at left is Lou-An­na Lau­rie.

A high­light on the night was de­liv­ered in ex­tem­pore mode by the Arts Min­is­ter who, not­ing pa­trons fan­ning from the heat in the hall, dis­closed that next year's edi­tion of Ex­tem­po­ra­ma will be held in the air-con­di­tioned Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa). Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment, of­fer­ing three dif­fer­ent melodies for ex­tem­pore, was pro­vid­ed by Moods, led by Bun­ny Brown, with em­cee chores done by Mervyn Telfer and Shirlaine Hen­drick­son. The event was at­tend­ed by a full house and amongst pa­trons were Min­is­ter of Sport & Youth Af­fairs Anil Roberts; Cos­ta Ri­ca am­bas­sador Ri­car­do Thomp­son Thomp­son; Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Vel Lewis; Jus­tice Mal­colm His­lop; for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Ever­ald Snag­gs; for­mer NCC of­fi­cial Canute Spencer, NACC of­fi­cial Anum Bankole; just in­stalled Plipde­co Board mem­ber Ibn de Leon (son of the late Roar­ing Li­on); and au­thor Ein­tou Pearl Springer.

Al­so seen were for­mer na­tion­al ca­lyp­so mon­archs Black Stal­in and Lu­ta, as well as vet­er­ans Bro Su­pe­ri­or, Con­queror and All­rounder. Hav­ing gone through a self-in­tro­duc­tion in ex­tem­pore, the bards went through an elim­i­na­tion round. Bards in the fray, and their zones, in­clud­ed Black Sage, Con­tender, Fire Ball, Gary Ranks (North); Lin­go, La­dy Africa, Shel­don John, Dion Di­az (East); Gyp­sy, Abebele, Short Pants (East); and La­dy Irie (To­ba­go).

Com­ing in for a lot of praise, in­clud­ing ku­dos from his ri­vals was Fire Ball. Peo­ple com­pli­ment­ed the young so­ca star for ven­tur­ing in­to the realm of ca­lyp­so's old­est genre. A Bill­board chart-rid­er, Fire Ball han­dled him­self ad­mirably on stage amongst his old­er and much more ex­pe­ri­enced col­leagues. Al­so turn­ing in a com­mend­able per­for­mance was Di­az. Had this be­ing a bona fide ex­tem­pore monarch con­test, aside from Gyp­sy, in se­ri­ous con­tention would have been Black Sage, Lin­go, John and La­dy Africa, reg­u­lar con­tenders when ac­tu­al com­pe­ti­tion in this form of ca­lyp­so is staged at Car­ni­val time in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. Lin­go in par­tic­u­lar was a crowd-pleas­er with his hu­mor­ous spin on top­ics he se­lect­ed.

For­mer ca­lyp­so monarch Re­la­tor makes a guest ap­pear­ance at Ex­tem­po­ra­ma.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Ever­ald Snag­gs, left, and Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Vel Lewis flank their wives.

Turn­ing in a ster­ling guest per­for­mance was Re­la­tor, him­self a for­mer na­tion­al monarch. Re­la­tor paid trib­ute to the greats of the past, in­clud­ing Ter­ror, Fluke, Popo and Jack­son, de­scrib­ing them as the bards who added ca­lyp­so to ca­lyp­so. It's a mys­tery how Re­la­tor doesn't get more work. But, to­mor­row evening he can be seen at the Carib Stand in the Queen's Park Oval, when A Roti, a Red So­lo, and Ole Time Kaiso, a fund-rais­er or­gan­ised by All Sports Pro­mo­tions for the Un­der-16 West In­dies crick­et team, is held. For an en­core at the end of his time on stage, Re­la­tor treat­ed the au­di­ence to Food Prices, one of the dit­ties he cap­tured the 1980 ti­tle with.

As with most in­dige­nous cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions there must be com­pe­ti­tion so the par­tic­i­pants were di­vid­ed in­to groups with the au­di­ence, by way of cheers, de­cid­ing the best of the lot. At the end of it all, with or­gan­is­ers keep­ing an eye on the clock for a mid­night cli­max, and the au­di­ence be­ing fi­nal ar­biter, an out­right cham­pi­on from the three­some of Gyp­sy, La­dy Africa and Black Sage could not be de­cid­ed, so the au­di­ence de­clared the en­tire group the night's best act. Once again I was im­pressed by a pro­duc­tion staged by Tu­co, fol­low­ing close on the heels of the equal­ly suc­cess­ful Oc­to­ber 28 Gala Pro­gramme at Na­pa. There were few snags on the night, with the on­ly no­tice­able hic­cup be­ing the lack of fans at the venue.