The Tribune

THE term cultural icon is often overused. Still, there are such icons in The Bahamas who are world class and who have contributed to our national and cultural development. At independence, we might recall the quality of two Bahamian talents.

The late Cleophas Adderley was invited to be the guest speaker at a weekly youth programme which began its sessions with the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem. He became visibly frustrated as the pre-teens and adolescents sang “March on Bahamaland” in a desultory and unenthusiastic manner.

He abruptly stopped the singing, fuming that he was not going to allow his national anthem to be sung in such a tepid and lethargic manner.

He made the young people stand at attention. He tested their voices. He offered a quick lesson on the meaning and importance of the national anthem. Then he directed the group in singing the anthem with gusto and purpose.

He insisted that they lift up their heads and their voices toward the rising sun in celebration of being proud Bahamians. He believed in individual and national pride born of excellence.

The story exemplifies the spirit of excellence and exuberance of Cleophas Adderley, who disdained mediocrity and slackness, and whose joie de vivre was infectious, especially in his lifeblood: his passion for music.

He would wholeheartedly agree with a line from a presentation in this year’s independence celebration on Ft Charlotte: Being Bahamian “is not bout smoking slackness”.

Adderley was a genuine nationalist, who did not allow his patriotism to blind him to the beauty and treasury of other cultures nor to the challenges and shadows in his homeland.

He enthusiastically celebrated the best of humanity from traditional African songs to reggae to Beethoven to choral music to Junkanoo and other traditional songs of the Bahamas, Haiti and other countries and cultures.

Both his father and mother taught him a love of country and the pursuit of excellence. He was the last child of Cleophas E Adderley, who served as a Member of Parliament.

He was the grandchild of RM Bailey, a noted tailor, who helped form the Ballot Party. Bailey was a progressive thinker. His daughter Helen was Cleophas’ mother. Helen Bailey Adderley also loved music. She was a seamstress, organist and pianist.

As he often stated, Cleophas famously loved being a Bahamian. In 1973, the year of independence, he was in lower six at The Government High School, the only Advanced Level music student, under the tutelage of Marion “Mickey” St George.

His classmates included: Heather Thompson, Sheffield Wilson, Bernice Pinder, Basil Barnett, Wendy Smith, Leslie Pinder, Louise Barry, Gregory Rahming, Olivia Mortimer, Sabrina Ingraham, Thomas Birch, John Farmer, Icelyn Russell and Mary Smith.

Some of his classmates remember him as self-confident, very diligent in his studies, and filled with opinions on the news of the day.

Passing the auditorium one would often hear Cleophas on the piano, the strains of which would blossom into a brilliant musical career. Ten years later, in 1983, as the country celebrated its tenth anniversary of independence, Adderley launched the Bahamas National Youth Choir (BNYC), with just under 80 members.

Though he became a lawyer and worked for a number of years in the Attorney General’s office, his enduring passion was music. A lover of opera, he proclaimed that Junkanoo was operatic, combining music, the visual arts and theatre into a magical display of Bahamian artistry and ingenuity.

A dear friend recalls that when the BNYC per- formed on stage in a city overseas, that the music hall erupted in delight and dance as the choir showcased the drums, cowbells, horns and rhythms of Junkanoo. The friend recalls the exuberance, the joy, the magic of the moment, and of how proud she was to be Bahamian.

Adderley and the BNYC displayed our Bahamian pride and imagination across the continents of the world, dazzling audiences and sharing our heritage on the world stage. Like their beloved director, the hundreds of young people who populated the BNYC, demonstrated their love of being a Bahamian.

Adderley was famously a disciplinarian. He did not allow lateness, sloppiness, surliness, crudeness or incivility. He demanded neatness, punctuality, good manners and civility in language and bearing.

He knew that the world watched the manner and the bearing of the members of the BNYC whether they were performing in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the West Indies, North America or Europe. He demanded the same excellence when the Choir performed at home.

In a nation where slack- ness and mediocrity often reign, and where the crudest voices are often allowed free reign, Cleophas Adderley and Bahamas National Youth Choir mirrored and called us to our better selves and angels.

Cleophas once enthused: “It’s important that any civilised country have national cultural institutions that will help to reinforce their identity and also help to foster national pride, and help to show that it’s a country worthy of historical and cultural note.”

He insisted: “If we didn’t have these things, we would really be like an undeveloped town or settlement, and we in The Bahamas are so much more than that - we are a sophisticated, developed nation and have much more to offer than just sun, sand and sea.”

Adderley composed “Our Boys”, the first Bahamian opera, which according to a report in this journal, “was also the first opera to have been written and performed in the English-speaking Caribbean”.

A devoted Anglican, he also composed “Missa Caribe”, the first Bahamas concert mass. His beloved friend, Bahamian singer and musician, the talented JoAnn Callender, rightly says that she wished that Cleophas had time to compose more of his original work.

In a tribute to Adderley, former Prime Minister Hubert Minnis noted: “Though we have lost a musical genius, his spirit lives on in all who were fortunate to be touched by his life, his spirit and his music.”

There is hardly a living Bahamian here at home who has not listened with enthusiasm and delight to the music of the BNYC under Adderley’s meticulous direction. Most of us know one or more individuals who were members of the choir.

The Bahamian Icon Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award for his trans-generational contributions to nation building through youth development” was a fitting tribute to Cleophas just before he left us.

Cleophas Adderley made all of our lives a little richer, more bearable and more beautiful.

How often do our mediocre expectations hamper the flowering of extraordinary talent? Why have we often failed to celebrate the native genius within as represented by brilliant and beautiful minds such as the late Tony McKay?

Bert Williams was born in The Bahamas in 1874. He left his homeland for the United States at around the age of 10. By the time of his death in 1922, he was considered “one of the greatest comedians of the world” and “by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920”.

Comedian WC Fields considered Williams a comic genius. Williams was not one of the most notable black entertainers of his generation. He was simply one of the best entertainers of his generation.

Though Sidney Poitier is more well-known today, Williams broke more ground than the former, achieving phenomenal success as a recording artist, becoming one of the highest paid artists in the world at the time.

He was a film actor who also produced, directed and starred in a silent film of his own. He performed on Broadway with the Ziegfeld Follies and did a command performance at Buckingham Palace. Though stymied by the vicious racism of his time, Williams broke many barriers.

Many commented on the remarkable degree to which Williams kept innovating, honing his excellence through not only dogged practice but also by trying new things, by improvising, by expanding his repertoire.

We have been touched by his excellence and his exuberance. How fortunate that we were contemporaries of such an extraordinary talent and artist. His inspiration and legacy endure.