Tam-tams mark 50 years
Apparently it’s now 50 years since people started drumming around the Cartier monument on Sundays.
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DeWolf 09:18 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
When I was commissioned by the Gazette to write about the tam-tams in 2003, I found it very hard to nail down precise information about when they had started. They seemed to exist in a weird time-space void in which they had always existed and would always exist. I finally managed to interview an old-timer—maybe Michel Séguin himself? I’d have to check the archives—who explained the origins. Even so, it’s still not widely known how, when or why they got started.
Michael Black 10:42 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
In 1983 or 84 Leslie Lutsky mentioned to someone that this thing was happening, and we went by, I think we were going somewhere anyway. And there were a few drummers, a few dancers, and a small audience, maybe just those that could fit on the benches. It was a small thing.
I can’t remember when it got big, or when it became big enough to be mentioned almost like a tourist attraction.
Jebediah Pallindrome 18:42 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
I may have a lead on someone who claims it dates back to earlier, like the 1960s, and is West Indian in origin.
Kate 10:31 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Jebediah, that’s interesting. Are similar outdoor drumming circles a tradition somewhere in the Caribbean?
Jebediah Pallindrome 15:04 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Gonna find out. From I’ve learned so far the guy who may have got the whole thing going is super fascinating and still lives in Montreal. The story I’m hearing is he and his friends went to the mountain to start drumming because their garage was too small!
DeWolf 18:16 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
It’s possible there were multiple drumming groups that converged on Mount Royal. Back in 2003 I interviewed someone who said there was a group that started drumming in Place Jacques-Cartier before migrating up to the monument.
From what I was told, it was in the 90s that it became a big thing and people started selling stuff (including beer) around the tam-tams. The city cracked down and by the early 2000s it had established the permit-based market that existed until the pandemic.