Wey pan reach? This was the question asked in song many years ago by calypsonian Cro Cro. Well, the question was answered last week by Pan Trinbago Inc and musicians from 42 steelbands from T&T, three continents and the Caribbean Basin.
Pan, the national instrument of T&T, was celebrated in a big way this past weekend when Pan Trinbago Inc, assisted by an inter-ministerial committee drawn from five government ministries and the office of the Prime Minister, staged the first International Conference and Panorama.
On Saturday, bpTT, PT Inc, Danny and Sandy Mohammed staged the Paving De Way single-pan parade and competition for 18 local pan ‘round-the-neck bands. Despite torrential rain, the contest ran smoothly, staged in the street from outside Pan Trinbago headquarters at Victoria Square, Park Street, to bp Renegades pan theatre on Charlotte Street where the actual competition was held.
Despite the inclement weather, a large crowd braved the elements to witness the performances, and people were not disappointed. The competition, opened by Point Fortin’s Jah Roots, produced some infectious performances, causing many a patron to dance in the rain. Bands turning on the crowd included San Juan East Side, Marsicans, T&T Defence Force, Pan Jammers, City Sunvalley, La Familie and T&T Fire Service.
At the end of it all, T&T Fire Service was judged the winner to walk away with the $4,000 first prize. Runners-up were Trinidad East Side Symphony, Pan Jammers, T&T Defence Force and Trinidad Nostalgic (tied), and Marsicans, respectively.
On Sunday, the International Panorama competition was held at Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain. It was surreal having a steelband competition of this nature and featuring a dozen foreign steelbands challenging 12 of T&T’s top steelbands from the 2015 National Panorama competition for a US$250,000 first prize.
After all, it is the month of August—six months after our Panorama competition and Carnival. But a visitor could have easily mistaken it for February’s ambience, sights and mood.
The audience in the Grand Stand was huge, and crowds thronged the Drag leading to the stage. There were no North Stand or Greens but there was a huge North Black space opposite the Grand Stand, equipped with tents, food and liquor bars, and huge screens. The actual competition was officially opened by a member of St Martin’s Gunslingers Steel Orchestra playing the T&T national anthem.
As with all Pan Trinbago events, an innovacation was said, this time by PT president Keith Diaz who later confided he always says prayers to start all steelband competitions, perhaps the reason for the annual Panorama competition being incident free.
Seated front and centre and having a command view of the proceedings was living steelband icon Anthony Williams who led Pan Am North Stars to victory in the first national Panorama, staged at this same venue in 1963. I didn’t see many living pan legends like Curtis Pierre, Earl Rodney, Bobby Mohammed, Milton “Wire” Austin and I learned that a breakdown in communication with Pan Trinbago prevented 87-year-old pan stalwart Arthur Bentley (just back from abroad having being away for several years) from attending the historic event.
The foreign bands did remarkably well, especially when one takes into consideration the disadvantage they were up against, literally having mere days to learn and become aquatinted with instruments not tuned as theirs in their respective lands. Sunday perhaps strikes the most significant argument in the continuing indecision and lethargy by Pan Trinbago, our government and corporate T&T to aggressively and with haste standardise pan. Like it is for all conventional instruments, be it violin, saxophone, harp or guitar, there ought to be one patented design for pan as well.
I was particularly impressed by the performances of Brooklyn Steel Orchestra (BSO) of New York, USA and Panorama Steel of Japan. BSO performed Lead Pipe & Saddis’ Ah Feelin’ ah Feelin’, arranged by the trio of Odie Gonzales, Kendall Williams and Marc Brooks, while the Japanese band performed Yoshihiro Harada’s Dance of the Phoenix, arranged by Harada.
All of the foreign bands gave performances deserving of a place amongst the local steelbands in our annual Panorama competition.
I had been going to Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove’s Woodbrook panyard but the band’s Sunday evening performance of Scrunter’s Woman on the Bass seemed somewhat jaded to what I had been hearing rehearsed. Arranged by Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, the piece was imbued with some beautiful Woman on the Bass motifs, with Sharpe tastefully emphasising the song’s hook line musically, executed by strategically female bassists.
Appearing early in the programme at position two, bp Renegades established an early standard of panmanship that those in its wake were mandated to follow to defeat this Charlotte Street steel orchestra. Its musicians, attired in gold and wearing red berets a la Machel Montano, the band performed Like ah Boss with authority. Its arranger, Duvonne Stewart, cutting a commanding figure in black and gold military dress attire, conducted his charges to a well-deserved third place.
This year’s local Small Band champion Supernovas showed that it had come of age and was well prepared by leader/arranger Amrit Samaroo to throw the gauntlet down to its rivals from the bigger categories and from abroad. The band played a spirited arrangement of Dr Samaroo and it came as no surprise that it upstaged 22 rivals to place second.
Not even the stoutest opponents of Massy Trinidad All Stars could argue that the band doesn’t deserve first place and the more than one million dollars T&T first prize. When the band appeared on stage, its musicians appropriately dressed in East Indian wear, one could actually cut the confidence oozing out of the Duke Street orchestra. For Sunday, arranger Leon “Smooth” Edwards removed two minutes from the band’s 1987 arrangement of de Mighty Trini’s Curry Tabanca to bring the piece within the required eight minutes playing time.
From the first note, All Stars sounded like a winner and the best steel orchestra thus far on the day, with eight more still to perform in the competition. Musically, All Stars was perfect and visually it was intoxicating, its music embellished by a large troupe of East Indian dancers, perfectly choreographed for some rhythmic and percussive interpretations in the final third of the selection.
All Stars’ superiority over all rivals could be appreciated when one looks at the 78-point disparity between its winning score of 476 and 24th placed Gunslingers. The band scored 12 points more than second placed Supernovas.
My one disappointment on Sunday was the placing of South Trinidad’s Pan Elders. The ninth band to face the judges, the band played Duvonne Stewart’s arrangement of Bally Party Time Again, but when the results were announced just before 1 am on Monday, they showed that Pan Elders was placed 12th, tied with T&TEC Tropical Angel Harps and Tobago’s NGC Pan Xplosion. I thought that Stewart and his musician performed excellently, meeting all criteria of adjudication, and deserved a much higher placing.
The organisers of the world’s first International Panorama ought to take a bow and deserve a hearty thank you from all true pan lovers for their efforts. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement for an event like this. It deserves tremendously more promotion and marketing, particularly overseas, as well as wider coverage from the electronic and social media.
As I began, I shall end by repeating and emphasising that the time is way overdue for pan, the national instrument of T&T, to be standardised.
