Nigel A Camp­bell

Just af­ter the Car­ni­val this year, a dis­play ad­ver­tise­ment ap­peared in a week­end news­pa­per. It was a con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage from Had­co Ltd and Phase II Pan Groove to the new Panora­ma cham­pi­ons, Des­per­a­does of­fer­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to the band and "their sup­port­ers and the peo­ple of Laven­tille." Con­cil­ia­to­ry. Mag­nan­i­mous. Pos­i­tive. In the hurly-burly world of com­pet­i­tive art that is Trinidad Car­ni­val, Panora­ma foes are friends in life, but on pa­per, loy­al­ties are dis­parate.

The ges­ture of con­grat­u­la­tions could be a sign of the dawn­ing of a new era in cor­po­rate re­la­tions be­tween ri­vals or even com­mu­ni­ties. Had­co and Phase II were big enough to unique­ly, from among their own co­hort, and pub­licly con­grat­u­late the win­ning band. One needs to recog­nise that Had­co re­cent­ly be­came the spon­sor of leg­endary steel­band, Phase II, who placed third. This was a sig­nal. Are we wit­ness­ing a new way spon­sors of steel­bands in­ter­act with the com­mu­ni­ty that is the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty? Is this a new par­a­digm in a time of re­ces­sion when his­to­ry has shown that with the tight­en­ing of belts comes a "man for him­self" men­tal­i­ty?

Both Had­co and Phase II rep­re­sent a kind of rebel spir­it in their rep­re­sen­ta­tive in­dus­tries. The syn­er­gy be­tween the two or­gan­i­sa­tions re­flect a mav­er­ick na­ture that de­fines in­no­va­tion and in­flu­ence. Had­co, which cel­e­brates 25 years of ex­is­tence in 2017, was a rad­i­cal that quar­ter-cen­tu­ry ago when they en­tered in­to the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tive trade mar­ket­place among gi­ants who al­ready had over 50 years ex­pe­ri­ence. They still thrive to­day with a fo­cused vi­sion that speaks of "en­rich­ing the qual­i­ty of life" of their part­ners and, im­por­tant­ly, "set­ting trends." They op­er­ate suc­cess­ful­ly with a busi­ness mod­el that recog­nis­es the triple CEOs in the Hadad broth­ers as a uni­ty.

Phase II rep­re­sents the ul­ti­mate trend­set­ters–six young mu­si­cians leave an es­tab­lished Wood­brook band to form a new band that sought "to pro­duce a more cre­ative sound on pan," and to be­come pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cians. In so do­ing, they went against the grain by per­form­ing their own com­po­si­tions and win­ning be­fore any­one else did, and es­tab­lish­ing a rev­o­lu­tion­ary spir­it by sur­viv­ing for many years as an un­spon­sored band. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, among its ranks is a sa­vant–some pre­fer the term "mad ge­nius"–who as­tounds in his method of com­po­si­tion that draws on­look­ers and sup­port­ers from all over the world. Len "Boogsie" Sharpe's leg­end is glob­al. And suc­cess­ful.

The new part­ner­ship be­tween Had­co and Phase II re­flects a com­ing to­geth­er that has reper­cus­sions to how mu­sic could be pre­sent­ed all year, and how the busi­ness of mu­sic and the busi­ness of steel­band could op­er­ate in the 21st cen­tu­ry.

A lit­tle his­to­ry is need­ed to un­der­stand the con­text of the new part­ner­ship. On the cusp of a new cen­tu­ry, Phase II en­tered in­to a spon­sor­ship agree­ment–for the first time in the band's his­to­ry–with state-owned com­pa­ny Petrotrin that ul­ti­mate­ly last­ed for 16 years when it "ex­pired."

The steel­band "opt­ed to con­tin­ue its work with the sup­port of an­oth­er spon­sor" was the dry lan­guage of dis­en­gage­ment pre­sent­ed via a press re­lease from the oil com­pa­ny. At the end of 2016, Had­co, the oth­er spon­sor, ce­ment­ed a re­la­tion­ship that promised to en­hance the brand of Phase II, and in­tro­duce a new con­cept in cor­po­rate en­gage­ment, cre­at­ing shared val­ue.

Cre­at­ing shared val­ue is the new buzz word among the busi­ness class and is seen as an ex­ten­sion of cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that has been bandied about for some decades.

The dic­tio­nary de­f­i­n­i­tion of cre­at­ing shared val­ue notes that the cen­tral premise is "that the com­pet­i­tive­ness of a com­pa­ny and the health of the com­mu­ni­ties around it are mu­tu­al­ly de­pen­dent."

Had­co has em­barked on a new and some­what unique style of steel­band spon­sor­ship in T&T. In light of a na­tion­al re­ces­sion and gen­er­al malaise in the econ­o­my, Had­co's spon­sor­ship of Phase II Pan Groove sig­nals that the cor­po­rate sec­tor is still alive to the po­ten­tial pos­si­bil­i­ties of en­dors­ing the ef­forts of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and the na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion of the steel­band be­yond the lim­it­ed pa­ra­me­ters of the an­nu­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.

For Had­co, this was no fluke, and for Phase II this can on­ly be a win-win. The com­pa­ny has had an in­for­mal per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with the steel­band and its man­age­ment go­ing back a cou­ple decades, and their re­cent con­ver­sa­tions showed that go­ing for­ward, a new vi­sion for how a steel­band con­nects with a com­mu­ni­ty, re­al and vir­tu­al, was need­ed.

As a mod­ern com­pa­ny, Had­co ef­forts re­cent­ly al­ready point to a tan­gi­ble trans­fer of the en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it said to be lack­ing in the na­tion, and more im­por­tant­ly, not very preva­lent among the steel­band com­mu­ni­ty and large bands be­yond a kind of to­kenism seen with sim­i­lar large cor­po­ra­tion spon­sor­ships over the years.

Im­me­di­ate­ly, one saw a phys­i­cal and aes­thet­ic re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the pa­n­yard, the lo­cus of cre­ativ­i­ty, but in­creas­ing­ly, the site for com­merce. There was a re­ju­ve­na­tion of the am­bi­ence of the space. There was a shed­ding of the idea of pa­n­yard as a space to "just lime and lis­ten." Had­co was teach­ing the band cap­i­tal­ism. The idea that prof­its from its on­go­ing ven­tures in trade and mer­chan­dise in the pa­n­yard can and would be added to po­ten­tial rev­enue steams from lo­cal events and val­ue-added ma­te­r­i­al has tak­en hold. There is a shared buy-in as the com­pa­ny's re­sources are used to en­hance the as­set that is Phase II. As Phase II grows, so does the Had­co.

The com­pa­ny's ef­forts out­side of the Car­ni­val sea­son to raise the pro­file of the band among a wider co­hort of fans is ob­served and not­ed. With a turn-around of just three months af­ter the hec­tic Car­ni­val and Panora­ma sea­son, Had­co's team are as­sist­ing the band to present the In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Pa­n­yard Jam Ses­sion on April 30 at the pa­n­yard in Hamil­ton Street in Wood­brook, fea­tur­ing trum­peter Eti­enne Charles along with oth­er Caribbean jazz stars, bassist Ron Reid, and pan jazz record­ing artist Leon Fos­ter Thomas, who will reprise his role as drum­mer for Phase II. Join­ing these three Trinida­di­ans are a cast of jazz mu­si­cians; Latin jazz per­cus­sion star Luisi­to Quin­tero from Venezuela, Haitians Obed Cal­vaire on drums and God­win Louis on al­to sax­o­phone, and singer Roger George of Char­lie's Roots fame. Had­co brought along oth­er spon­sors, Carib and bmo­bile to share spon­sor­ship du­ties.

Of course, the fea­tured per­former would be Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and the steel­band that will per­form along­side Dougie Re­don and his band, and Charles' band. This event is in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Day, and points to a recog­ni­tion by all that the steel­pan is not lim­it­ed to our cir­cum­stance as a Car­ni­val in­stru­ment, but stand along­side the pan­theon of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments that de­fine the mu­sic of free­dom. In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Day brings to­geth­er com­mu­ni­ties all over the world to cel­e­brate and learn about jazz and its roots, fu­ture and im­pact. This event is more than a con­cert, it is about di­a­logue among cul­tures. The jam ses­sion is one such a di­a­logue. T&T and the world. Steel­pan and any oth­er mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

The steel­band and the com­pa­ny both share a rel­a­tive "new kid on the block" sta­tus among their re­spec­tive in­dus­tries. Had­co and Phase II are at the dawn of pos­si­bil­i­ties as they move along side by side in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry. To­geth­er, they are cre­at­ing a new par­a­digm for the steel­band in­dus­try.

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion call 675-7628 ext. 1201, 1202 or 1314 or email in­fo@had­coltd.com

SIDE­BAR

ABOUT PHASE II IN­TER­NA­TION­AL JAZZ PA­N­YARD JAM SES­SION

Phase II will be host­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Pa­n­yard Jam Ses­sion on April 30.

This one night on­ly event is in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Day. In­clud­ed in the line-up are the re­union Band mem­bers Ron Reid and Eti­enne Charles, along with Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al artistes Obed Cal­vaire, God­win Louis, Brett Williams, Luisi­to Quin­tero and guest vo­cal­ist, Trinidad's own Roger George.

Pa­trons are promised a tru­ly en­joy­able evening of jazz en­ter­tain­ment and the ho­n­our of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an all-out jam ses­sion when Phase II and Len "Boogsie" Sharpe join forces with some of the most tal­ent­ed jazz play­ers to­day.

Open­ing the show is the Dou­glas Re­don En­sem­ble along with oth­er guest artistes.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Pa­n­yard Jam Ses­sion will be held at Phase II Pa­n­yard, Hamil­ton Street, Wood­brook.

Gates open at 5.30 pm and the show starts at 7 pm.

Tick­ets are $300 each and avail­able at all H�agen Dazs lo­ca­tions na­tion­wide and al­so avail­able at Had­co Cor­po­rate Of­fice, San Juan.??