Pe­ter Ray Blood

Flori­da was jump­ing for the re­cent Or­lan­do Car­ni­val, tra­di­tion­al­ly held over the Memo­r­i­al Day hol­i­day week­end. As usu­al, the Is­land Boys out­fit re­al­ly hit the spot with its an­nu­al fete with some good Tri­ni food and en­ter­tain­ment, and ex­cel­lent am­bi­ence.

This year's par­ty saw even more na­tion­als mak­ing the trip for a good time, and among those seen were for­mer AG Brid­gette An­nisette-George, Gail Clarence, Dawn Solom and Denyse Largen. Turn­ing the house in­side out with some scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mances were for­mer Char­lie's Roots vo­cal­ist Roger George and past At­lantik singer Ed­die Charles.

Just as en­joy­able and larg­er on the week­end were the per­for­mances by reign­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch/Road March cham­pi­on Machel Mon­tano HD, his side­kicks Farmer Nap­py and 1st Klase, 2011 Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Ravi B and Kar­ma; 2011 In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller; and, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter & You. Kees per­formed to a huge crowd on the Fri­day night at the Kissim­mee Civic Cen­tre in Flori­da, while Machel and his band per­formed on the Sat­ur­day night be­fore Car­ni­val day at Soiree, held at the Events & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in Or­lan­do. On the Car­ni­val Sun­day, it was the turn of Kar­ma, Ravi B, and Shur­wayne & You to woo the mam­moth turnout af­ter the pa­rade of bands at Fes­ti­val Field.

Pan goes to Spey­side

The third edi­tion of the 2012 se­ries of Pan in D Coun­try­side trav­els to the sis­ter is­land in Ju­ly. Pro­duced by Pan Trin­ba­go (PT), the event will fea­ture steel­bands of all cat­e­gories from both is­lands per­form­ing in scenic Spey­side. The June edi­tion of Pan in D Coun­try­side, held last Sun­day at the Man­zanil­la Beach Fa­cil­i­ty, was tru­ly a day made in heav­en, with hun­dreds of pan fans in at­ten­dance, en­joy­ing the beau­ti­ful sounds of six pop­u­lar bands in per­fect weath­er con­di­tions. Bands mak­ing the trip in­clud­ed two-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars, Curepe Scherzan­do, Ju­nior Sam­my Group of Com­pa­nies Skif­fle, San­gre Grande Cordettes, La Famille Unit­ed and Pan Jam­mers. With most of PT's ex­ec­u­tive in at­ten­dance, the pan of­fi­cials did a ster­ling job pro­duc­ing a smooth-flow­ing and en­tic­ing pro­gramme. PT sec­re­tary Richard Forteau was ab­sent so em­cee chores were shared by PT trustee Al­lan "Pablo" Au­gus­tus and PRO Trevor Reid. Fe­male staffers al­so sold out all PT mem­o­ra­bil­ia on dis­play, in­clud­ing jer­seys, DVDs and CDs. One thing though, par­tic­i­pat­ing bands are ne­glect­ing a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to al­so have their mer­chan­dise, es­pe­cial­ly record­ed mu­sic, on sale.

As Pulse basked in the am­bi­ence on the day, it dawned on me that with all the ole talk by politi­cians about strength­en­ing in­dige­nous art and cul­ture in this coun­try, Pan Trin­ba­go is vir­tu­al­ly pro­duc­ing this se­ries with very lit­tle, if any at all, as­sis­tance from both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor. Pan in D Coun­try­side is lit­er­al­ly cry­ing out for as­sis­tance from both en­ti­ties as I think it is a per­fect ve­hi­cle for brand­ing and for pro­mot­ing and de­vel­op­ing our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. I sat on the beach in Man­zanil­la watch­ing the sea breeze make PT pen­nants flut­ter and thought, "how much more beau­ti­ful this sight would be with ban­ners of var­i­ous cor­po­rate spon­sors." I think that cor­po­rate spon­sors, es­pe­cial­ly those that spon­sor par­tic­i­pat­ing bands, are miss­ing out (big time) on an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty. Not un­like last month's "8 of Hearts" con­cert, staged by the Laven­tille Steel­band Foun­da­tion, most par­tic­i­pants aug­ment­ed their per­for­mances with vo­cal­ists. Par­tic­u­lar­ly im­pres­sive was Pan­jam­mers of San­ta Cruz whose fe­male vo­cal­ist mas­ter­ful­ly ren­dered a Whit­ney Hous­ton clas­sic. So, next month, it's on to To­ba­go for what is ex­pect­ed to be an­oth­er de­light­ful treat of ex­cel­lent steel­band mu­sic.

Sting­ing ca­lyp­so at the camp

Pro­duc­ers of ca­lyp­so shows can learn a thing or two about stag­ing an ex­cel­lent pro­duc­tion from ca­lyp­son­ian Dex­ter "Stinger" Par­sons. The San­gre Grande artiste and his Ex­cel­lent Sting Pro­mo­tions held an out­stand­ing show last week Wednes­day at De Nu Pub in Wood­brook. Billed as Hu­mour at its Best-A Trib­ute to Clevin "Sur­pris­er" Romero, and em­ceed by God­frey Pierre, the pro­gramme was thor­ough­ly en­ter­tain­ing, with per­for­mances by 2012 Hu­mourous Ca­lyp­so Monarch My­ron B, vet­er­an Young Cre­ole, Brown Boy, Broth­er Al­pha, Hamidul­lah, Kid Callaloo and "man of the mo­ment" 81-year-old Sur­pris­er. Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment for the night was sup­plied by Cum­mings & D Wail­ers. Pierre kept the pro­gramme al­most seam­less and every per­former suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing a packed house in stitch­es through­out. Tan­gi­ble trib­ute was paid to Sur­pris­er, orig­i­nal­ly from La­goon Vil­lage, Ma­yaro. He re­ceived cheques and plaques from Stinger's or­gan­i­sa­tion and Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co). Once a bus con­duc­tor, the vet­er­an bard fell in love with ca­lyp­so in 1960 when he sang two songs-School Chil­dren and To­ba­go Can­not be the Cap­i­tal Site. Sur­pris­er has per­formed with al­most every pop­u­lar ca­lyp­so tent in T&T and to­day, and is one of on­ly two ca­lyp­so­ni­ans alive who sang in the To­ba­go tent in 1961. The oth­er is Ca­lyp­so Rose.

Ten years lat­er, Sur­pris­er won the San Fer­nan­do Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle. Since 2007 he has been a cast mem­ber of the Kaiso Kar­a­van, run by the Tu­co East Zone.

Dig­i­cel girls ga­lore

When Dig­i­cel launched its rev­o­lu­tion­ary 4G mo­bile phone sys­tem a fort­night ago at Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad in Port-of-Spain, the talk of the evening was the Dig­i­cel am­bas­sadors in their snazzy red out­fits.

For more of the girls this month, at­tend the June 16 Pure par­ty at The An­chor­age, and Reg­gae on the Bay, fea­tur­ing Steel Pulse and Bar­ring­ton Levy at Mobs, al­so in Ch­aguara­mas, the fol­low­ing evening.