Pan Buzz

The pan is now play­ing an im­por­tant part in the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and restora­tion of the men­tal­ly ill, thanks to mu­sic ther­a­pist, Ja­mal Glynn. In a pro­gramme now un­der way at the St Ann's Men­tal Hos­pi­tal Ja­mal is as­signed to the Psy­chol­o­gy De­part­ment. Af­ter spend­ing eight years with the na­tion­al steel or­ches­tra, Ja­mal has now moved on. Be­fore he honed his skills at a num­ber of steel or­ches­tras, in­clud­ing Curepe Scherzan­do and So­lo Har­monites, Ja­mal has now come to rest at the Phase II Pan Groove where he plays the quadro­phon­ic pan. He has al­so con­tributed to steel­bands in the sec­ondary school sys­tem, in­clud­ing St Au­gus­tine Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and South East Port-of-Spain.

But now Ja­mal has a ma­jor chal­lenge on his hand, and he is un­daunt­ed. He holds a mas­ters in mu­sic the­r­a­phy from An­glia Ruskin Uni­ver­si­ty in Cam­bridge and is ready to "give back" to his coun­try. "Mu­sic ther­a­py," Ja­mal ex­plained is all about im­pro­vi­sa­tion. "I am not teach­ing them any­thing. When a client (pa­tient) is able to cre­ate melodies, it means he (or she) has some ac­cess to his (or her) in­ner self.

"Mu­sic is con­scious and in­con­scious process­es." With the mu­sic ther­a­py pro­gramme in its in­fan­cy, Ja­mal is op­ti­mistic that the con­tri­bu­tion of the Psy­chol­o­gy De­part­ment could change the face of men­tal health in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Lenny yearns for the big stage

Lenny Rodgers is the hottest pan­man in Bal­ti­more, USA. A cool char­ac­ter, Lenny plays the dou­ble sec­onds, and is al­so an arranger. Armed with his trade­mark smile, Lenny has been wow­ing au­di­ences at par­ties and wed­dings. He is much in de­mand and will like to tra­verse the big stage at the Queens Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain and yearns for the day he en­ters the big leagues. This re­tired welder has a new pan CD out that is mak­ing waves. You will get the Buzz on that next week.

Talk in Town

Talk in the pan world is that a big gov­ern­ment 'tan­to' is head­ing on a col­li­sion course with pan­men again. He is claim­ing that there are too many small bands (sin­gle pan bands) and they should merge.

Ut­ter non­sense! Let me tell him it is pan­men's de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to form pan sides, the lat­est be­ing Star­dust of Care­nage. Star­dust is the spir­i­tu­al child of boys­town, a out­fit in the ear­ly fifties and six­ties that used to put big bands on the run, es­pe­cial­ly in mu­sic fes­ti­vals. Now led by Clyde "Like It" Mack, Star­dust has served its Pan Trin­ba­go stip­u­la­tion of a two-year wait be­fore en­ter­ing the an­nu­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions, and is now ready to rum­ble. It will be in­ter­est­ing to see what will hap­pen when it is time to pay the as­sis­tance to small and sin­gle pan bands. Re­al­ly, pan could do with­out the pan­de­mo­ni­um!