Yvonne Ba­boolal

De­spite Met of­fice bul­letins of an im­mi­nent trop­i­cal wave on Sun­day af­ter­noon, sto­ic true­blood pan lovers flocked to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain for the pre­lim­i­nary round of com­pe­ti­tion in the in­au­gur­al First Cit­i­zens In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­pan Jazz Chal­lenge. This in­no­v­a­tive com­pe­ti­tion, staged by the Queen's Roy­al Col­lege Foun­da­tion, head­ed by Ains­ley Mark, treat­ed all in at­ten­dance to an evening of ex­hil­a­rat­ing steel­pan mu­sic.

Al­though guests com­ment­ed favourably about the evening's per­for­mances, many ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with a num­ber of short­com­ings in the pro­duc­tion, in­clud­ing a prob­lem­at­ic sound sys­tem. Some were al­so dis­ap­point­ed by the lack of a liquor bar. Among the bands turn­ing in ex­cel­lent per­for­mances were even­tu­al win­ner Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, bpTT Rene­gades, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille and To­ba­go's RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters. Though not play­ing at its usu­al best, many were still sur­prised by Wit­co Des­per­a­does' cel­lar plac­ing, throw­ing the band out of the grand fi­nal, sched­uled for the evening of the Di­vali hol­i­day Oc­to­ber 26, at Queen's Hall, St Ann's.

The pre­lim­i­nary was judged by US-based mu­si­col­o­gist Orville Wright and Holis­tic School of Mu­sic prin­ci­pal, Dr Pat Dar­d­aine-Raguet. Sev­en bands were sup­posed to be cho­sen for the fi­nal but, with two ties in the pre­lim­i­nary, the fol­low­ing eight bands were se­lect­ed to try to meet the Chal­lenge; Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus; Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly; bpTT Rene­gades; RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters; Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille; Star­lift; Cou­va Joy­lan­ders; Pam­beri; and, Siparia Del­tones.