Pe­ter Ray Blood

Born in East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain in 1940, Owen Ser­rette's fam­i­ly moved to Mor­vant when he was just one year old, a move that even­tu­al­ly saw him be­come a bona fide Har­monites Steel Or­ches­tra mem­ber, a steel­band he still faith­ful­ly serves. Ser­rette did re­turn to his birth­place as a child, at 10 Bona­parte Lane, Basilon Street, to at­tend Rosary Boys' RC School.

It was dur­ing his re­turn as a pri­ma­ry school stu­dent that Ser­rette first got in­volved with the steel­band. At the age of ten he played with City Syn­co­pa­tors for the Car­ni­val of 1950. At that time, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and steel­bands­men were con­sid­ered "out­casts" as eu­lo­gised in Spar­row's ca­lyp­so Out­cast with the fa­mous lyrics: "If yuh sis­ter talk to a steel­band­man, yuh fam­i­ly want to break she hand, put she out, out­cast."

Said Ser­rette: "Be­cause I was liv­ing in Basilon Street and at­tend­ing Rosary Boys, I was at­tract­ed to City Syn­co­pa­tors."

Ser­rette's fam­i­ly was a very re­li­gious one so it is no sur­prise that his moth­er, on learn­ing of his in­volve­ment in pan, broke down in tears. She re­fused to be­lieve that her dear­ly beloved boy child was seen "beat­ing pan" on the road, be­liev­ing that he was as­so­ci­at­ing with "bad johns" and "jamettes" who formed part of the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty. Iron­i­cal­ly, it was okay for Ser­rette's el­der broth­ers to "beat pan," but not lit­tle Owen, who she saw as be­com­ing a priest.

In­deed, Ser­rette's ven­ture in­to the world of pan was cut short when he en­rolled at the sem­i­nary at Mt St Bene­dict. But, though en­sconced in the hal­lowed halls of the sem­i­nary, he man­aged to fre­quent the pa­n­yard of Flamin­goes Steel Or­ches­tra, lo­cat­ed in "the Vil­lage" on St John's Road, the road­way to the Mount.

Up­on de­part­ing the Mount, Ser­rette re­joined the Teenage Ser­e­naders steel­band in his then home­town of Mor­vant.

As its name sug­gests, this was an ag­gre­ga­tion of young pan­men who did not qual­i­fy to play with the lofti­ly perched and leg­endary Ebonites Steel Or­ches­tra.

Nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion fol­lowed and Ser­rette even­tu­al­ly be­came a mem­ber of the renowned Ebonites out­fit as a tenor play­er, his in­stru­ment of choice. This was a dream come true and at the time Ebonites, of Ros­es from the South fame, was known as "the dance band of the six­ties."

In 1966, Ser­rette was lured away from Ebonites to Har­monites Steel Or­ches­tra by its first cap­tain Win­ston "Skull" Flem­ming and arranger Knol­ly Bobb. From that fate­ful move, in ad­di­tion to be­ing a stal­wart play­ing mem­ber, Ser­rette served Har­monites in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties, in­clu­sive of be­com­ing an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, be­ing ap­point­ed cap­tain in 1980-90, and as man­ag­er from 1990-94.

Ser­rette rep­re­sent­ed this Mor­vant steel­band, and by ex­ten­sion T&T as a cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, with pride and dis­tinc­tion, per­form­ing re­gion­al­ly in Bar­ba­dos, Suri­name and the Cay­man Is­lands, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in places like New York, At­lanta, Switzer­land, Spain, Eng­land and Brasil.

There is some his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance to when Har­monites toured New York, then spon­sored by So­lo Bev­er­ages, in 1979, as Ser­rette is the on­ly mem­ber of the con­tin­gent to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­turn to Trinidad.

So­lo Har­monites, de­scribed by Ser­rette as "the bea­con of Mor­vant," has won the Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tle on four oc­ca­sions with some cre­ative and unique arrange­ments by Earl Rod­ney.

Proud of his band achieve­ments, Ser­rette said: "My favourite pan arranger is Earl Rod­ney. I hon­est­ly be­lieve that Earl was way be­fore his time, es­pe­cial­ly with his arrange­ments of stage-side mu­sic. Jit Sama­roo, Rene­gades' arranger, con­firmed that to me."

In 1994, a core of Har­monites play­ers, led by Ser­rette and Lloyd Man­swell, sev­ered ties with the leg­endary steel­band, tak­ing with them the prized So­lo Bev­er­ages spon­sor­ship to form So­lo Pan Knights Steel Or­ches­tra.

With Pan Knights he toured Nige­ria, Colom­bia, Lon­don and re­turned to the Cay­man Is­lands. The two Mor­vant pan gi­ants re­unit­ed in 2000 but the re­la­tion­ship again ir­re­triev­ably dis­in­te­grat­ed in 2013.

In the steel­band world, Ser­rette is wide­ly re­spect­ed as a leader, so it came as no sur­prise when he was elect­ed as the as­sis­tant sec­re­tary of the now de­funct Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands­men (NATTS).

When NATTS dis­solved and Pan Trin­ba­go formed, Ser­rette served as Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer of the new or­gan­i­sa­tion in 1982-'88. He sub­se­quent­ly suc­ceed­ed pres­i­dent Arn­im Smith up­on his demise, many of the opin­ion that Ser­rette was hand­picked by Smith to be a suc­ces­sor.

In­deed Smith was Ser­rette's role mod­el in pan. He said: "My favourite pres­i­dent was Arn­im Smith. I be­lieve that not too much cred­it is giv­en to him. Be­cause of his street (com­mon), and not nec­es­sar­i­ly (book) sense, he was able to car­ry the move­ment to a point which made my reign as pres­i­dent the suc­cess I be­lieve it was."

Ser­rette, his qui­et de­meanour in stark con­trast to the ro­bust at­ti­tude of pre­vi­ous steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion lead­ers like Smith and George God­dard, had a very suc­cess­ful tenure as Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent. In 1992, it was his rec­om­men­da­tion to the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, that led to pan be­ing de­clared "the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T."

The for­ma­tion of Pan­vesco and the in­tro­duc­tion of the Pa­n­yard De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme stand out as just two of many suc­cess sto­ries of Ser­rette's stew­ard­ship. It was dur­ing his tenure at the helm of Pan Trin­ba­go that the busi­ness sec­tor was said to be "most pan friend­ly," seen as a de­c­la­ra­tion of its con­fi­dence in the na­tion­al steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Said Ser­rette: "Cor­po­rate spon­sors seemed more ap­pre­cia­tive of work done and part­ner­ships?were de­vel­oped in host­ing events and pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to steel­bands."

Pro­grammes ini­ti­at­ed un­der Ser­rette's stew­ard­ship which pro­vid­ed spon­sor­ship to the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty in­clud­ed the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma and Na­tion­al Ju­nior Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val com­pe­ti­tions; Pan on the Road com­pe­ti­tions; Ari­ma Panora­ma; Car­ni­val Mon­day Night Steel­band Ex­plo­sion; Bor­ough of Point Fortin Pan on the Move; Pan Chut­ney; Pan Ra­ma­jay; Hin­di Foun­da­tion's Steel­band com­pe­ti­tion; The Pan­man's Ball; Steel­band Week and many more.

Ser­rette ini­ti­at­ed mu­sic lit­er­a­cy for pan mu­si­cians at UWI, no doubt in­spired to do so hav­ing be­ing a mem­ber of the UWI steel­band in Mona, Ja­maica in 1973.

He al­so in­sti­tut­ed train­ing in man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tion for young man­agers of mem­ber steel­bands. He in­sist­ed, and still in­sists, that pan mu­si­cians be­come mu­si­cal­ly lit­er­ate and be re­ferred as "mu­si­cians," and not pan­men.

In 2014, Ser­rette was ho­n­oured by Mor­vant's St Do­minic's Ex Pupils and lit­er­ary and cul­tur­al as­so­ci­a­tions for "out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions in the field of cul­ture in the Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ty."

As pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, in or­der to in­ter­na­tion­alise the or­gan­i­sa­tion, Ser­rette es­tab­lished Pan Trin­ba­go chap­ters in Cana­da, New York and Ari­zona, and formed al­liances with Caribbean steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Cul­tur­al ex­change pro­grammes were al­so es­tab­lished, with last­ing re­la­tion­ships, where­by lo­cal mu­si­cians, tuners and arrangers se­cured per­for­mances and work abroad.

An amaz­ing caveat of Ser­rette's stint as pres­i­dent is that he served strict­ly in a vol­un­tary ca­pac­i­ty. "At no time dur­ing the years I spent as pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go did I re­ceive a salary," he re­vealed.

Ser­rette has been a re­cip­i­ent of sev­er­al awards and ho­n­ours from var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion, the Or­der of St Clement, the Or­der of Eman­ci­pa­tion, Ex­o­dus and Pan Trin­ba­go.

Ser­rette is es­pe­cial­ly pleased with the recog­ni­tion and ho­n­our be­stowed on him by the British As­so­ci­a­tion of Steel­bands last De­cem­ber.

Be­sides pan, he has been a ca­reer pub­lic ser­vant for 42 years, work­ing in the postal sys­tem and in gov­ern­ment's or­gan­i­sa­tion and man­age­ment di­vi­sion.

He re­tired from the pub­lic ser­vice in 2000 as As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of the Pub­lic Man­age­ment Con­sult­ing Di­vi­sion, in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Since re­tir­ing from the pub­lic ser­vice, Ser­rette con­tin­ues to serve the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty through the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) where he is cur­rent­ly em­ployed, of­fer­ing his vast knowl­edge, skills and ex­pe­ri­ence gained for over half a cen­tu­ry.

Ser­rette has been mar­ried for 49 years and has four chil­dren, all of whom are cur­rent­ly pro­fes­sion­als in their own right.

Though now re­tired, Ser­rette con­tin­ues to be a staunch ad­vo­cate for the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment at home and abroad.

He said: "I be­lieve that the steel pan is 'the in­stru­ment' of the 21st cen­tu­ry and, if mar­ket­ed as, say, the reg­gae, will def­i­nite­ly be the in­stru­ment of the mu­sic world."