Sto­ry and pic­tures by

In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

Youth cel­e­brates vet­er­ans in con­cert, A Long Time Com­ing—a mu­si­cal cel­e­bra­tion of our cul­ture and a spe­cial trib­ute to Dr Leroy “Black Stal­in” Cal­liste at San Fer­nan­do Na­pari­ma Bowl re­cent­ly.

The Pan El­ders Youth Steel Or­ches­tra brand fu­eled sound that proved they were noth­ing short of en­ter­tain­ing and vi­brant with an all-star cast of youth tal­ent com­pli­ment­ed by song and the steel­pan.

The or­ches­tra’s full com­ple­ment com­plied with tenor, dou­ble pans, gui­tar pans, cel­lo, brass, and per­cus­sion so­lid­i­fy the band’s two years emer­gence and keen pan ac­com­pa­ni­ment on songs sung by lo­cal en­ter­tain­ers like Singing San­dra, Shad­ow, Blaxx, John­ny King and in­ter­na­tion­al Yolan­da Adams and Don­nie Mc­Clurkin, and Sam Cooke.

The 62-plus Or­ches­tra led by mul­ti­ple times Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch and San­fest win­ner Ke­van Cal­liste arrange­ment pro­vid­ed back up on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to soloists and held their own with a pan med­ley for songs like Doc­tor Cas­san­dra, Stranger, Hulk, La La, and Go­lo; and equal­ly no­table to men­tion was Lord Kitch­en­er’s Bees Melody arranged by Ver­ryl Charleau. Cal­liste, the grand­son of The Black Stal­in and his wife Pat­sy Cal­liste, said the group’s rev­o­lu­tion is to al­low the young tal­ents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to stand on their own and to be ap­pre­ci­at­ed for their ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Joshua Hinds, left, with Caleb Hinds and Nicholas Lucas teamed up and performed Africa.

innis francis

“It is a young cast, pan­nist, and singers who are un­known. It was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to push the band mem­bers who are peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty around the coun­try and pay homage to some mu­si­cal greats.

“The show was sup­posed to be held in 2020, but we know what COVID-19 did. So in that time we did two videos in 2020; a vir­tu­al and a steel­pan cov­er of Farmer Nap­py’s Back­yard Jam. This show was an ex­ten­sion of what we can do out­side of the Car­ni­val.

“How­ev­er, we re­hearsed, and I was blown away by the lev­el of per­for­mances on the night. I am hear­ing that peo­ple are ask­ing for a re­peat per­for­mance and for us to take the con­cert to Port-of-Spain. But there is a lot to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, there is the cost of a venue, trans­porta­tion of the equip­ment, the mem­bers have to be fed and uni­form,” Cal­liste said.

He said they are work­ing on the next project A Long Time Com­ing—The Christ­mas Edi­tion lat­er this year. The youth band con­sists of mem­bers 21 years and un­der. The band was in­au­gu­rat­ed to the par­ent Pan El­ders band by man­ag­er Hol­lis­ter Smith in 2019. They par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Pantrin­ba­go’s Youth Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion in 2020 and emerged 7th.

Christian Rampersad and Joshua Hinds perform Change Is Gonna Come.

INNIS FRANCIS

Cal­liste said dur­ing the heights of COVID-19 when so much was un­cer­tain the mem­bers met on­line and forged a way for­ward. He said when some re­stric­tions were lift­ed in 2020 they met to record Black Stal­in’s Bet­ter Days Are Com­ing, to up­lift cit­i­zens dur­ing the try­ing times.

Cal­liste had pa­trons on their feet and danc­ing and singing as he served a med­ley of his grand­fa­ther’s songs Play One and Black­man Feel­ing to Par­ty.

Oth­er mes­meris­ing per­for­mances in­clud­ed the Hinds broth­ers, Nicholas Lu­cas, Patrice Richard­son, and Chris­t­ian Ram­per­sad.

Part of the Pan Elders Youth Steel Orchestra during one of their sets.

INNIS FRANCIS