Pe­ter Ray Blood

pe­ter.blood@guardian.co.tt

It was back in the 80s that I was in­vit­ed by the Bar­ba­dos Tourist Board and Na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion (NCF) to sit as a judge for the first steel­band Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion to be staged in Bar­ba­dos. Ac­com­pa­nied by Ma­jor Eduoard Wade and Joyce­lyn Sealy, it was a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence, sit­ting in the Bar­ba­dos Na­tion­al Sta­di­um to ad­ju­di­cate on the best pan­nists Bar­ba­dos had to of­fer.

That com­pe­ti­tion, mod­elled af­ter our Panora­ma, was ti­tled Pan-a-lang. So, I was equal­ly im­pressed last week Thurs­day when I learnt that Bar­ba­dos-based, Tri­ni pan­man Nevin Roach came up with a most in­ge­nious vir­tu­al pan com­pe­ti­tion—Panogra­ma.

Ac­tu­al­ly a soloist con­test, Panogra­ma is the brain­child of Nevin Roach, a mem­ber of 2020 Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Small) cham­pi­on Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors, and a sports co-or­di­na­tor at The UWI Cave Hill cam­pus, in Bar­ba­dos. When the pre­lim­i­nary rounds of com­pe­ti­tion were held last week­end on In­sta­gram, 11 Trin­ba­go pan play­ers were en­tered among the 27 par­tic­i­pants vy­ing for a place in this week’s semi­fi­nals, sched­uled for next Thurs­day and Fri­day nights.

Their com­peti­tors came from across the globe, from as far as USA, Cu­ba and Ja­maica, to clos­er to home like An­tigua/Bar­bu­da, Guyana and Bar­ba­dos.

Among the T&T pre­lim­i­nary en­trants were crack­shot pan play­ers Earl Brooks Jnr, De­Jean Cain, Kern Sumerville and Kwe­si Paul. Of the 11 Trin­bag­o­ni­ans par­tic­i­pat­ing, ten have made it to the semi­fi­nals which will con­sist of 15 qual­i­fiers.

Ty­ing for first po­si­tion and lead­ing the pack in­to the semis are young Road­block pan­man and arranger De­Jean Cain and US-based Earl Brooks Jnr, son of ac­claimed arranger Earl Brooks. They both amassed 91 points of the 100 points, with Cain play­ing Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller’s Sa­van­nah Grass and Brooks’ tune of choice be­ing Love is Wicked by Brick & Lace.

One of the youngest steel­band arrangers on the plan­et, Cain’s arrange­ment of Shad­ow’s Bass­man won Road­block last year’s 5-a-Side steel­band ti­tle at We­Beat, St James. A stu­dent of the wide­ly-ac­claimed Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic, Brooks Jnr teamed up with his fa­ther to arrange V’ghn’s Trou­ble in the Morn­ing for Hat­ters Steel Or­ches­tra.

Se­cur­ing third place, per­form­ing Grover Wash­ing­ton’s Just the Two of Us, was Ty­eee­sha Alexan­der. Oth­er Tri­ni pan play­ers in the semis are Keishaun Julien, Kern Sumerville, Kersh Ram­sey, Jamel Cadette, Lee­an­dro No­ray, Ion­aire Joseph and Kwe­si Paul.

Oth­er se­mi-fi­nal­ists came from the Unit­ed States, Guyana, Bar­ba­dos, An­tigua Bar­bu­da and St Maarten.

The rules of the com­pe­ti­tion are quite sim­ple ac­tu­al­ly. Each soloist was re­quired to per­form for a max­i­mum of three min­utes for a live au­di­ence on In­sta­gram @in­ev88. Per­for­mances should be struc­tured as fol­lows: in­tro­duc­to­ry pas­sage, verse, cho­rus and, vari­a­tions/im­pro­vi­sa­tions.

Soloists were al­so strong­ly en­cour­aged to en­sure the fol­low­ing were se­cured for their per­for­mance: strong WiFi or mo­bile da­ta con­nec­tion, well-lit and qui­et area for their per­for­mance, smart­phone with de­cent qual­i­ty cam­era, In­sta­gram ac­count and in­stru­men­tals or tracks for ac­com­pa­ni­ment. The use of tra­di­tion­al pans was al­so en­cour­aged, but pan play­ers were al­lowed to use the E-pan un­der the fol­low­ing con­di­tions: on­ly the steel­pan tone will be per­mit­ted, strik­ing chords of more than two notes was pro­hib­it­ed and the se­lect­ed range can­not be changed at any point dur­ing the per­for­mance.

For Panogra­ma, s​oloists are al­lowed to make se­lec­tions from any genre of mu­sic for their per­for­mance. How­ev­er, the same se­lec­tion can­not be used in sub­se­quent rounds of the com­pe­ti­tion.

​A pan­el of three judges, based on a set cri­te­ria and break­down, judged soloists. They were North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty grad Ken­neth Joseph, David “ZigE” Wal­cott of Bar­ba­dos and Ojay Richards.

Par­tic­i­pants in Panogra­ma 2020 must come with their A-game as they have a strin­gent ar­ray of judg­ing cat­e­gories to nav­i­gate. Ten fi­nal­ists, each vy­ing for a chance to share the US$1,000 in prize mon­ey, would be se­lect­ed and each would be re­quired to per­form a set test piece and a tune of their choice.

The grand fi­nale for Panogra­ma is sched­uled for Sun­day, at 7 pm, and is avail­able by link­ing to @iN­EV88 on In­sta­gram Live.

For more in­for­ma­tion on Panogra­ma: www.https://www.pano-gra­ma.com/.