On receiving the Hummingbird Gold award on Independence Day, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, ace pannist and the famous arranger for Phase II, declared that pan was dead, and laid the blame for its passing at the feet of Pan Trinbago. Was Sharpe being inappropriate? Perhaps. The occasion for celebration of national achievement was probably not the best place to excoriate the management of Pan Trinbago, but the real issue remains whether or not he was correct in his assessment. Dr Patrick Watson, an economist, pannist and pan enthusiast of the highest order, thinks so. In an interview with the Sunday Guardian, he called on Pan Trinbago to rethink its approach to management of the steelband in Trinidad and Tobago.

“Those who are running Pan Trinbago view it as their own, and feel nobody, including themselves, could make money from it,” the economist said. “They have the attitude that the Government must pay for everything to keep it going.” Watson is on to something there, with the kind of thinking that a man who studies the mercurial dynamics of talent, money and business principles can bring to the discussion. Where Sharpe railed against the clear inconsistencies between the mission and achievements of Pan Trinbago, Watson has articulated the demonstrable dangers of the kind of welfare financing that has kept the body responsible for taking a leadership role in the development of steelband on the intellectual dole, blithely tailoring its promise and prospects to the inclinations of the government in power.

That has led to the unassailably embarrassing situation of an organisation that commands the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of supporters, represents thousands of musicians, and oversees the legacy of more than a century of musical innovation turning cap in hand to the government every year for a handout to support ventures that are demonstrably well-attended. The gap between the money that Pan Trinbago has at its disposal, and the money it could earn to advance its programmes, continues to widen with the lack of any effort at engaging, inviting or cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in the organisation. Pan is clearly not dying, as Boogsie Sharpe has claimed, but it is certainly not healthy and certainly not as robust in its country of birth as it is in the many nations which have adopted the instrument in order to study it, play it and assimilate it into their own cultures.

Some steps have been taken to begin to address these deficiencies.
The work of Dr Brian Copeland and his team of engineers, in studying the steelpan and exploring new possibilities for the instrument, is critical in defining and advancing the instrument in a new century. All this is in an ara in which the steel drum, which birthed it, has all but disappeared. But Trinidad and Tobago remains behind the curve in analysing, documenting and developing the instrument proudly claimed as the national instrument, and is clearly antediluvian in developing economic models that would make the nation’s many steelbands self-sufficient. Dr Watson has suggested that a first step would be the reconstitution of Pan Trinbago as a limited liability company, with pan members signing on to become shareholders of the new organisation.

Pan Trinbago would not only be answerable to local panmen, it would be able to hire the kind of professionals it needs to be able to deliver real results to the pan community. Professional management, audited finances and a detailed business plan hold the potential to work wonders in the fuzzy, romantic world of Pan Trinbago, where a strong-willed player with pansticks stuffed in a backpocket is expected to triumph against the daunting realities of corporate dealings. Until Pan Trinbago’s existing executive acknowledges the failings of the current models and processes, and chooses to make a decisive change, the steelband movement will trundle up an ever-slowing curve as fewer capable hands remain to push pan racks of pressing need uphill against the rising demands of reality.