DAL­TON NAR­INE

Per­fect pitch, goes a mu­si­cian joke, is throw­ing the ban­jo in the dump­ster and hit­ting the ac­cor­dion. Se­ri­ous­ly, though, it's a per­fect com­bo when Jonathan Scales throws in the ban­jo with the dou­ble sec­ond pan, con­sid­er­ing his hard in­quis­i­tive com­po­si­tions on his lat­est CD, Char­ac­ter Farm & Oth­er Short sto­ries. Scales, an Amer­i­can whose on­ly Caribbean gene is our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, has been push­ing a rad­i­cal de­par­ture from pan mu­sic in its 70 years of evo­lu­tion from the bam­boo, sweet oil tin and bis­cuit drum project, to to­day's cu­ri­ous and re­fresh­ing galaxy of steely notes. Scales, 26, stud­ied com­po­si­tion for sax­o­phone at Ap­palachi­an State Uni­ver­si­ty in Boone, North Car­oli­na. But he's been hooked on pan since the day a friend steered him to the uni­ver­si­ty pan side. Dr Scott Meis­ter found­ed The Steely Pan Steel Band in 1984. Per­form­ing large­ly at schools and col­leges, the band af­ford­ed Scales an op­por­tu­ni­ty to shine, the sax notwith­stand­ing. Scales be­lieved that if he had fol­lowed the Pied Piper of pan his skills would get bet­ter. So he spent four years on the pans un­til his grad­u­a­tion in 2006. He has nev­er re­gret­ted the switch.

"Dr Meis­ter vis­its Trinidad all the time, and made it a point to teach stu­dents in the band its his­to­ry and cul­ture," he said. Scales has been to Trinidad twice, spend­ing two weeks with fel­low stu­dents at the UWI cam­pus and tak­ing in a ses­sion at Trinidad All Stars pa­n­yard. His goal is to trek up Laven­tille Hill to ex­pe­ri­ence the mys­tique of Des­per­a­does."As a com­po­si­tion stu­dent, I was re­al­ly in­to Panora­ma arrange­ments. At the time my favourite arranger was Jit Sama­roo. In col­lege, we played some Panora­ma songs, like Pan in A Mi­nor. I like Kitch­en­er a lot."I was in­spired by the ex­e­cu­tion of All Stars. So, with my band, we do a lot of re­hears­ing, keep­ing the mu­sic tight, like the Trinida­di­ans do for Panora­ma. "I was al­so in­spired by the uni­ty of sound by the en­tire band. A lot of crazy notes play­ing to­geth­er. That takes a lot of work. Tremen­dous work eth­ic. Usu­al­ly, when I lis­ten to Panora­ma mu­sic, I'm in it for the arrange­ments, be­cause I'm on the jazz com­po­si­tion­al side of things, so I feel like I'm in the mid­dle of a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent worlds."

Scales stud­ied 20th Cen­tu­ry com­posers like Stravin­s­ki, John Cage, Aaron Cop­land and Arnold Schoen­berg, who pi­o­neered in­no­va­tions in atonal­i­ty that spurred con­tro­ver­sy in mod­ern mu­sic, and in­ten­si­fied his ed­u­ca­tion by track­ing the arcs of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Can­non­ball Adder­ley and mod­ern jazz play­ers like Chick Corea, Pat Methe­ny and oth­ers. He plays a vogu­ish style of pan at con­certs and gigs across Amer­i­ca. And he does so by ar­tic­u­lat­ing life and per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences that are crowned in a m&ea­cute;lange of mu­si­cal id­ioms and styles. Like the mix of in­stru­ments in the Panora­ma, each of­fers its own del­i­ca­cy in a smor­gas­bord of sounds. But, with Scales, the buf­fet is spooned out as treats from his ex­ot­ic mind.That Scales is a mod­ernist in his ex­per­i­ment of an old-fash­ioned art form is not nov­el. Cer­tain­ly, Mi­a­mi-based Trinida­di­an Oth­el­lo Mo­lin­eaux-a steel pan leg­end who had set up his own uni­verse of jazz with stel­lar stick play eons ago-has per­formed with the cream, from Ja­co Pas­to­rius to Dizzy Gille­spie; Her­bie Han­cock to Mon­ty Alexan­der; and Joe Za­w­in­ul to Ah­mad Ja­mal.

But Scales bag­gy style, draw­ing from coun­try, folk, funk, rock, jazz, blue­grass and clas­si­cal, brings a grit­ty gueril­la ad­ven­ture to the stage. Small won­der B&ea­cute;la Fleck, one of the world's most in­no­v­a­tive and tech­ni­cal­ly pro­fi­cient ban­jo play­ers, nom­i­nat­ed in more cat­e­gories than any oth­er mu­si­cian-has been a ma­jor in­flu­ence. Fleck put a whole new spin on the ban­jo, Scales says. "Some re­al­ly cool out-there jazz stuff." That's how Scales struc­tures his com­po­si­tion and ex­tem­po­ra­ne­ous artistry around his band. One cool in­stru­ment, of course, em­bod­ies their chem­istry. "My com­po­si­tions pull from oth­er ar­eas oth­er than ca­lyp­so and Panora­ma, and mu­sic that would nor­mal­ly be as­so­ci­at­ed with steel drums. "I'm from a mil­i­tary fam­i­ly and I've lived around the world, with all the in­flu­ences from the jazz side and grow­ing up as an Amer­i­can kid lis­ten­ing to hip hop and rock, then study­ing the mod­ern com­po­si­tion guys, so I just came out with my sound just from liv­ing my life ex­pe­ri­ence."