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Sunday, February 23, 2025

What's in budget for panmen?

by

20111007

What can pan­men look for­ward to in Bud­get 2012 when it's read in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day? An in­crease in Panora­ma 2012 prize mon­ey? A de­crease? The com­ple­tion of their head­quar­ters as promised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar? Now, let's get one thing clear; Kam­la didn't promise any prize in­crease, on­ly the build­ing of the head­quar­ters at Or­ange Grove, Trinci­ty. This frame of shame has long been an eye­sore on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, and an in­sult to pan peo­ple in terms of its ex­pen­di­ture of a re­port­ed $3.7 mil­lion. Will there be a re-in­state­ment of the full stipend of $1,000 to pan­nists af­ter Panora­ma C2K12? This year pan­men had to set­tle for $800 from the Gov­ern­ment cof­fers, with Pan Trin­ba­go tak­ing up the slack. The cut­back of the stipend by Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters caused much anx­i­ety and ill-will among pan­men, re­sult­ing in a call to boy­cott Panora­ma 2011.

How­ev­er, good sense pre­vailed when the Prime Min­is­ter stepped in with her charm, solv­ing the prob­lem and promis­ing a home for pan. What's more in the Bud­get for pan­men? Maybe, just maybe, Min­is­ter of Bud­gets (Fi­nance) Win­ston Dook­er­an might waive du­ty on the im­por­ta­tion of drums, and we're talk­ing jobs here. Pan tuners have been com­plain­ing about a short­age of drums. Gov­ern­ment-owned Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um has been as­sist­ing with the manu­fac­tur­ing of drums, but a ma­chine to get the job done has been down for the past months with me­chan­i­cal prob­lems. Pan Buzz un­der­stands drums are avail­able in Eng­land, Hol­land and Den­mark.

Den­nis Smith mix­es pan and prayers

He's back on land these days, chill­ing out in Fyz­abad. I'm talk­ing about 1993 Pan Ra­ma­jay cham­pi­on soloist Den­nis "Smithy" Smith. Nor­mal­ly, Smith goes miss­ing for months at sea, play­ing on cruise ships, with his band Sug­ar­cane. This T&T pan am­bas­sador miss­es Christ­mas so of­ten, he has for­got­ten how black cake tastes. Smith, how­ev­er, has washed his foot and jumped in the pan song are­na af­ter a few years. For 2012, he ex­tols the pan and mix­es it with prayer with the in­spi­ra­tional Pan in Yuh Face, with vo­cals by his sis­ter Di­ane Saun­ders. Smith has pre­vi­ous­ly re­galed us with Con­grats, Pan Uni­ty, Play Yuh Pan and Jump Up and Play Yuh­self.This ac­com­plished com­pos­er/arranger plays all in­stru­ments on +Pan in Yuh Face, ex­cept gui­tar played by Eu­gene Bass.

Rene­gades Se­niors dec­o­rates Daisy

Rene­gades Se­niors re­cent­ly held its pre­sen­ta­tion of awards cer­e­mo­ny at the band's pan the­atre, Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain. Among the hon­orees were fe­male pan pi­o­neer Daisy James Mc Clean, her nephew the ir­re­press­ible Ce­cil "Ji­mo" James and Ed­die "Gu­na" Year­wood. Al­so get­ting an award for their con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the steel­band were Casablan­ca's Au­gus­tus Mark and the fa­mous "Ed­die Boom" Fields. Mc Clean, the old­est liv­ing fe­male pan play­er in the land, praised the Rene­gades Se­niors for recog­nis­ing her. "I am tru­ly ap­pre­cia­tive of the Rene­gades Award," she told T&T Guardian. Mc Clean has re­ceived nu­mer­ous awards at home and abroad, and is one of pan's most dec­o­rat­ed sol­diers. Year­wood has reached a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone, cel­e­brat­ing six years with Bash­ment Ra­dio. He has pi­o­neered pan pro­grammes on ra­dio in a talk for­mat.

Pro­fes­sor de­serves a diplo­mat­ic pass­port

The man I am talk­ing about is one of T&T's most beloved sons-Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore-who's as busy as the prover­bial bee these days. He has been busy pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go all over the world, a feat I feel de­serves some kind of diplo­mat­ic pass­port from the au­thor­i­ties. You name the place and Pro­fes­sor has been there-South Africa, Eng­land, USA and across the Caribbean. Now, he's prepar­ing to head to Nige­ria. Come Panora­ma 2012, this pan am­bas­sador re­turns to NL­CB Fon­claire, and the Mark Lo­quan/De­stra win­ning com­bi­na­tion with two pan songs.

Ex­pect one from 'Brook­sie'

Pan songs are rolling like thun­der. Ex­pect some bad 2012 Panora­ma com­po­si­tions songs from Earl Brooks and Natasha Joseph in the next cou­ple months. Al­ready re­leased, though, are Mil­lion Dol­lar Song (Car­wash); Pan In Yuh Face (Den­nis Smith); and Pan Tur­bu­lence, a Ja­son "Peanuts" Isaac/An­tho­ny "Lexo" Alex­is col­lab­o­ra­tion, sung by Na­tal­ie Yorke and pro­duced by "Sir" Le­ston Paul. A mas­sive launch is be­ing planned for Pan Tur­bu­lence on Oc­to­ber 23, from 10 am to 2 pm, at De Nu Pub (The Mas Camp Pub), Ari­api­ta Av­enue and French Street, Wood­brook. Al­ston Jack's Voodoo Woman is an­oth­er of the Panora­ma 2012 songs just re­leased.


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