Pe­ter Ray Blood

I beg to dif­fer with the de­trac­tors who in­sist that Pan Trin­ba­go is a de­pen­dent, cup-in-hand en­ti­ty. On the con­trary, these past few months I have ob­served up-close a body of pas­sion­ate, hard-work­ing, de­vot­ed men and women, fo­cused on ex­pand­ing and de­vel­op­ing an in­dige­nous art form and move­ment.I was privy to this in­sight by at­tend­ing five of six edi­tions of Pan in de Coun­try­side, a se­ries of Sun­day, open air pan con­certs, pro­duced na­tion­wide by Pan Trin­ba­go, with as­sis­tance from the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny. The se­ries pre­miered in March in Ce­dros and cul­mi­nat­ed last Sun­day at the now pop­u­lar Moru­ga Com­pos­ite School, in Basse Terre, Moru­ga.

The venue for the last show has been very much in the news re­cent­ly af­ter its stu­dents al­leged­ly "caught the pow­er," pos­sessed by malev­o­lent spir­its. There was no ev­i­dence of demons or ghosts on Sun­day as five steel­bands turned in in­spired per­for­mances that would ex­or­cise even the mean­est of spir­its.Af­ter a two-hour dri­ve from the na­tion's cap­i­tal, we were en­ter­tained by the ex­hil­a­rat­ing sounds of Val­ley Harps, Petrotrin Hat­ters, Kaizen Fuzun, Old Tech and Sipa­batt steel or­ches­tras.While each band per­formed in ex­em­plary fash­ion, I was very im­pressed by the per­for­mance and reper­toire of Kaizen Fuzun, un­der the di­rec­tion of Dar­ren Shep­pard.

This South Trinidad band made every­one sit up and take no­tice, as well as danced, with its in­clu­sion of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary "E" Pan, and three vo­cal­ist in its line-up.In fact, dur­ing its parang seg­ment, a cou­ple male pa­trons bold­ly took turns danc­ing with the band's fe­male vo­cal­ists.Pan in de Coun­try­side, like Pan is Beau­ti­ful and Pan in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, is an­oth­er of many in­ge­nious ideas cre­at­ed by the men and women of Pan Trin­ba­go to prop­a­gate the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T.The unique ben­e­fit of Pan in de Coun­try­side is that it helps uni­fy com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, as well as pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for town-dwellers to in­ter­face clos­er with com­pa­tri­ots in rur­al dis­tricts, not to men­tion pro­vide some in­come to coun­try­side folk who sell food and craft at these events.

My oth­er ob­ser­va­tion through­out was the large num­ber of young peo­ple per­form­ing with these coun­try steel­bands, es­pe­cial­ly in Kaizen Fuzun, La Brea Nightin­gales, bpTT Rene­gades, Old Tech, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, Sipa­batt and Tokyo. I can­not wait for Pan in de Coun­try­side 2012 to com­mence.Un­til then I will con­tend my­self with the 21st an­nu­al edi­tion of Parang & Steel sched­uled to be­gin on De­cem­ber 3, at PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars Pan The­atre, at 56 Tra­garete Road, New­town; the week­ly Fri­day Pan & Parang se­ries host­ed by Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz at its Tra­garete Road pa­n­yard; and, a sim­i­lar Christ­mas se­ries be­ing held by bpTT Rene­gades at its pan am­phithe­ater on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain.

Pan in de coun­try­side

Ce­dros (March 27)

Ce­dros Recre­ation­al Ground

Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars

So­lo Har­monites

La Brea Nightin­gales

Tor­na­does

Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz

Ma­yaro (June 5)

Matthew Pierre bas­ket­ball court, Ma­yaro Recre­ation­al Ground

BP Rene­gades

Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus

Fon­claire

San­gre Grande Cordettes

Par­l­i­tu­vi­er, To­ba­go (Ju­ly 3) Par­l­i­tu­vi­er An­gli­can School Grounds, San City

West­side Sym­pho­ny

T& TEC East Side Sym­pho­ny

Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny

RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters

Carib Dix­ieland

Par­latu­vi­er An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School Steel Or­ches­tra

To­co (Au­gust 21) To­co Re­gion­al Com­plex

T & TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps

CAL In­vaders

Melo­di­ans

Tokyo

Pan Steronettes

South­ern Marines

Blan­chisseuse (Oc­to­ber 9) Blan­chisseuse Play­ground

Scrun­ters Pan Groove

Star­lift

Wit­co Des­per­a­does

Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille

Pan El­ders

Brazil RX 4

Moru­ga (No­vem­ber 20) Moru­ga Com­pos­ite Sec­ondary School

Val­ley Harps

Petrotrin Hat­ters

Kaizen Fuzun Steel

Old Tech Steel Or­ches­tra

Sipa­batt Steel or­ches­tra