Pe­ter Ray Blood

A num­ber of years ago, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove rocked the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah at the Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal play­ing Birth­day Par­ty. Last Sat­ur­day night, Hamil­ton Street in Wood­brook rocked when Phase II cel­e­brat­ed its 40th birth­day. Join­ing "D Phase" for the cel­e­bra­tion were reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, Wit­co Des­per­a­does and the host band, and a huge horde of pan lovers that in­clud­ed for­mer chief jus­tice Clin­ton Bernard, at­tor­ney Mar­tin Daly, deputy Port-of-Spain may­or Ker­ron Valen­tine, Mervyn Telfer, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az and mem­bers of his ex­ec­u­tive, Yohan Pop­well, Lenny "Stretch" Tyson, and Michelle Hug­gins-Watts. It's al­ways nos­tal­gic for me each time I ven­ture in­to Phase II's pa­n­yard as I rem­i­nisce of my play­ing days in the band, hav­ing joined just five years af­ter Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, Sel­wyn Tar­ra­dath, Michael Phillips and a bunch of Wood­brook youths formed the steel­band. Back then, Boogsie was al­ready de­ter­mined to make Phase II a leg­endary Panora­ma band, play­ing its own mu­sic, and not that by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans; most like­ly in­spired by the likes of An­tho­ny Williams and Ray Hol­man.

Be­ing un­spon­sored then, and play­ing in­stru­ments which had seen bet­ter days, the band didn't have the fi­nessed sound it has to­day. In fact, peo­ple would laugh at us when we en­tered Panora­ma, and when we pa­rad­ed the streets of Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val days. When we came in town for J'Ou­vert, there were no throngs of fans or pan-push­ers falling over each oth­er, like in re­cent years, to help us bring our pans back home. We had to push them back to Wood­brook our­selves. If it's one thing Phase II al­ways had was ca­ma­raderie-guys and gals from all walks of life, like Nic­ka Best, Tar­ro, Sker­ro, Cas­tro, Seko, Andy Phillips, Ham­mer, Ju­nior Drakes, Haf­fas, Mus­cles and Sug­ars and Joan­na Ha­roo-and we al­ways brought the pans back to Hamil­ton Street. I will al­ways re­mem­ber the first year we made it to a Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal, plac­ing eighth, play­ing Boogsie's I Like to Beat Pan. From that year, there was no stop­ping "D Phase" as the next year, the band again not on­ly qual­i­fied for the na­tion­al fi­nal, but, play­ing Boogsie's Car­ni­val is a Bac­cha­nal, placed third, be­hind Star­lift, play­ing its ever­green Her­shell Puck­erin arrange­ment of Spar­row's Du Du Ye­mi (Natasha), and Des­per­a­does, re­spec­tive­ly. About the Birth­day Par­ty song. It was the Panora­ma of 1993 and the song was scored by Boogsie, and vo­calised by Su­perBlue. It placed sec­ond in the fi­nal, Phase II beat­en by Amo­co Rene­gades, play­ing Jit Sama­roo's arrange­ment of Kitch­en­er's Mys­tery Band.

Enough nos­tal­gia for now. Sat­ur­day night's event was out­stand­ing, es­pe­cial­ly the per­for­mance by Trinidad All Stars which brought the cur­tain down on pro­ceed­ings. Ac­tu­al­ly all of the bands played beau­ti­ful­ly, es­pe­cial­ly Ex­o­dus' ren­di­tions of Cel­e­bra­tion by Nap­py May­ers and El­la An­dall's Are You Ready?; Phase II play­ing The Won­der of You and Mag­ic Drum; Des­per­a­does' Mac Arthur Park, In My House and Love is a Many Splen­doured Thing; and, of course, All Stars trade­mark crowd-pleas­er, Woman on the Bass. At­tract­ing much at­ten­tion in Des­per­a­does was gift­ed 11-year-old per­cus­sion­ist Du­vonne Smith, who seems to be born for the role he per­formed on Sat­ur­day night. Last week­end's de­lec­table serv­ing of pan has in­ten­si­fied my ad­dic­tion to the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, so much so I am off to To­ba­go for to­mor­row evening's Pan in De Coun­try­side, be­ing staged by Pan Trin­ba­go, at the Char­lot­teville Recre­ation Ground. The all-To­ba­go steel­band mu­sic feast fea­tured Steel Xplo­sion, West Side Sym­pho­ny, Carib Dix­ieland, RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters, Metro Stars and Nat­ur­al Mys­tic, plus DJ KC Class is Class. Be­cause next month is des­ig­nat­ed Pan Month, no Pan in De Coun­try­side will be held. How­ev­er, it will be held in Sep­tem­ber (Table­land); Oc­to­ber (Blan­chisseuse); and No­vem­ber (Williams Bay, Ch­aguara­mas). Pan in De Coun­try­side is a Pan Trin­ba­go ini­tia­tive con­cep­tu­alised to take pan to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties where there are ei­ther no steel­bands or where Pan Trin­ba­go be­lieves the na­tion­al in­stru­ment can be use­ful as a pos­i­tive builder of stronger com­mu­ni­ties.

• Live en­ter­tain­ment in D'Yard

Last Sun­day, I had the time of my life when I at­tend­ed the newest show­place in Wood­brook-D'Yard, lo­cat­ed at 6 Mc­Don­ald Street. On prop­er­ty owned by the hus­band-and-wife team of Gary and Tri­cia An­toine, D'Yard of­fered a most idyl­lic set­ting for the com­ing out of new band Se­mi Breve, led by for­mer Char­lie's Roots vo­cal­ist Adri­an Philbert. De­fy­ing per­sis­tent show­ers and at­tend­ing in sup­port of the pre­miere were Har­vey Boris, Earl Brooks, KV Charles, Lisa Wick­ham and Clive Gra­ham. D'Yard is re­al­ly a beau­ti­ful place to vis­it af­ter work and on week­ends. With en­vi­ron­men­tal con­scious­ness be­ing the watch­words of its own­ers, Philbert ar­tic­u­lat­ed this in­tent when he ad­dressed the gath­er­ing and said: "Look around you, at how much wood, plants and wa­ter there is in this place. We must be­gin to pre­serve to­day for our chil­dren, and a green­er fu­ture. It's our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as adults to help our coun­try breathe." Aside from Philbert, who per­formed for al­most two hours, oth­er Se­mi Breve artistes to im­press were pan­nist Kern Somerville, gui­tarist Je­re­my Shallery and key­boardist Wayne Guer­ra, each lend­ing their voic­es as well with some beau­ti­ful jazz se­lec­tions.

• Odyssey in mas...

Newest kid on the block as far as mas bands go, Odyssey Mas, launch­es its C2K13 pre­sen­ta­tion -Car­ni­val Be­neath the Sea-on the high seas on Ju­ly 20. The band's launch is part of the White Free­dom Cruise, host­ed by Siparia En­vi­ro­fest, aboard the mv Trea­sure Queen, out of Pier 2, Ch­aguara­mas. De­signed by Kern Best, the or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee be­hind this south-based mas band al­so in­cludes Karen and Guy Em­ber, Ronald Tay­lor and Paul Curly. Hav­ing al­ready al­ready won prizes in this year's Point For­tis Bor­ough Car­ni­val, Odyssey is hop­ing to do even bet­ter next year by pre­sent­ing six sec­tions, in­clu­sive of Sen­wood, Li­on Fish, Pa­cif­ic Ocean, Sea Cur­rent, Hid­den Trea­sures and Coral Gar­den. Along with pop­u­lar disc jock­eys, the cruise will al­so be served by Siparia Rhythm Posse. Board­ing time is 11 pm, and the ves­sel ships off an hour lat­er.