Pe­ter Ray Blood

A com­mu­ni­ty be­leagured by crime and a no­to­ri­ous rep­u­ta­tion, the denizens of Laven­tile and its en­vi­rons ex­em­pli­fied the best be­hav­iour and hos­pi­tal­i­ty last Sun­day when the 2012 edi­tion of the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val was held. Thou­sands of peo­ple from across the coun­try braved tor­ren­tial day­time show­ers to rev­el in an evening of won­der­ful steel­band mu­sic, pre­sent­ed by the Laven­tille Steel­band Foun­da­tion, led by pres­i­dent Michael Coop­er. The ac­tu­al pa­rade of steel­bands was pro­ceed­ed by a cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, fea­tur­ing the mu­sic of Eman­ci­pa­tion and the vi­brant per­form­ers of new dance sen­sa­tion Wasa Foli, and mem­bers of T&T?De­fence Force. Set­ting the am­bi­ence and mood for the re­main­der of the pro­gramme were the young mu­si­cians of the Laven­tille Po­lice Youth Club. Smart­ly decked off in neon green jer­seys, the spir­it­ed per­for­mance of this en­sem­ble of young pan­nists was a talk­ing point along the length of the East­ern Main Road in Suc­cess Vil­lage, no doubt in­spir­ing the hun­dreds of oth­er young pan­nists par­tic­i­pat­ing in what seemed to be a line-up of no few­er than 50 steel­bands. Pa­rade or­gan­is­ers had orig­i­nal­ly planned on hav­ing 50 steel­bands on the route, to com­mem­o­rate the na­tion's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary. Among the steel­bands to en­ter­tain and thrill the huge crowd were bp?Rene­gades; Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders; Petrotrin Phase ll Pan Groove; Star­lift; PCS Sil­ver Stars; Wit­co Des­per­a­does, BP Rene­gades and 2012 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars. Com­ing from the south­land were NL­CB?Fon­claire and Old Tech.

Pan pan every­where, not a drop to drink

I was em­bar­rassed last week­end when a group of young peo­ple from Fin­land and Den­mark were asked to con­tact me to find out where they could go in Port-of-Spain on a Fri­day evening to hear live pan mu­sic. The vis­i­tors said they play pan in Eu­rope and, hav­ing come to Trinidad, they thought there would be pan mu­sic on every block of the na­tion's cap­i­tal.

"Aren't you 'the land of the steel­band'?" asked Hen­ri­et­ta. I was stumped for an an­swer as I had no tan­gi­ble proof to pro­vide her with to sup­port that boast, and wide­ly tout­ed claim. In an at­tempt to ap­pease the vis­i­tors, I phoned Pan Trin­ba­go's of­fice and, speak­ing to a trustee, was told: "Nah, it have no place where pan is played on a Fri­day evening, or on a week­end. But, if they (Fins) still here on Sun­day, they could go to the Laven­tille Steel­band Pa­rade." I al­so called an of­fi­cial of bp Rene­gades, know­ing that the Char­lot­tee Street band re­cent­ly host­ed a vi­brant Fri­day-evening show, who al­so said there was no live pan ac­tion in the pan the­atre, but there would be some guys play­ing All Fours. I al­so called around to no few­er than half dozen pa­n­yards....same an­swer...no live pan mu­sic.

This rev­e­la­tion has left me be­mused. A vis­it to "the land of the fly­ing fish" and you can find live pan mu­sic at al­most every ma­jor ho­tel in Bar­ba­dos. On al­most each of my vis­its for new few­er than 25 Crop Over fes­ti­vals, since 1980, I have felt at home hear­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment played at every ho­tel I've stayed at, and along Broad Street, the main street in cap­i­tal Bridgetown. The same is true of An­tigua. I re­mem­ber years ago when Jit Sama­roo and the Sama­roo Kids played at nights at the Hilton, and de­light­ed lo­cals and tourists alike with some tru­ly ex­hil­a­rat­ing live pan mu­sic. I can go even fur­ther back, when vis­i­tors, land­ing on the Port-of-Spain jet­ty, off cruise ships, beat a straight path to Pent­house night­club, atop Sal­va­tori Build­ing on In­de­pen­dence Square, run by the late Ro­ma Kim Am­ing Sabeenay, to hear live pan mu­sic. It was the same when Pent­house moved to the top of what is to­day First Cit­i­zens Bank, on Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade. I al­so was a reg­u­lar vis­i­tor to Mi­ra­mar night­club, on South Quay, where there was live mu­sic, with ca­lyp­soes be­ing sung by Bri­go, Lord Blakie and some of the pop­u­lar bards of the day.

So, one may ask, what­ev­er hap­pened to the pan­nist and his in­stru­ment in en­su­ing years? What have suc­ces­sive ex­ec­u­tives of Pan Trin­ba­go, and suc­ces­sive Cul­ture and Tourism min­is­ters done to pro­pogate the life of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment?

One can­not de­ny that, on the eve of an Oc­to­ber elec­tion, this in­cum­bent Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive has done some work with pro­mot­ing pan and the steel­band by stag­ing spo­radic an­nu­al events, like Pan in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, Down Mem­o­ry Lane, and, Pan in De Coun­try­side. Oth­er en­ti­ties, like the Laven­tille Steel­band Foun­da­tion, have al­so chipped in with var­i­ous pan events, like the suc­cess­ful, bi­en­ni­al 8 of Hearts steel­band con­cert in Laven­tille, as well as South­ern Marines steel or­ches­tra, which pro­duced an an­nu­al tal­ent show for young peo­ple. Men­tion must al­so be made of PCS?Sil­ver Stars and Bri­an Kuei Tung's Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz for their an­nu­al, week­end Christ­mas pro­duc­tions. How­ev­er, un­for­tu­nate­ly, there is no where in Port-of-Spain, or any­where in Trinidad for that mat­ter, that a per­son, or vis­i­tor to our land, can go to hear live pan mu­sic, and this is an ex­treme­ly sad in­dict­ment against the gov­ern­ment, pan ad­min­is­tra­tion, hote­liers and show pro­mot­ers of our land.

The heat is on in New York City as the Big Ap­ple gets ready for the 2012 edi­tion of Brook­lyn Car­ni­val and the Every­body's World So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion on Au­gust 28 and 30. With many of the world's biggest so­ca stars show­ing in­ter­est, the two-night event will be held at Trop­i­cal Par­adise Ball­room, Brook­lyn, with the semi­fi­nal planned for Au­gust 28, and the fi­nal sched­uled for the eve of T&T?In­de­pen­dence Day. Every­body's has staged four pre­vi­ous World Monarch con­tests: Chalk­dust won the Evey­body's World Ca­lyp­so Monarch on two oc­ca­sions, and Ron­nie McIn­tosh and Ed­win Year­wood won the World So­ca Monarch ti­tle. Pop­u­lar Trinida­di­an ra­dio DJ so­ca per­son­al­i­ty Ja­son Benn is pro­mot­ing and or­gan­is­ing this year's com­pe­ti­tion on be­half of Every­body's, with a pan­el of in­ter­na­tion­al judges cho­sen to se­lect ten artistes from the semi­fi­nal to com­pete in the Au­gust 30 fi­nal.

The oth­er hot tick­et in NYC this car­ni­val is the Ca­lyp­so &?So­ca Re­vue Tent, lo­cat­ed at the Trop­i­cal Par­adise Ball­room, in Brook­lyn, and man­aged by Count Robin. Last week­end the vet­er­an bard said, "Al­though New York City is per­ceived by some as a Caribbean town, it is not a Caribbean is­land. There­fore, it is not prac­ti­cal to stage the event out­doors; we are go­ing mod­est by hold­ing it in­doors, in an 800 ca­pac­i­ty venue. "More­over, gov­ern­ment is not un­der­writ­ing the com­pe­ti­tion or award­ing mon­e­tary prizes as is cus­tom­ary in the re­gion." Every­body's is giv­ing a min­i­mum of US$3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 to the first, sec­ond and third prize win­ners, re­spec­tive­ly. The oth­er artistes in the fi­nals will re­ceive a per­for­mance fee.

The artistes billed to ap­pear in the Ca­lyp­so & So­ca Re­vue Tent in­clude 2012 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Du­ane O'Con­nor, 2012 Bar­ba­dos Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Red Plas­tic Bag, Spar­row, Ca­lyp­so Rose, Shad­ow, Ed­win Year­wood, Lord Nel­son, Sug­ar Aloes, Beck­et, Swal­low, Sexy Suzie, Count Robin, Brown Boy, Fat­man George, Su­san Kennedy, Pos­er, and Dance Mas­ter. Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment will be by the Sun­shine Band.

Ca­lyp­so &?So­ca Re­vue Tent events:

Au­gust 25:

Open­ing and Trinidad & To­ba­go 50th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary Gala.

Au­gust 26:

Ladies Nite and Two on One Tick­et

Au­gust 29:

Toast to Trinidad & To­ba­go and Ja­maica 50th in­de­pen­dence

Au­gust 31:

Trinidad & To­ba­go In­de­pen­dence Nite

Sep­tem­ber 1:

In­de­pen­dence Fete

So­ca fever in Bar­ba­dos

Vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Red Plat­ic Bag (Sted­son Wilt­shire) copped his tenth na­tion­al Bar­ba­dos Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle last Fri­day night at the Pic-o-de-Crop pro­duc­tion, held be­fore a large au­di­ence at the Garfield Sobers Com­plex. Bag, aged 51, de­feat­ed nine ri­vals singing Thank You Ca­lyp­so and Roy­al Vis­it, de­feat­ing debu­tante Ian Web­ster and Gab­by. Al­so in the fi­nal were Adri­an Clarke, Pop­si­cle, Christal Cum­mins-Beck­les, Blo­pod, Adoni­jah, De An­nounc­er and Smokey Bruke.

How­ev­er, de­spite the hot­ly con­test­ed monarch fi­nal, the so­ca as­pect of the fes­ti­val cap­tured the pub­lic's at­ten­tion with Mikey win­ning both the Par­ty Monarch (Pow­er So­ca) and Sweet So­ca (Groovy So­ca) ti­tles. Singing a dit­ty ti­tled No Be­hav­iour, Mikey won two ve­hi­cles for his work. His run­ners-up in the Par­ty Monarch were Lil Rick, Ed­win, Khiomal and Slim Jim. Run­ner-up in the Sweet So­ca bat­tle were Lil Rick, Red Plat­ic Bag and Khiomal. The 2012 Crop Over Fes­ti­val end­ed on Mon­day with the stag­ing of Grand Kaoo­ment (Pa­rade of the Bands.)