Yvonne Webb

Ju­nior Sam­my Skif­fle has joined forces with renowned steel­pan arranger Ray Hol­man for Panora­ma 2013. Skif­fle CEO Ju­nia Re­grel­lo an­nounced the part­ner­ship dur­ing the bands re­cent In­de­pen­dence con­cert at the Na­pari­ma Bowl. Hol­man, who at­tend­ed the show, was in­tro­duced to the au­di­ence and giv­en a rous­ing, San Fer­nan­do wel­come. At the con­cert, held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Plan­ning as an In­de­pen­dence gift to the na­tion, Skif­fle al­so ho­n­oured vi­sion­ary busi­ness­man Robert Mon­tano for the crit­i­cal role he has played in shap­ing their band. The au­di­ence learnt that had it not been for Mon­tano, now 91, the vi­sion­ary be­hind the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and the Na­pari­ma Bowl, Skif­fle and its pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tions might have been still­born.

Re­grel­lo, the ma­jor play­er be­hind the gen­e­sis of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, said: "Mr Mon­tano re­al­ly dis­cov­ered the band. "He pro­vid­ed guid­ance for the band in its in­fant stage. He set stan­dards for us. He was re­al­ly our gu­ru." Re­grel­lo re­called one night back in 1976, Mon­tano, who lived at Vista­bel­la at the time, left his home and fol­lowed the sound of the steel­band com­ing from near­by Jarvis Street, where Re­grel­lo and a group of young men and women were mak­ing mu­sic un­der a man­go tree. He said Mon­tano sat and lis­tened and when they were through play­ing, he in­vit­ed Re­grel­lo, the leader of the band, to meet him the next day, at his Im­pe­r­i­al Plaza of­fice, to dis­cuss their fu­ture. Com­ing out of that meet­ing was a two-year spon­sor­ship for what was to be­come the Im­pe­r­i­al Skif­fle Bunch. Mon­tano, then chair­man of Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd, was al­so able to in­flu­ence TCL to spon­sor the band. TCL spon­sor­ship of Skif­fle Bunch end­ed in Jan­u­ary this year ow­ing to fi­nan­cial prob­lems.

Queen­mak­er Jacqui Koon How, who al­so dou­bled as MC at the con­cert, held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Plan­ning as an In­de­pen­dence gift to the na­tion, re­vealed how Mon­tano helped to shape her ca­reer as well. She said Mon­tano, her first em­ploy­er, en­cour­aged her to get in­volved in the fash­ion and mod­el­ling in­dus­try. In ad­di­tion to Skif­fle, the con­cert fea­tured guest per­form­ers Na­dia Madoo, Ray­mond Ed­wards, Tur­on Roberts and Black Stal­in. Re­grel­lo al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­tro­duce the band's full brass sec­tion, which ac­com­pa­nied guest artiste Black Stal­in in his full reper­toire, not miss­ing a beat. Stal­in's ex­pres­sion, body rocked back, eyes opened wide and smile even broad­er than nor­mal, con­veyed his ob­vi­ous sur­prise and plea­sure at the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the young mu­si­cians. This prompt­ed Re­grel­lo to is­sue a warn­ing to renowned mu­si­cian Roy Cape, who nor­mal­ly ac­com­pa­nies the ca­lyp­son­ian, to watch out for this brass sec­tion. He boast­ed that all the mu­si­cians who make up the two-month-old brass band can read mu­sic.