Pe­ter Ray Blood

Aside from the first prize in next year's Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, the cham­pi­on steel or­ches­tra in the large band cat­e­go­ry might al­so be in line for a con­cert tour of Nige­ria. Last week­end, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, just back from the North Africa state, dis­closed that the Niger­ian vice-pres­i­dent and Pan Trin­ba­go af­fil­i­ates in Nige­ria have ex­pressed a de­sire to host the C2K13 Na­tion­al Panora­ma win­ner.

At present, Panora­ma (medi­um) cham­pi­on Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille is wind­ing down a con­cert tour of Nige­ria. Di­az was high in praise of the per­for­mances he wit­nessed by Sound Spe­cial­ists on the African con­ti­nent. Last Fri­day, I told you about who will be ar­rang­ing for some of the steel­bands in next year's Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and was be­sieged by pan peo­ple chid­ing me for omit­ting their's. What most pan peo­ple, and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans as well, don't seem to un­der­stand, is that some of their peers are bet­ter or­gan­ised than they are, and more forth­com­ing with in­for­ma­tion.

So, you al­ready know about Ed­win Pouchet and PCS Sil­ver Stars do­ing Denyse Plum­mer's Shock At­tack, writ­ten by Alvin Daniell, To­ba­go's Katzen­jam­mers, vy­ing for a hat-trick in the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry of the com­pe­ti­tion, has Len "Boogsie"?Sharpe as its C2K13 arranger. I al­so told you that vet­er­an Ray Hol­man will be work­ing with Ju­nior Sam­my Group of Com­pa­nies Skif­fle; Amer­i­can Andy Narell is al­ready here on Tri­ni soil to be­gin work on bird­song's The Last Word; New York-based Ard­din Her­bert is back with CAL In­vaders; Du­vonne Stew­art is back on Char­lotte Street with BP Rene­gades and will al­so be do­ing Plum­mer's Shock At­tack; Rob­bie Greenidge re­turns to Wit­co Des­per­a­does; Pel­ham God­dard con­tin­ues with Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus; Leon "Smooth"?Ed­wards is aim­ing to give Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars a third straight na­tion­al ti­tle; and, Kei­th Sal­cedo is paired with Star­lift, down Mu­cu­rapo Road Ex­ten­sion in St James.

Now, you can add to your list Ken "Pro­fes­sor"?Philmore do­ing De­stra's Ad­dict­ed for South's NL­CB?Fon­laire; Seion Gomez ar­rang­ing for To­ba­go's NL­CB?Buc­ca­neers and So­lo Har­monites of Mor­vant; and young, tal­ent­ed mu­si­cian Cheo Cato ar­rang­ing Ker­win Dubois' Wet­tin' for San Juan's Pam­beri. On the top­ic of bird­song, the band is host­ing its Christ­mas in the Park on Sun­day, at Au­zonville Park, Tu­na­puna. Now in its third year, this free con­cert is bird­song's Christ­mas of­fer­ing to its host com­mu­ni­ty.

This year's event promis­es to be as en­ter­tain­ing as last year's. UWI Chorale, un­der the di­rec­tion of Jes­sel Mur­ray, will be a head­line guest per­for­mance on the night. And, the evening's spe­cial guest is Narell. His unique stylings will fea­ture in pieces with three of bird­song's five en­sem­bles. All the en­sem­bles of the bird­song fam­i­ly will per­form at the con­cert in­clud­ing bird­song Acad­e­my Or­ches­tra, bird­song Acad­e­my Brass, bird­song Small En­sem­ble and bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra. The Richie Quar­less Or­ches­tra will round out the night's per­for­mances. Com­prised main­ly of in­struc­tors at bird­song Acad­e­my, it is led by Quar­les, the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the Acad­e­my Or­ches­tra.

Pa­trons are in­vit­ed to walk with your chairs and cool­ers and en­joy the mu­sic of Christ­mas at this free, all gen­er­a­tional con­cert. By the way, pre­lim­i­nary elim­i­na­tion judg­ing for steel­bands, to be held in pa­n­yards, is sched­uled to be­gin on Jan­u­ary 10. While at­ten­tion in the pan world might be fo­cused on the C2K13 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, steel­bands are al­so plan­ning for their mas pre­sen­ta­tions. Word is that come next year, Trinidad All Stars is hit­ting the streets of Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Mon­day por­tray­ing Fash­ion Ex­trav­a­gan­za. One of the pop­u­lar sec­tions at the Duke Street pa­n­yard is Dy­nasty, to be pre­sent­ed by Vicky &?Friends.

Se­crets in Trinci­ty re­vealed

When it comes to the saga of suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val fetes a well-kept se­cret will be re­vealed for C2K13. Roach and Friends be­gan hold­ing fetes in the mid-80s, chang­ing its name to Nu Im­age Pro­mo­tions in the ear­ly 90s. Af­ter much clam­our­ing from loy­al but dis­sat­is­fied pa­trons af­ter the group dis­band­ed in the mid-90s, Nu Im­age is mak­ing a re­turn to next year's Car­ni­val, un­der a new name-Eclec­tic Pro­mo­tions. So, come Jan­u­ary 20, Eclec­tic Pro­mo­tions will host Trinci­ty Se­crets, a unique all-in­clu­sive ex­pe­ri­ence, at Sec­ond Street, West De­La­marre, Trinci­ty, from 4 pm. Mu­sic will be by DJs Kabu­ki and Mikes. Ad­mis­sion is $300 and book­ings can be made by call­ing 789-7620 or 361-1246.

Farewell to Queen Ur­su­la

To end on a sad note, con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Ur­su­la Lewis, one of the most pop­u­lar en­trants in the an­nu­al Queen of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion. Lewis died last week Tues­day and was buried last Sat­ur­day. The moth­er of for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller Wayne Lewis, Lewis played queen ex­clu­sive­ly for pre­sen­ta­tions by her hus­band, the late Irvin Mc Williams, win­ner of three Band of the Year con­tests.

De­spite be­ing one of the most for­mi­da­ble queen com­peti­tors in the his­to­ry of Car­ni­val, Lewis nev­er won a Queen of Car­ni­val ti­tle, de­spite sev­er­al of Mc Williams' kings win­ning the male ver­sion of the ti­tle. One of Lewis' mem­o­rable por­tray­als was The Sea Egg, from Mc Williams' 1971 pre­sen­ta­tion of The Won­ders of Buc­coo Reef, win­ner of that year's Band of the Year. Lewis al­so leaves to mourn her oth­er five chil­dren and six grand­chil­dren.