Nass­er Khan

The son of leg­endary steel­band arranger Jit Sama­roo and the next gen­er­a­tion of the fa­mous mu­si­cal "Sama­roo" fam­i­ly (Sama­roo Jets), Am­rit Sama­roo is in­tent on con­tin­u­ing his ail­ing fa­ther's lega­cy hav­ing had his ground­ing in the pan from a very ear­ly age.

Thir­ty-year-old Sama­roo has al­ways been sur­round­ed by mu­sic and has been in­spired by the work of his fa­ther for as long as he could re­mem­ber. He start­ed play­ing pan at the age of six. Dur­ing his for­ma­tive years as a mu­si­cian, he won first place at San­Fest and the School's Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in 1992 and 1999 re­spec­tive­ly.

In ad­di­tion to be­ing raised in a mu­si­cal fam­i­ly, Sama­roo has re­ceived for­mal mu­si­cal train­ing, com­plet­ing an As­so­ciate De­gree in per­form­ing arts at the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Costaatt), and a Bach­e­lor of Arts in mu­si­cal arts from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies as the first win­ner of the Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Trust Fund Schol­ar­ship.

In 2012, he took the Melo­di­an Steel Or­ches­tra to the big stage at the Panora­ma fi­nals in the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry for the first time in 16 years. Sama­roo and his cousin Antony formed a small steel­band, Su­per­novas, which placed sec­ond in its cat­e­go­ry.

Al­though Sama­roo en­joyed suc­cess as a so­lo mu­si­cian in his ear­ly days (1999: First in schools steel­band fes­ti­val), his pas­sion is ar­rang­ing and he has writ­ten his name in the chron­i­cles of pan arrangers in Trinidad and To­ba­go by tak­ing the Rene­gades Youth Steel Or­ches­tra to win­ner's row in the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion in their first three years (2002 to 2004), and to the run­ners up po­si­tion in the three sub­se­quent years (2005 to 2007). He con­tin­ued to win oth­er ju­nior com­pe­ti­tions with St Au­gus­tine Girls' High School Steel Or­ches­tra.

It wasn't long af­ter that his ser­vices were be­ing re­quest­ed by bands lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly such as the Pan­time Or­ches­tra in St Lu­cia which, un­der his ba­ton, has emerged as a ma­jor force in the St Lu­cian Panora­ma. He is al­so the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the Steel Sen­sa­tion Steel Band in Queens, New York.

In 2008, BP Rene­gades in­vit­ed the younger Sama­roo to arrange their panora­ma piece due to the un­avail­abil­i­ty of his fa­ther. He ac­cept­ed this chal­lenge and in his two short years as their Panora­ma arranger, man­aged to main­tain the band's proud record of com­pet­ing in every panora­ma fi­nal since 1980.

Among the "made-for-pan" ca­lyp­soes he has writ­ten and co-writ­ten are Band from Space, Brazil­ian Flag woman and T.K.O. He worked with vo­cal­ists such as Crazy, Tony Prescott, Anslem Dou­glas, and this year Em­manuel 'Oba' Synette who vo­calised his 2013 ode to the 'die hard' sup­port­ers, My Band.Sama­roo is a mem­ber and staff arranger of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO).

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: I was born and grew up in Wa­ter­loo Road, Arou­ca.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion?

I at­tend­ed Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian School, then went on to El Do­ra­do Sec­ondary School (El­do Brown). These in­sti­tu­tions helped shape me in­to the in­di­vid­ual I have be­come by re­in­forc­ing the val­ues my par­ents stood for at home.

What are your 'pan' plans for 2013? Will we see a re­turn to the large band cat­e­go­ry?

I hope to take the fol­low­ing bands to win­ners' row: Melo­di­an Steel Or­ches­tra with the ca­lyp­so My Band, Su­per­novas with Machel's re­make of Mae­stro's Gold and in the sin­gle pan cat­e­go­ry with David Rud­der's Dust In Yuh Face. I'm work­ing on re­turn­ing to the large band cat­e­go­ry, stay tuned!

What song would you like oth­ers to lis­ten to that they have not heard?

There is this one that was emo­tion­al for me that I co-wrote with a NSSO col­lege called Pan for Peace.

Who has been the biggest in­flu­ence on your life and how did they?

That would def­i­nite­ly be my fa­ther, a men­tor, provider and dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an. He showed me what a man should be. He stood firm to his be­liefs and lived life as an ex­am­ple to oth­ers. One such les­son was to achieve any­thing in life one should work to­wards it. I had the best teacher in him.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do the type of "work" you do.

The word "work" as it is for me is in­deed quite a task and I chal­lenge any­one who thinks dif­fer­ent­ly to try do­ing it. My in­spi­ra­tion is quite ob­vi­ous, see­ing not on­ly the suc­cess my fa­ther en­joyed as an arranger but un­der­stand­ing it takes hard work to achieve it.

Who was your hero or "idol" grow­ing up (fic­tion­al or re­al or both) and why? And who do you ad­mire most to­day?

Like most young­sters from my time, my hero was Bri­an Charles Lara. Be­ing from a crick­et lov­ing fam­i­ly, the Test match would al­ways be on the TV and Lara seemed to al­ways be bat­ting. Ab­solute joy to watch bat, from the time he took guard to the fol­low-through of the shot. I even re­mem­bered see­ing him take his first wick­et in the same match that Chan­der­paul de­buted in at Bour­da in Guyana. Then to find out how much he loved pan and Car­ni­val!

Which of your work(s) do you rate as the most sat­is­fy­ing and mem­o­rable?

I have had a few that re­al­ly stood out for me, win­ning the hat-trick with Rene­gades youth at Ju­nior Panora­ma and en­sem­ble cat­e­go­ry with St Au­gus­tine High School at the Schools Steel band Fes­ti­val 2004 was sat­is­fy­ing. Most mem­o­rable would be do­ing the arrange­ment of Dr Jit with Rene­gades for the 2009 Panora­ma. I en­joyed the mood in the yard with play­ers and sup­port­ers re­quest­ing pieces to weave in­to the arrange­ment in Trib­ute to Jit.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by and in three words, your recipe for suc­cess?

Dili­gence, per­se­ver­ance, hu­mil­i­ty.

What was the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you ever had to make?

Part­ing with Rene­gades. It was one of the mu­si­cal in­sti­tu­tions that I was schooled and grew up in and still ad­mire and sup­port to­day. But when things got rough at the be­gin­ning of 2010... com­mu­ni­ca­tion with man­age­ment (at the time) went to an­oth­er lev­el. Things were said on both ends–mine and theirs–that led to a sep­a­ra­tion. But both par­ties have learnt and grown from the ex­pe­ri­ence and I'm hap­py to say I still en­joy an amaz­ing work­ing and non-work­ing re­la­tion­ship.

What are your most prized pos­ses­sions: one tan­gi­ble, one in­tan­gi­ble?

Tan­gi­ble: My fa­ther's orig­i­nal mu­sic scores and work man­u­script. In­tan­gi­ble: My mu­sic, shar­ing it, teach­ing it and see­ing peo­ple hap­py be­cause of it.

What is your favourite pas­time/in­ter­est/hob­by out­side of per­form­ing/play­ing?

Be­ing home and spend­ing time with my beau­ti­ful wife Ter­ri-Lee and adorable and now some­what mis­chie­vous 11-month-old daugh­ter Aria.

What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

I have many goals and am­bi­tions that I set for my­self and work­ing to achieve. But fore­most, as we are in the sea­son, win­ning the Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tle in all the cat­e­gories my bands com­pete in.

If you could in­ter­view or dine with any­one from your life–liv­ing or dead–who would it be and why and what ques­tion would you be ea­ger to ask?

It would be my fa­ther. I know it may seem mun­dane but be­cause of the Alzheimer's dis­ease which he start­ed ex­hibit­ing signs of back in 2006, his co­her­ence and abil­i­ty to car­ry on con­ver­sa­tions have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed quite a lot over the last two years. We spoke a lot when I was younger and now I miss it. I would want to just talk with him about any and every­thing. I would like you read­ers to know through this ques­tion about my dad's con­di­tion, and who grace­ful­ly bowed out of ar­rang­ing af­ter ac­com­plish­ing al­most all the goals he set for him­self–with nine vic­to­ries–in­clud­ing the cli­mac­tic hat-trick from 1995, 1996, 1997 with one band, Rene­gades.

What is your typ­i­cal mu­sic-re­lat­ed day like?

Re­hearsals with the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra from 9 am-12 pm.In­di­vid­ual re­hearsal or scor­ing mu­sic for the group from 1 pm-4 pm.Af­ter that it's ac­cord­ing to which bands re­quire my ser­vices which start about 6 pm. If it's Car­ni­val sea­son I head to two bands a night. One at 6 pm and the oth­er at 8 pm. But when panora­ma gets clos­er to fi­nals I work with all three. Su­per­novas from 6 pm-7.30 pm, Nos­tal­gic from 8 pm-9 pm and Melo­di­ans from 9.15 pm-till. It's great hav­ing all the bands in one re­gion. The oth­er good thing is most of my play­ers are youths and play­ers who play with big­ger or­ches­tras, so they leave ear­li­er to meet their re­hearsals on time. So it's not like long ago where you have to slave over the pans for hours any­more. I pro­vide them with scores, they pre­pare it and come in to do light drills and per­form.

Where do you see the fu­ture of the pan and the steel­band move­ment?

We must at­tract peo­ple to Trinidad to ex­pe­ri­ence more than just Panora­ma. Steelfest, which was held last year, was a great mod­el and one we would do well to keep. But we still need to cre­ate more av­enues to at­tract pan play­ers from across the globe to come to Trinidad and To­ba­go and per­form.

Which are your favourite pieces of mu­sic or songs (non-ca­lyp­so)?

I have a love for clas­si­cal mu­sic and in that de­part­ment Or­pheus of the Un­der­world by Jacques Of­fen­bach is cer­tain­ly one of my favourites. Be­sides that, Dan Fo­gel­berg's Leader of the Band hits me on a per­son­al lev­el.

How has your fa­ther, Jit Sama­roo, in­flu­enced your mu­si­cal de­vel­op­ment?

Be­sides in­her­it­ing what was bi­o­log­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble, I in­her­it­ed a lot of his mu­si­cal taste–From Bach to Jo­bim and Mo­hammed Rafi to Spar­row–he taught me how to lis­ten and ap­pre­ci­ate mu­sic. That, cou­pled with a heavy di­et of Rene­gades Panora­ma arrange­ments was al­ways on my lit­tle cas­sette play­er as a teen. So it was nat­ur­al that when I start­ed to arrange I could on­ly sound one way, like my fa­ther. Peo­ple thought that it was Jit who was do­ing all those Ju­nior Panora­ma arrange­ments and just putting my name on the ban­ner. I was thrilled to hear that since I knew at 18 and 19 years old I was be­ing com­pared to the leg­end him­self. How­ev­er, when I start­ed with the se­nior Rene­gades I was chas­tised for my sound, then and still up to this day. From uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers (not in the mu­sic de­part­ment), to even my wife's co-work­ers in Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 'He don't have he own style!' they said. If you were born and grew up in Spain wouldn't you speak Span­ish? I don't know what they ex­pect­ed from me. I am the son of Jit Sama­roo; that Sama­roo style is nat­ur­al to me for ob­vi­ous rea­sons. But over the years work­ing with dif­fer­ent bands now I have adopt­ed new ways of do­ing things just as he did, from when he start­ed to where he fin­ished.

De­scribe your­self in two words–one be­gin­ning with A, the oth­er with S, your ini­tials.

Am­bi­tious, Su­per­no­va!