Ray Funk & An­drew Mar­tin

For many in T&T and the US, the name Man­nette is syn­ony­mous with pan and steel­band. As the Kennedys are to Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, so are the Man­nettes to steel­band. It is no sur­prise, then, that in Bar­ry Man­nette a new gen­er­a­tion of Man­nettes is mak­ing a name and forg­ing a new path in pan in Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Bar­ry Manette grew up in Wood­brook and, as the son of Ver­non "Birdie" Man­nette, was prac­ti­cal­ly raised in the In­vaders Pa­n­yard. A pan leg­end in his own right, "Birdie" Man­nette ran In­vaders since 1967 af­ter tak­ing over from his broth­er and Bar­ry's un­cle pan leg­end El­lie Man­nette.

Bar­ry Man­nette was sur­round­ed by pan and be­gan play­ing at the age of nine and played in his first Panora­ma at the age of thir­teen.

Be­yond In­vaders, Bar­ry has per­formed with many of the top Trinida­di­an and Amer­i­can steel­bands in­clud­ing Phase II Pan Groove, Star­lift, Des­per­a­does, Rene­gades, Hum­ming Birds Pan Groove, Val­ley Harps, and the North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty steel­band.

Since the age of nine­teen, Bar­ry has been an ac­tive arranger for steel­bands in T&T, US, and the Caribbean. Bar­ry is al­so an ac­tive ed­u­ca­tor and is the founder and mu­sic di­rec­tor for the Star­lift Ju­nior Steel Or­ches­tra (2005-2011), steel­pan tu­tor for the Na­tion­al Youth Steel Or­ches­tra of T&T, steel­pan tu­tor for Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Trust, and sev­er­al oth­er po­si­tions in steel­pan ed­u­ca­tion.

Bar­ry Man­nette's life has been a whirl­wind of late. For the past two school years, Bar­ry has been liv­ing up in De Kalb, Illi­nois where he just grad­u­at­ed from North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty with a Mas­ter's De­gree in Mu­sic spe­cial­is­ing in pan. With the teach­ings of Pro­fes­sor Liam Teague and the great Cliff Alex­is (who just found out he will be in­duct­ed in­to the Per­cus­sion Arts So­ci­ety Hall of Fame!) in hand, Bar­ry is off to St Vin­cent and the Grenadines this sum­mer to arrange for the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Panora­ma–his first ex­pe­ri­ence ar­rang­ing for this par­tic­u­lar band and Panora­ma.

He def­i­nite­ly im­pressed the staff at North­ern Illi­nois and as Cliff Alex­is notes, "There's a very bright fu­ture for Bar­ry as far as I can see in steel­pan to­day. Hope­ful­ly, some­one will recog­nise his tal­ents and give him a job."

The process of ar­rang­ing for steel­band in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines is sim­i­lar to the process in T&T. Bar­ry was hired this past spring to arrange for the South­east Steel Or­ches­tra. Af­ter con­sid­er­ing sev­er­al Vin­cent­ian so­ca tunes he set­tled on the clas­sic In The Pa­n­yard by one of St Vin­cent's best known ca­lyp­so and so­ca com­pos­er/singers Win­ston Soso. Pan Yard was first record­ed on Soso's Ah Feel to Par­ty (1986) al­bum is fea­tured on a re­cent Best of CD. Bar­ry fin­ished the score in March and the band's mu­sic di­rec­tor Mar­la Nan­ton has been drilling the South­east Steel Or­ches­tra ever since. She can't wait for him to get there!

"For me, sit­ting at the feet of an arranger who is clear­ly more ex­pe­ri­enced than I am is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for me to ob­serve and fur­ther de­vel­op the craft of cre­at­ing Panora­ma arrange­ments. Al­so, the band is pri­mar­i­ly young peo­ple (12-25) and Bar­ry has ex­pe­ri­ence with youth bands in T&T," she said.

Bar­ry him­self is ex­cit­ed to get to Kingstown to hear the fruits of his labour and to make any fi­nal ad­just­ments to the arrange­ment.

Like many oth­er Caribbean is­lands, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines has a long his­to­ry with pan and panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions. With pan not just lim­it­ed to Panora­ma, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines has en­joyed a tra­di­tion of J'Ou­vert com­pe­ti­tions dat­ing back to 1949.

How­ev­er, Panora­ma is king in Kingstown. Held in the cap­i­tal city of Kingstown, the St Vin­cent and Grenadines Panora­ma be­gan in 1962 short­ly af­ter the in­cep­tion of Panora­ma in Trinidad. Com­pe­ti­tion at the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Panora­ma is stiff and this year Bar­ry Man­nette will be chal­lenged.

The Sion Hill Eu­pho­ni­um Steel Or­ches­tra has won the ti­tle the past four years and their arranger Seion Gomez, who him­self is an­oth­er Trinida­di­an and North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty steel­pan grad­u­ate, is hop­ing to ex­tend the win­ning streak to five in a row this year. The St Vin­cent and Grenadines Panora­ma will be held on Ju­ly 5.

In mid-Ju­ly, Bar­ry will re­turn home to Trinidad for good with a mind to teach pan, arrange for pan, and be in­volved at every lev­el with pan.

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