A com­pre­hen­sive and vivid dis­ser­ta­tion on the birth and de­vel­op­ment of pan, and the for­ma­tion of Pan Trin­ba­go, was de­liv­ered last Wednes­day night, at bpTT Rene­gades pan the­atre on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain.

Pro­duced by Pan Trin­ba­go, as part of Pan Month, a small gath­er­ing of pan en­thu­si­asts was held cap­tive through­out ac­counts by six steel­band vet­er­ans, in­clud­ing for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Melville Bryan, Bill Trot­man, Rudy Mar­shall, Rawle Dove, Hugh "Dasheen" Hack­ett and Kir­ton "Ed­die Boom" Moore. Cameo snip­pets were al­so giv­en by Pan Trin­ba­go trustee and event host Al­lan "Pablo" Au­gus­tus and Rene­gades pan play­er Lei­ba Trot­man.

Pro­ceed­ings were opened by Bryan who traced Pan Trin­ba­go's birth and de­vel­op­ment, from its emer­gence out of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­band­men (NATTS) and the Steel­band Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee (SIC).

In his ad­dress, Trot­man, who is al­so an ac­com­plished artist, ca­lyp­son­ian and dancer, read ex­ten­sive­ly from his trea­tise on pan. Speak­ing on the evo­lu­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, from the in­ci­den­tal dis­cov­ery of the two note dud dup, Trot­man said: "Bad­john wasn't a crim­i­nal. The bad­john was a pro­tec­tor of the com­mu­ni­ty, which re­spect­ed the bad­john. To­day doesn't have bad­johns; to­day has crim­i­nals; they kill peo­ple."

En­dors­ing what Trot­man had to say, Star­lift vet­er­an Dove stat­ed that the Bomb com­pe­ti­tion be­gan with a "mu­si­cal clash" be­tween TrinidadAll Stars and Star­lift. Dove al­so stat­ed that pan mu­si­cians were not "bad­johns" but were "very fast run­ners." He said the bad­johns of yes­ter­year were pri­mar­i­ly sup­port­ers of steel­bands.

In a brief speech be­fore in­tro­duc­ing the next speak­er, an emo­tion­al Au­gus­tus lament­ed the small turnout and lack of sup­port by steel­bands for the event, adding "every steel­band in Trinidad knows about this event tonight.

"We have to take this pro­gramme in­to schools to get wider sup­port from young peo­ple. Young stu­dents come to Pan Trin­ba­go every day to re­search pa­pers for their the­ses. Think of how much they could learn by at­tend­ing ses­sions like this?

"Let me make it quite clear tonight, pan is an African thing. But, I must let peo­ple like Sat Ma­haraj and they know that pan is al­so a Trin­bag­on­ian thing. Jit Sama­roo is one of the great­est pan mu­si­cians ever."

Au­gus­tus com­pli­ment­ed Rene­gades pres­i­dent Michael Mar­cano and the band for al­low­ing Pan Trin­ba­go to use its premis­es free of charge. He called on oth­er steel­bands to em­u­late Rene­gades.

Rene­gades pi­o­neer Rudy Mar­shall spoke on the his­to­ry of the Char­lotte Street band. He em­pha­sised that the no­to­ri­ous Law­break­ers gang was formed long af­ter Rene­gades was in ex­is­tence. He, too, sang prais­es of Sama­roo.

Up next was Hack­ett, a long­time Wood­brook and In­vaders "bad­john." Proud­ly dis­clos­ing that he was born on Feb­ru­ary 18, 1930, the 83-year-old bold­ly pre­dict­ed: "In­vaders and Tokyo could nev­er win a Panora­ma. In­vaders has been un­fair­ly judged every year."

He sug­gest­ed that steel­bands are kept in check by their spon­sors as bad be­hav­iour caus­es the risk of a band los­ing spon­sor­ship.

Con­tra­dict­ing Dove's ac­count of the start of the Bomb com­pe­ti­tion, Hack­ett said the com­pe­ti­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by In­vaders and Trinidad All Stars.

In the wake of Hack­ett's ad­dress, Trot­man, a pan and mu­sic aca­d­e­m­ic, spoke of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween In­vaders and Casablan­ca.

Moore, 71, a liv­ing In­vaders leg­end, claimed, "Rene­gades and In­vaders were al­ways in war. The on­ly In­vaders man who could have gone by Rene­gades was 'Cobo Jack', be­cause he was the band's pan tuner."

Moore gave a vivid ac­count of his life as a "bad­john" at home and abroad, his rep­u­ta­tion tak­ing him as far abroad as Britain to add "mus­cle" to Man­grove steel­band.

He al­so re­vealed that "weapons of choice in the bad­john days" in­clud­ed cut­lass­es, iron bolts and bombs. Adding that "icepicks were for cow­ards," Moore said that air­plane fu­el in­creased the dev­as­ta­tion of a bomb."

The au­di­ence sang hap­py birth­day for Hack­ett and Moore at the start of their speech­es.

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