DAVID CUFFY

The mu­si­cal reper­toires were var­ied, as were the out­fits worn by band mem­bers tak­ing part in Pan Royale at Queen's Roy­al Col­lege's (QRC) court­yard on Sat­ur­day evening.The event kicked off the 2013 edi­tion of the T&T Steel­pan and Jazz Fes­ti­val, host­ed by the QRC Foun­da­tion, and fea­tured con­cert per­for­mances by four of the coun­try's top steel or­ches­tras–Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, bpTT Rene­gades and Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove.

Shar­ing the open­ing half of the play­bill, which start­ed prompt­ly at 7 pm, were Rene­gades and Des­per­a­does. The Rene­gades mem­bers were dressed in colour­ful­ly-pat­terned shirts and dark pants, and ex­e­cut­ed slick dance moves in styled chore­og­ra­phy dur­ing de­liv­ery of the or­ches­tra's six-song reper­toire that in­clud­ed All Night Long, Pint O Wine, The Prayer, Steel­band Times, Back Door and a reg­gae med­ley.

Band arranger Du­vonne Stew­art of­fered pa­trons a daz­zling demon­stra­tion of the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of Salmon Cu­pid's e-pan in the show­case of An­dre Tanker's Steel­band Times; ex­pe­ri­enced mu­si­cian/arranger/con­duc­tor Desmond Wait­he con­fi­dent­ly took the or­ches­tra through its paces while Ray­mond Ed­wards and Re­nee Solomon lent their pow­er­ful vo­cals to The Prayer; and en­ter­tain­er Tony Prescott had them singing along to his hit song Kick In She Back Door.

Mem­bers of Des­per­a­does chose black lounge suits and red shirts as their out­fit of choice. The band, in its inim­itable style, played sev­en se­lec­tions in­clu­sive of Mas­quer­ade, Au­tumn Leaves, Voic­es From The Ghet­to, Die With My Dig­ni­ty, Pan In A Mi­nor, The Can Can, and Re­bec­ca.

Singing San­dra was present to vo­calise her ca­lyp­soes Voic­es From The Ghet­to and Die With My Dig­ni­ty, and though af­fect­ed by the flu, she still man­aged to get the au­di­ence in­volved in the pre­sen­ta­tion, while the mu­si­cal treat­ment the band gave to Kitch­en­er's Pan In A Mi­nor was sim­ply out­stand­ing.

All Stars opened af­ter the in­ter­val with mem­bers at­tired in dark-coloured slacks, white shirts and black waist­coats. The band's reper­toire of mixed mu­si­cal gen­res in­clud­ed in­ter­pre­ta­tions of El Do­ra­do; A Whiter Shade Of Pale; This Is The Mo­ment, beau­ti­ful­ly sung by Ed­die Cum­ber­batch; Time To Say Good­bye, fea­tur­ing Cum­ber­batch and Ra­hel Moore on vo­cals; Theme from The Good The Bad and The Ug­ly; and a mov­ing ren­di­tion of the Over­ture from Morn­ing Noon and Night in Vi­en­na, skil­ful­ly con­duct­ed by June Nathaniel.

Out­fit­ted in bright red shirts and black pants, reign­ing Panora­ma cham­pi­on Phase II was joined by the Al­ter­na­tive Quar­tet, a string en­sem­ble com­pris­ing An­dre Don­awa, An­dre Comeau, Nari­ba Her­bert and Wa­sia Ward, for its pre­sen­ta­tion of nine se­lec­tions in­clu­sive of For­ward Home, On Green Dol­phin Street, Moon Riv­er, Mag­ic Drum, Blurred Lines, More Love, Rose, Woman Is Boss and Car­ni­val Ta­ban­ka.

The com­bi­na­tion made for a unique mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing mu­si­cal con­ver­sa­tions be­tween the strings and the dou­ble sec­onds pan played by band cap­tain Len "Boogsie" Sharpe.On en­try to the venue pa­trons were en­ter­tained by the QRC Steel Or­ches­tra.The Steel­pan Jazz Fes­ti­val con­tin­ues with the In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­pan Jazz Chal­lenge (The Chal­lenge) on Oc­to­ber 27, at Queen's Hall.