Pe­ter Ray Blood

In three years of stag­ing Bad­john Night–De­fend­ers of Pan, this year saw the largest au­di­ence to at­tend the event.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said his or­gan­i­sa­tion de­cid­ed to in­clude this event in Steel­band Month to doc­u­ment the pos­i­tive role played by "bad­johns" in steel­bands of yes­ter­year.

At the Au­gust 14 event, held at the Rene­gades pa­n­yard in Port-of-Spain, Di­az said: "In school­days they taught us all kinds of his­to­ry; about Sir Fran­cis Drake, Sir Hen­ry Mor­gan and Christo­pher Colum­bus, but no­body teach­es about he­roes and vil­lains of Trinidad. The bad­john was not just the pro­tec­tor of the steel­band he be­longed to but he was a colour­ful char­ac­ter who brought re­spect for his band."

The for­mal part of the evening, host­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go trustee Al­lan "Pablo" Au­gus­tus, fea­tured ac­counts by three "bad­john" and Orisa el­der Ba­ba Erin Fo­la­mi. Hav­ing cov­ered past bad­johns in the North and East Re­gions this year Pan Trin­ba­go fo­cused on the "de­fend­ers of pan" from the South Cen­tral Re­gion. Giv­ing vivid ac­counts of their colour­ful pasts from the head ta­ble were Hen­ry Bernard (Melo­di­ans); Claude "Six Ker­chief" By­ron (Free French and Pana­son­ic Con­nec­tion) and Patrick Dray­ton.

The guests were in­tro­duced by for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Melville Bryan, now ad­vis­er to the or­gan­i­sa­tion. To set the mood he gave a few ac­counts of steel­band clash­es of years gone by.

A smil­ing Bernard in­sist­ed through­out his pre­sen­ta­tion that he and mem­bers of Melo­di­ans were "nev­er about bad­ness" but strict­ly about play­ing "good, sweet mu­sic." He added, his bridge of gold teeth in his up­per mouth shin­ing in the spot­light, "Melo­di­ans won every­thing in San Fer­nan­do and was the en­vy of oth­er steel­bands."

Hav­ing the du­bi­ous nick­name of Six Ker­chief, un­con­firmed ac­counts claim that By­ron got his mon­ick­er for al­ways hav­ing six hand­ker­chiefs on his, more than one wrapped around a ra­zor. Ad­mit­ting that he was a "mis­er­able" youth, the pint-sized, 76-year-old pan vet­er­an sug­gest­ed that he had to be brave, bold and bad to sur­vive in the steel­band world in the south.

As if to sup­port his po­si­tion, By­ron, al­so nick­named El Cid, re­count­ed how his first steel­band, Phil­har­mon­ics, was com­plet­ed de­stroyed by an­oth­er band, All Stars, in 1958. With his broth­ers he sub­se­quent­ly formed Free French. A com­pe­tent sto­ry­teller, By­ron had his au­di­ence in rapt at­ten­tion, his pre­sen­ta­tion punc­tu­at­ed by ap­plause and laugh­ter. To­day By­ron is the cap­tain of Panoson­ic Con­nec­tion, one of the pop­u­lar bands in the South Cen­tral re­gion.

Fo­la­mi, who was raised in the bow­els of pan in St James, proved to be a seem­ing­ly in­fi­nite repos­i­to­ry of steel­band his­to­ry and lore al­so kept his au­di­ence en­thralled as he gave a de­tailed, com­pre­hen­sive and chrono­log­i­cal re­view of what seemed to be every bad­john and steel­band cap­tain ever pro­duced, es­pe­cial­ly in the west. One of his dis­clo­sures which seemed to sur­prise all was of Phase II Pan Groove leader/arranger Len "Boogsie" Sharpe play­ing pan at age three, with a spe­cial stand cre­at­ed to ac­com­mo­date him.

Fo­la­mi pre­fixed his pre­sen­ta­tion by stat­ing that Orisa de­ity Ogun is "the God of Pan," he be­ing the god of iron and steel. He chid­ed steel­bands for not hav­ing a "stool" (mon­u­ment) in pa­n­yards for San­go, Ogun, Obata­la or Os­un, all Orisa deities con­nect­ed to pan. He said the con­tin­ued ig­no­rance by steel­bands of the rel­e­vance and con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween Orisa and pan is one rea­son why the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and mu­si­cians have been dis­re­spect­ed by com­mu­ni­ties and the state.

Fo­la­mi al­so re­called the days when there were more pans in po­lice sta­tions than in pa­n­yards as en­forcers of the law used to reg­u­lar­ly con­fis­cate in­stru­ments in raids and when steel­bands 'il­le­gal­ly' ven­tured to per­form in the street with­out the req­ui­site per­mis­sion.

At the end of the pre­sen­ta­tions, live pan mu­sic was sup­plied by Uni Stars steel or­ches­tra. Al­so in at­ten­dance was DJ KC Klass is Class.

Di­az promised to ac­cu­mu­late the many ac­counts from larg­er-than-life fig­ures in the steel­band world and meet with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to have them doc­u­ment­ed and taught to school­child­ren.

Pan Trin­ba­go al­so used the Thurs­day-night event to launch a fringe en­ti­ty named Friends of Pan Trin­ba­go. In­ter­im chair­man Fe­lix Carabache said the group's mis­sion in­cludes "giv­ing sup­port to the world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan by pro­vid­ing ser­vice, ad­vice and ex­per­tise, ded­i­cat­ed to the glo­ry of the steel­band move­ment."

He al­so in­tro­duced mem­bers of the com­mit­tee, in­clud­ing Mervyn Gul­ston (vice chair­man); Gail Turpin (sec­re­tary); and, Do­lores Adams-Au­gus­tus (trea­sur­er). Friends of Pan Trin­ba­go has sched­uled a gen­er­al meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 17, at its op­er­a­tional base, Pan Trin­ba­go's North Re­gion of­fice on Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont.

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Steel­band month con­tin­ues

Pan Trin­ba­go Inc con­tin­ues to ob­serve Steel­band Month with a slew of events planned over the re­main­ing weeks of Au­gust. Per­haps one of the most am­bi­tious ven­tures ever un­der­tak­en by the steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion–the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence and Panora­ma (ICP) 2015–will have the me­dia launch for its Web site and cal­en­dar of events on Au­gust 27. The launch takes place at Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain, at 10.30 am.

Come Au­gust 26, the as­so­ci­a­tion will pay trib­ute to its pi­o­neers and cel­e­brate the win­ners of two ma­jor events (Na­tion­al Steel­pan Mu­sic Fes­ti­val–Pan Is Beau­ti­ful XII and Na­tion­al Panora­ma 2014). The cer­e­mo­ny takes place at Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, from 7.30 pm.

The ac­tion re­mains in the south­land as the South/Cen­tral Re­gion hosts Panchut­ca 2014, a com­pe­ti­tion with the fo­cus on chut­ney so­ca mu­sic. Four­teen steel­pan en­sem­bles of 15 to 20 play­ers each will be vy­ing for a to­tal of $.5 mil­lion in prizes. Panchut­ca 2014 is un­der the pa­tron­age of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and takes place on Sat­ur­day, Au­gust 30 at Petrotrin Sports Club, Guaracara Park, Point-a-Pierre, from 8 pm.

Bands reg­is­tered for the com­pe­ti­tion in­clude Petrotrin Hat­ters, Gold­en Hands, Old Tech, San City, Pan El­ders, Skif­fle, Kalo­mo Kings, Panoson­ic Con­nec­tion, South­ern Marines, NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, Petrotrin Siparia Del­tones, NGC La Brea Nightin­gales and Tor­na­does. The win­ner will al­so take home the Mas­sive Go­sine Rov­ing Tent Chal­lenge Tro­phy. Recog­ni­tion will be paid to Sun­dar Popo and Ras Shorty I (Garfield Black­man), ex­po­nents of the chut­ney so­ca art form.

How­ev­er, pri­or to these ac­tiv­i­ties the Wood­brook/St James Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion will stage its third an­nu­al Pan on D Av­enue to­mor­row, from 6.30 pm. This year the pa­rade starts at De Ver­teuil Street with bands lin­ing up from Tay­lor Street. A to­tal of 35 bands po­si­tioned on dec­o­rat­ed trail­ers are set to pa­rade on the Av­enue.

For­mer Wood­brook coun­cil­lor Cleve­land Gar­cia said this week: "The TTPS, City Po­lice, FIRE Ser­vices, RE­ACT, ODPM, Min­istry of Health per­son­nel, Mar­shalls and Co-or­di­na­tors will be on hand to en­sure the safe­ty of the pa­trons and the smooth flow of the pa­rade.

"We in­tend be­ing strin­gent by en­forc­ing no side­walk vend­ing or am­pli­fied mu­sic. All the busi­ness­es on the av­enue have al­ready been no­ti­fied of this, and the po­lice is ex­pect­ed as­sist us with the smooth run­ning of bars."

Gar­cia added that a cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tion will be held at Adam Smith Square at 6.30 pm, com­plete with dance, fit­ness and Zum­ba groups. The Na­tion­al An­them will be played fol­lowed by a short prayer be­fore the event is de­clared open.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly down at De Ver­teuil Street the pa­rade will be­gin with a trail­er car­ry­ing 12 top steel­band arrangers to be award­ed at the square. They will be ac­com­pa­nied by tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters on foot. An­oth­er trail­er car­ry­ing a zum­ba group and a small steel­band fol­lowed by the oth­er steel­bands on trail­ers, make up the pa­rade.

The Zum­ba groups shall make their way up the Av­enue ac­com­pa­nied by steel­bands, in­clud­ing Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny; Su­per No­vas; Sil­ver Stars; Cou­va Joy­lan­ders and Rene­gades. There will be five Zum­ba points–Pe­tra Street; Al­ber­to Street; Luis Street; Adam-Smith Square and Cor­ne­lio Street.

The pa­rade route ends be­tween Cor­ne­lio and French streets.

Gar­cia said: "All side streets on the south­ern side of Ari­api­ta Av­enue lead­ing to Wright­son Road shall be open for res­i­dents to have easy ac­cess to their homes. There are a few res­i­dents on Ari­api­ta Av­enue and they too have been in­formed of the event. The pub­lic will al­so be able to use Tay­lor Street and Belle Smythe Street since the pa­rade is from Tay­lor Street on the Av­enue."