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Monday, May 12, 2025

Red light flashing for Panorama 2009

by

20090115

The hors­es are at the gates for Panora­ma 2009. The red light is flash­ing, and pret­ty soon the biggest fes­ti­val in the Car­ni­val mix will be on its way. My spy net­work, bet­ter than the CIA, Mossad, MI5, and KGB, has been ful­ly ac­ti­vat­ed. Re­ports are fil­ter­ing back to base at an alarm­ing rate. Vet­er­an arranger Earl Brooks will be at Casablan­ca and South pan­nist Dar­ren Shep­herd goes to Gon­za­les Sheik­ers. I've al­ready said Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards will add his mag­ic touch to So­lo Pan Knights (I hope they don't sound like Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars). Bri­an "Bean" Grif­fith will han­dle ar­rang­ing du­ties at Hi­larks and Our Boys in To­ba­go.

Pan Trin­ba­go shows spunk....again!

I like when Pan Trin­ba­go shows some spunk and in­no­va­tion. They showed it last year with the pan­tas­tic Creme de la Creme Con­cert which re­placed the sleep­ing pill Champs In Con­cert. Now Pan Trin­ba­go has again freed up the fi­nal night of the Panora­ma in the Con­ven­tion­al Orch cat­e­go­ry. On­ly eight fi­nal­ists will ap­pear on the night of Feb­ru­ary 21 at the Big Yard. What a re­lief! Pan Trin­ba­go can now put on at least two guest artistes singing pan songs be­fore the re­sults are an­nounced, adding a next di­men­sion to the show. To­day I am call­ing on pan­men to em­brace change, which adds growth and dy­nami­sion, or be dragged in­to the fu­ture scream­ing. Take your choice!

Alvin Daniell,'The Fa­ther of Pan Songs'

Pan songs are rolling out faster than the speed of sound. Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards has jumped in the fray with Pan Ri­val­ry. He has gone for the best with Sir Le­ston Paul and the song­writ­ing ge­nius of Lar­ry Hare­wood. Word is that Rod­er­ick "Chucky" Gor­don, who shook up Panora­ma2K8 with Thun­der Com­ing (vot­ed Pan Song of the Year by Cott), is com­ing with Pace, and Pan­men Get­ting Sorf, arranged by Roger Is­rael. Cur­tis Ed­wards' Play Dis One is al­so in the mix and is a trib­ute to Wit­co Des­per­a­does de­ceased bass­man Frank "Crawl" Find­lay. Alvin Daniel, 'the Fa­ther of Pan Songs' (nice ti­tle eh?), has just re­leased his com­pi­la­tion, and boy it's de­light­ful. I al­ways feel that Alvin should now look at his pro­duc­tion as a dou­ble al­bum. Too many pan songs get leave out. Nev­er­the­less, he de­serves praise for keep­ing pan songs alive. Talk­ing about pan songs, I am not hear­ing Lennox "Bob­by" Mo­hammed's Spread­ing Mas on the air­waves. Ra­dio dee­jays, please give pan songs their just due please. Play them!

Boogsie' to un­leash his 'Mag­ic'

My spies pen­e­trat­ed the wall of se­cre­cy sur­round­ing the Panora­ma 2K9 col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and Machel Mon­tano. Word is that the song is Mag­ic Drums, writ­ten by Gre­go­ry "GB" Bal­lan­tine, one of ca­lyp­so's most pro­lif­ic com­posers. Mean­while, Boogsie's for­mer lyri­cal side­kick, An­tho­ny "Lexo" Alex­is, is on the side­lines for Panora­ma 2009. He had planned to re­lease a song called Par­ty but had a se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent that laid him up. Lexo and Boogsie formed an un­beat­able com­bi­na­tion for sev­en years. My spies al­so tell me that Broth­er Valenti­no has an­oth­er clas­sic pan song in the oven, while True, True Sto­ry, done by the un­like­ly duo of Boogsie and Bro Su­pe­ri­or is said to be one of the most in­ge­nious com­po­si­tions pro­duced this year.

Of City Kids and Pan folk­lore

Space did not per­mit me to send con­do­lences to the Tou­s­saint fam­i­ly and City Kids (lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al) on the death of vet­er­an pan­man Mack­ie. I know of the band City Kids as a lit­tle boy. As­so­ci­at­ed with the band is the famed Car­lie By­er. I re­mem­ber these City Kids con­vert­ing flour bag in­to a fine art. They played sailor as well as pris­on­ers, and re­port­ed­ly was the on­ly band that took a "short cut" through the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah to at­tend com­pe­ti­tion, or to win a case of rum spon­sored by the then Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee (CDC). Pan folk­lore has it that the City Kids were steel­band's orig­i­nal quick change artistes. Is not me who say so! Okay.

Un­til next week keep lov­ing up the pan.


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