Pe­ter Ray Blood

There's so much to write about to­day, I sim­ply don't have the space to say it all. As usu­al, I made my rounds of all-in­clu­sive fetes, in­clud­ing Re­pub­lic Bank's La Vi­da Lo­ca, which was off the wall as usu­al, and Bel­mont Boys' Sec­ondary Ex-Pupils (BELEX). I must make spe­cial men­tion of the lat­ter, staged at Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain. The lads, stout­ly sup­port­ed by their wives and girl­friends, re­al­ly put some ef­fort in­to it.

The mu­sic, food and at­mos­phere cre­at­ed all de­serve a top mark. It was grat­i­fy­ing to hear Caribbean Traf­fik Jam fi­nal­ly sound like the Andy Joseph-led ag­gre­ga­tion of old. Though I ar­rived late at the venue, in fact af­ter the time the fete was sched­uled to end, Roy Cape All Stars' ex­hil­a­rat­ing per­for­mance made the trip worth­while. Al­so on the bill were Dwight "Big Dad­dy" Phillip, Je­re­my Sook­dar, TC Su­pa Jig­ga, JW & Blaze, Max­imus Dan, who cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day on the night, and sexy new­com­er Jaime. Al­so in the house was�DJ Red En­ter­tain­ment's crew, com­pris­ing of Dos, Boo­bie, David and Red him­self.

LEFT: This So­lo Har­monites pan­nist seems framed by his in­stru­ment. Pho­to: An­tho­ny Har­ris

The cater­ers all came up with some en­tic­ing morsels, in­clud­ing a wicked fish chow­der by As­sam Cater­ers, and some mouth-wa­ter­ing gy­ros by Nicholas Cor­eia. Al­so in the kitchen were Ash­ton Ben­net, An­tho­ny Mon­segue, Pe­ter Sci­pio and An­nie Ram­ja­gasar. Peo­ple are still talk­ing about Sci­pio's bar­be­cue pig­tail, taste­ful­ly pre­pared with just a hint of salt. Top Notch Bar Ser­vices kept the bev­er­ages flow­ing un­til the fete end­ed, much to every­one's sat­is­fac­tion.

I would re­al­ly like to see con­sid­er­ably more sup­port from par­ents and past stu­dents for this worth­while ven­ture. Your sup­port was woe­ful­ly missed, and you missed out on a great night of fun. On an­oth­er note, hav­ing heard the new mu­sic for C2K10 for the past six weeks, I am left to be­lieve that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans the Mighty Fluke and Lord Popo died much too ear­ly. They would have rev­elled this year, giv­en the amount of trite, non­sen­si­cal mu­sic be­ing foist­ed up­on us on the air­waves. I re­al­ly hate the over­hyped phe­nom­e­non of "rid­ing ah rid­dim" and re­it­er­ate that the mu­sic is so poor that in every fete I've at­tend­ed, the DJs and the bands have had the strongest re­sponse when they played retro ca­lyp­so.

Sa­van­nah Par­ty

So much has al­ready been said about Sun­day's Na­tion­al Panora­ma semi­fi­nal, held at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, but I must add my two-cents. First off, hats off to the pub­lic of T&T for its ex­em­plary be­hav­iour on Sun­day, de­spite grous­es ex­pressed over be­ing charged $60 to ac­cess the Drag. Notwith­stand­ing the pros and cons of this de­ci­sion, Pan Trin­ba­go did a re­mark­able job at pre­sent­ing 45 steel­bands be­fore judges and pub­lic in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 hours. Nary a com­plaint was heard from pa­trons in the main stand through­out the day, as the steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived ef­fec­tive sup­port from the law en­force­ment per­son­nel and its cour­te­ous ush­ers and san­i­ta­tion crew.

RIGHT: The guys of Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove play them­selves in­to win­ners' row on Sun­day. Pho­to: An­tho­ny Har­ris

In fact, as I walked in­to the wash­room be­hind the main stands, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 hours af­ter the show be­gan, one ob­vi­ous­ly ine­bri­at­ed pa­tron loud­ly ex­claimed: "Wha' is dis. Like we in de Hy­att or what? How dis place clean so? And it smelling sweet fuh so." About the re­sults, I am still in shock at the cru­el hand dealt to Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, as I found the St Au­gus­tine band to be one of the best, if not the most pow­er­ful, on the day. I al­so think that Val­ley Harps per­formed the best in­ter­pret­ed piece on Sun­day–De Fos­to's Bat­tle Zone, arranged by Michelle Hug­gins-Watts.

The oth­er high point for me on Sun­day was the grow­ing num­ber of young arrangers, guys I've known from their child­hood, that have ma­tured in­to the best mu­si­cians and arrangers mon­ey can buy. I re­fer to youths like Ard­din Her­bert, Seon Gomez, Am­rit Sama­roo, An­dre White, Cur­tis Ed­wards, Cheo Cato, Cary Co­dring­ton, BJ Mar­celle, Jo­han Pop­well, and Michelle Hug­gins. I can't wait to hear what new mu­si­cal in­no­va­tions the likes of Her­bert, White, Gomez and Ed­wards will come up with in years to come.

On a fi­nal word on this pay­ing for the Drag is­sue, while I can see where Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az is go­ing with this idea, I don't think it was prop­er­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed, or mar­ket­ed with sen­si­tiv­i­ty, pri­or to Sun­day's show. I don't be­lieve that any art form ought to be giv­en for free but, when I pay, give me my mon­ey's worth.

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BLOOD­NOTES

The his­to­ry of Car­ni­val

This week, I came across a must-buy item for your Car­ni­val archives. It's a pub­li­ca­tion launched this year, ti­tled Mack­ett's Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Cal­en­dar–1932-2009. Priced at a mere US10 (TT$60), the pub­li­ca­tion com­pre­hen­sive­ly doc­u­ments the win­ners in every ma­jor T&T Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion, in­clud­ing the ca­lyp­so cat­e­go­ry win­ners, Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Chut­ney So­ca com­pe­ti­tions, from in­cep­tion.

Aside from pro­vid­ing re­li­able in­for­ma­tion for stu­dents of ca­lyp­so, pan and mas, the glossy mag­a­zine is al­so chock-full of eye-catch­ing pho­tos of the cham­pi­ons. This pub­li­ca­tion is not just a col­lec­tor's item but an in­valu­able source of in­for­ma­tion for stu­dents at all lev­els, and cul­tur­al re­searchers.

Many are claim­ing that if JW & Blaze win this year's Road March ti­tle, it would be the first time that a non-ca­lyp­son­ian would cop the cov­et­ed lau­rel. The mag­a­zine, how­ev­er, shows that there is prece­dent in Road March his­to­ry, as a non-ca­lyp­son­ian won the 1955 ti­tle–The Hap­py Wan­der­er.

Mack­ett's Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Cal­en­dar–1932-2009 is avail­able at the fol­low­ing out­lets:

RIK

Ish­mael Khan

Read­ers Book­shop

Crowne Plaza

Kei­th Khan Book Store

Mo­hammed's Book Store

Metropolotan

Colours Restau­rant, Gat­acre Street, Wood­brook.