An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Steel­pan is def­i­nite­ly alive and well in Trinidad and To­ba­go as was seen last week­end when the Min­istry of Arts & Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism con­tin­ued its NA­PA Fest at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day night with a week­end of mu­sic billed as Pop Meets Steel. Steel or­ches­tras, which have been re­spon­si­ble for the high lev­el of ex­cel­lence, which the na­tion­al in­stru­ment has been en­joy­ing, were fea­tured be­fore a packed house on pre­miere night.The fes­ti­val, which was start­ed in April by past Cu­ture Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, saw a cel­e­bra­tion of youth, the recog­ni­tion of the mas­ters, and a dis­play of the coun­try's artis­tic ex­cel­lence.

Pri­or to the start of the show, pa­trons were af­ford­ed the plea­sure of view­ing a his­toric, pic­to­r­i­al ex­hi­bi­tion of the de­funct Princes Build­ing. Sin­gle pan band St James Tripo­lians, led by Kei­th Simp­son in fan­cy sailor re­galia, opened the show with three items, one of which was a trib­ute to the de­ceased Lord Kitch­en­er. The ac­tion re­al­ly got start­ed when 2010 Na­tion­al Panora­ma sev­enth-placed Wit­co Des­per­a­does took to the stage. The leg­endary Laven­tille or­ches­tra got pro­ceed­ings off to a spec­tac­u­lar start, win­ning a cou­ple stand­ing ova­tions in the process. A few pa­trons even rose from their seats to dance when Des­pers played Can Can. Dur­ing its per­for­mance, much revered To­ba­go band Katzen­jam­mers did a mi­ni pan shoot out be­tween two of its lead­ing tenor play­ers, one much younger than the oth­er, which was ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the au­di­ence. The band per­formed Shad­ow's Bass­man and Bob Mar­ley's Mas­ter Blaster with much pinache, win­ning it­self thun­der­ous ap­plause.

A ded­i­ca­tion to found­ing mem­ber Fran­cis Wick­ham was giv­en by Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders when the band played Dance with My Fa­ther. In­vaders showed its di­ver­si­ty by singing the cho­rus of A Lit­tle Bit of Love in acap­pel­la. NL­CB Fon­claire, Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus and Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars com­plet­ed the night's per­for­mances, with each bring­ing its own charm and ap­peal to the stage. Fon­claire, once this coun­try's fore­most block­o­ra­ma steel­band, fea­tured guest tenor play­er Ken Philmore (Pro­fes­sor), for Third World's clas­si­cal Now that we've found love, and Jerome Biss­esar pay­ing trib­ute to the late Michael Jack­son.Ex­o­dus, like Fon­claire, suf­fered at the hands of an over en­thu­si­as­tic sound en­gi­neer who in­ex­plic­a­bly seemed to raise lev­els on his mix­ing board for these two or­ches­tras. At times it was was dif­fi­cult to dis­cern the pres­ence of any four or quad pans, with the per­cus­sion over­whelm­ing the sweet­ness of the mu­sic be­ing played.

But, Ex­o­dus, us­ing its vast ex­pe­ri­ence got the bet­ter of the sit­u­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when the St Au­gus­tine band did a the­atri­cal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of David Rud­der's Ganges Meets the Nile. Al­ways an or­ches­tra to im­press, All Stars of­fered a well round­ed reper­toire but the ic­ing on the cake was its sen­si­tive and poignant treat­ment of In a Monas­try Gar­den. Pop Meets Steel con­tin­ued on Sun­day night with LH Pan Groove, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, BP Rene­gades, TCL Skif­fle Bunch and 2010 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars. Both nights of the pro­duc­tion were com­plete­ly sold out.

Left: To­ba­go Katzen­jam­mers dur­ing its pan shoot out. Right: Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus plays John Leg­end's Green Light.