Pe­ter Ray Blood

As the leg­endary steel or­ches­tra cel­e­brates its 75th an­niver­sary, CAL In­vaders de­serves ku­dos for host­ing an im­pres­sive week of cel­e­bra­tions, and es­pe­cial­ly for stag­ing its sym­po­sium and ex­hi­bi­tion–T&T Steel­band: The Way For­ward–on Mon­day at the Queen's Park Oval, Wood­brook.

The Oval's Cen­tu­ry Ball­room was the venue for the event and it was well at­tend­ed by a num­ber of pan lu­mi­nar­ies and aca­d­e­mics, Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials and stu­dents of St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege. In at­ten­dance were Pan Trin­ba­go vice pres­i­dent By­ron Ser­rette, Pan Trin­ba­go North Re­gion pres­i­dent Ger­ald Mendez, bpTT Rene­gades man­ag­er Michael Mar­cano, San­dra Awai, Rudolph Ot­t­ley, Pe­ter Ale­ong and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, White Oak Star­lift, Pow­er Stars and St James Tripo­lians.

Sym­po­sium pre­sen­ters in­clud­ed Joan­na Shortt, Michael Din­chong and Dr Jean­nine Re­my and the dis­cus­sion pan­el mod­er­a­tors were Ser­rette and Ot­t­ley.

The com­plete ex­er­cise was mod­er­at­ed by vet­er­an Massy Trinidad All Stars mem­ber Denise Her­nan­dez.

Short, a UWI grad­u­ate stu­dent, seemed to hit a re­spon­sive note with the stu­dents there as she elu­ci­dat­ed on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of women in steel­bands, stim­u­lat­ing many ques­tions at the end of her 15-minute pre­sen­ta­tion.

Shortt opined that while there is more man­age­r­i­al pow­er in the steel­bands for women to­day, as com­pared to years of yore, women are still seen as the ma­ter­nal cus­to­di­ans of steel­bands.

She sug­gest­ed that steel­bands are still very much male dom­i­nat­ed en­ti­ties, es­pe­cial­ly in up­per man­age­ment.

Din­chong was very com­pre­hen­sive in his pre­sen­ta­tion, ti­tled Steel­band Man­age­ment in the 21st Cen­tu­ry–Man­ag­ing the App Gen­er­a­tion.

He said that a steel­band was a unique, com­plex or­gan­i­sa­tion to man­age, with three dis­tinct gen­er­a­tions of mem­ber­ship.

He added: "Most steel­bands in T&T would have been formed in the last cen­tu­ry. Many lead­ers of these bands, hav­ing no for­mal train­ing in man­age­ment, would have had to ac­quire their man­age­r­i­al skills from ex­pe­ri­ence along the way.

"These skills would have been de­vel­oped to dif­fer­ent de­grees of ef­fec­tive­ness. It is the view of the au­thor that with the in­flux of the new gen­er­a­tion and its cul­ture, the time has come for lead­ers and man­agers of steel­bands to re­vis­it their ap­proach to man­age­ment in or­der to progress in the new mil­len­ni­um.

"Not many or­gan­i­sa­tions com­prise mem­bers whose ages span three gen­er­a­tions. This in it­self adds to the al­ready com­plex chal­lenge of group man­age­ment. The dy­nam­ics that take place in an av­er­age group be­comes more in­tri­cate where there ex­ist sub-groups, as in the case of most steel­bands in T&T.

These sub-groups bring with them sub­cul­tures that could cause a dishar­mo­ny in bands if not man­aged ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

A se­nior lec­tur­er in mu­sic at UWI, Re­my ex­pound­ed on The Way For­ward in Steel­pan Mu­sic. A Panora­ma judge her­self, she raised many eye­brows when she point­ed out some of the short­com­ings of judg­ing a Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and some of the mis­con­cep­tions in mu­sic and ar­rang­ing held by arrangers and pan mu­si­cians. Re­my al­so spoke about the im­por­ta­tion of steel drums for con­ver­sion in­to in pan in­stru­ments.

In­vaders held its 75th an­niver­sary gala din­ner and awards cer­e­mo­ny on Tues­day at Movi­eTowne's Ban­quet Hall & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

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Head­ing the list of awardees was James In­niss for his 59 years of ser­vice to In­vaders. Quad pan play­er De­siree My­ers was al­so award­ed for 25 years of stage-side mem­ber­ship.

Al­so ho­n­oured were cor­po­rate en­ti­ties, youth play­ers, con­trib­u­tors and sup­port­ers, and arrangers in­clud­ing Ray Hol­man, An­nise "Haf­fers" Hadeed, Nervin Saun­ders, Earl La Pierre and Ard­din Her­bert.

In­vaders brought the cur­tain down on its week of an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions with a Tra­di­tion­al Pan J'Ou­vert yes­ter­day morn­ing, from the band's Tra­garete Road pa­n­yard and around the Queen's Park Oval.

Tu­co cel­e­brates ca­lyp­so

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tions (TU­CO) launched Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month 2015 (CHM) on Tues­day with a Thanks­giv­ing Ser­vice at Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain. Themed By Ca­lyp­so Our Sto­ries Are Told, the com­mem­o­ra­tion and cel­e­bra­tions will end on Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 14 with the stag­ing of Ex­tem­po­ra­ma at the Port-of-Spain City Hall. This year's event will be of­fi­cial­ly launched next Wednes­day at the AV Room of Nalis on Aber­crom­by Street.

All zones of TU­CO are in­volved in the cel­e­bra­tion of CHM and, on Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 4, TU­CO North Zone will host Ho­n­our­ing Our He­roes–Trib­ute to Bomber and Bill Trot­man, at Stu­dio 66 in Barataria. Bomber and Trot­man are two liv­ing leg­ends of ca­lyp­so, revered by peers and fans alike.

On Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 7 it is the turn of TU­CO East Zone to host its ca­lyp­so prouc­tion at De Nu Pub in Wood­brook. The To­ba­go Zone gets in­to the ac­tion on the same day with its Vin­tage Kaiso Sym­po­sium & Ex­hi­bi­tion at Scar­bor­ough Li­brary at 10 am. This event will be re­peat­ed on Oc­to­ber 16, at the same time and venue.

TU­CO North Zone holds its Chil­dren's Ca­lyp­so Work­shop on Oc­to­ber 13 at 10 am at Nalis, Port-of-Spain. The work­shop will con­tin­ue on Wednes­day 14. On the 14th, the North Zone will stage Re­al Street Re­liev­er, a hu­mor­ous kaiso pro­duc­tion, at De Nu Pub.

The Com­mu­ni­ty Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nal will be held by the TU­CO South Zone on Oc­to­ber 17 at 8 pm at Unique Hall, San­ta Flo­ra. TU­CO South Zone will al­so hold its Grand Kaiso Bin­go on Oc­to­ber 18 at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, Cir­cu­lar Road, San Fer­nan­do at 2 pm.

To­ba­go Zone ca­lyp­so­ni­ans will trav­el to per­form in Trinidad on Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 21, at 8.30 pm at De Nu Pub.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Dee Di­a­mond will stage his an­nu­al ca­lyp­so con­cert on Oc­to­ber 24 at the Po­lice Mess Lounge, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James at 7.30 pm.

Des­tiny's Pub on Mal­abar Main Road, Mal­abar is the venue for Bring Yuh CD and Come, an in­ter­ac­tive ses­sion staged by TU­CO East Zone.

TU­CO South Cen­tral Zone goes north on Oc­to­ber 28 to De Nu Pub for De Ca­lyp­so War Kaiso Show, at 8.30 pm.

TU­CO's Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month Gala Cock­tail & Re­cep­tion is sched­uled for Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 29, at Globe Cin­e­ma, Port-of-Spain, at 6.45 pm.

De­part­ed ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Ras Shorty and Mae­stro will be re­mem­bered in a spe­cial trib­ute show on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 30, on the Princes Town Prom­e­nade, at 2 pm.

The To­ba­go Zone will stage the Vin­tage Kaiso Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion Fi­nal on Oc­to­ber 31, at Pem­broke Her­itage Park at 8 pm. That same evening Tu­co will hold its an­nu­al Ca­lyp­so Boat Cruise aboard the Coral Vi­sion at 7 pm.

The month of No­vem­ber opens with the stag­ing of the Kaiso, Kaiso, Kaiso con­cert on Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 4, at De Nu Pub at 8.30 pm.

No­vem­ber 8 is be­ing ded­i­cat­ed to all ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, fans, friends and fam­i­lies when TU­CO holds its an­nu­al Fam­i­ly Day at The Pad­dock, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, from 10 am.

An­oth­er vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian to be ho­n­oured for CHM is Ex­plain­er and he will be the star act at a con­cert sched­uled for Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 11 at De Nu Pub.