DAL­TON NAR­INE

As large and medi­um steel­bands pre­pare to com­pete in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nals lat­er to­day, re­spect­ed lo­cal mu­si­cian Raf Robert­son has sound­ed a warn­ing about the lack of prop­er mu­si­cal stan­dards in the com­pe­ti­tion. Here, made avail­able ex­clu­sive­ly to the T&T Guardian, are the hard-hit­ting views he ex­pressed to writer and film­mak­er Dal­ton Nar­ine at lunch on Wednes­day with Robert­son, the Bird­song arranger. A recorder wasn't planned, yet Robert­son didn't flinch when it joined in...even when Panora­ma came up. Robert­son: When you don't know your­self, you have an il­lu­sion of your­self. Be­cause you don't get to see your­self.

Q: An il­lu­sion, or delu­sion?

Robert­son: Well, both. A per­cep­tion is some­thing that comes from you, and a per­cep­tion is not the truth. So when you see your­self, you go in­to shock. Look, Trinidad is the mec­ca of medi­oc­rity. We live a lie. Trinidad is the great­est, etc, and we know that is a lie. For ex­am­ple, the arts is im­pris­oned by com­merce. Peo­ple like (Len) Boogsie Sharpe are like lit­tle is­lands in this sea of medi­oc­rity. And (Clive) Bradley's mu­sic, too. His ge­nius was be­ing able to func­tion be­tween his con­straints, be­cause he could not do what he want­ed on pan. No cre­ative free­dom on The Hill... Now, Panora­ma has be­come a per­for­mance com­pe­ti­tion, so you're play­ing for peo­ple who aren't mu­si­cal. They're there to have a good time and they want some­thing to re­late to. But the mu­sic of Panora­ma is not gen­er­al­ly arranged from the heart. Many bands arrange to suit the per­for­mance. Take a band like (Trinidad) All Stars, the arrange­ment should have some­thing to do with the tune. You could put a mo­tif, or what­ev­er, not so? They start off with a chro­mati­cism-and, the vi­su­al im­age of the play­ers per­form­ing that chro­mati­cism will dull any­thing re­lat­ing to the tune. Just like Sil­ver Stars, the reign­ing king of per­for­mance in the Panora­ma.

Q: But doesn't per­for­mance play a role in the com­pe­ti­tion?

Robert­son: No, no, no, no. The tune should be arranged as im­pro­vi­sa­tion, and the mu­sic should in­spire the im­pro­vi­sa­tion, not the per­for­mance.

Q: You mean "struc­tured" im­pro­vi­sa­tion, don't you?

Robert­son: Frozen ar­chi­tec­ture, that's what it is. With­in the sound, there's an arrange­ment, and the arranger has to get there. If you're not re­quired to go there, be­cause, for one thing, the judges...Look, I en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion [this year] and I came last. But you don't com­pete if you're not in favour with the judges' de­ci­sion. So, I have no...but that does not stop me from know­ing that the judges don't know. I hap­pen to know a few of them...Peo­ple are ba­si­cal­ly dis­hon­est and not dis­hon­est with mal­ice. Dis­hon­est from a cul­tur­al per­spec­tive. Hear what, if you ask a Tri­ni how to get to Man­zanil­la and he doesn't know, he'll nev­er tell you he doesn't know. In his purview, not know­ing is not good. Mind you, not know­ing is the be­gin­ning of knowl­edge, eh.

Q: Where're you go­ing with this?

Robert­son: A jour­nal­ist in France went to Ly­on to cov­er a rock fes­ti­val, and the ed­i­tor told him, "You spent six hours at a fes­ti­val and you had noth­ing to write?" He said, "Sir, with all due re­spect, there was no mu­sic there. They were mur­der­ing si­lence."

Q: And is that's hap­pen­ing here?

Robert­son: In many ways. I look at the pa­ra­me­ters of Panora­ma, be­cause you don't want to be there and play some­thing that no­body will ap­pre­ci­ate. My self-edit­ing wasn't based on what the judges would think. As an arranger, you have to get the peo­ple to like the mu­sic.

Q: Did you have a prob­lem with the band about ar­rang­ing from your heart?

Robert­son: I had a prob­lem in the sense that the band com­pris­es kids. And there was a lack of dis­ci­pline. They don't have that con­vic­tion. All this bling gen­er­a­tion knows about is the price of things as op­posed to the val­ue of things. Long ago I used to stand up in pa­n­yards for hours and take night dew. Now, they saunter in about nine, half past nine. One night, a play­er for­got to bring his sticks. Would you be­lieve? In the end, they may have played well, but not to their ca­pa­bil­i­ties... You gain more from los­ing than win­ning. You in­ves­ti­gate your­self more. Why did you lose? Well, I must pay more re­spect to the times that we live in. I have to take more con­trol of the arrange­ment. The per­son drilling the band doesn't un­der­stand what you're try­ing to say in the mu­sic, and that's a prob­lem.

Q: What were you say­ing?

Robert­son: There are cer­tain parts of "Do Some­thing for Pan" that rep­re­sent pan labour­ing up a slip­pery slope. Pan is a sad lament, to me. So I tried to let my thought process in­flu­ence my feel­ings, and then the feel­ings would bring the mu­sic, be­cause you can't just ma­nip­u­late cre­ativ­i­ty. It comes when it comes. I change things of­ten. Not be­cause you have to have a part there you think that any part will work. And pres­sure might in­flu­ence you to lay down any­thing; but, you'll have to change it if you're hon­est.

Q: Then, who are your favourite arrangers?

Robert­son: Neville Jules (founder of Trinidad All Stars) and Ray Hol­man. I judged a J'Ou­vert pan con­test (Bomb com­pe­ti­tion) a few years ago and All Stars came up...I'm not nec­es­sar­i­ly a fan of "Smooth" (All Stars' arranger) though I have much re­spect for him. Neville Jules brought the band up and they played his arrange­ment of "Theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ug­ly," (which Jules arranged when he was 78), and I'm in awe of a guy who has nev­er been to mu­sic school, but ad­heres to all the prin­ci­ples of ar­rang­ing. Ar­rang­ing pe­ri­od. Like art, it needs bal­ance. And I'm hear­ing all the har­monies, all the lines...I say but this guy is a ge­nius, though they may call him an icon. Com­ing out of La Brea, I wasn't ex­posed to Pan. But when I went to Lon­don for the first time, a friend played Star­lift's "Pen­ny Lane," arranged by Hol­man. As a peo­ple, we don't put a spe­cif­ic val­ue on our­selves and what we pro­duce, so when I'm in awe of peo­ple like Jules and Hol­man, it's kind of mis­placed. How to put val­ue on their work? On es­teem? It's price­less. When an au­di­ence hears some­thing that ris­es way above medi­oc­rity, it in­ter­feres with their per­cep­tion of them­selves, and that's where shock comes in. Ex­cel­lence doesn't ac­com­mo­date every­body. You ei­ther are or aren't.

Q: What's your take on Pan and its pos­si­bil­i­ties?

Robert­son: You ask Duke Elling­ton what's his pro­fes­sion, and he would say "dream­er." And I un­der­stand that. Where we are now, the steel­band has made a U-turn and in try­ing to come back has lost its way. We are the quin­tes­sen­tial clas­si­cal peo­ple. Grab­bing at the shad­ow and leav­ing the bone. Why hasn't any­one done the TASPO sto­ry on film? They have to come back to that. The dan­ger is that they don't know that they don't know.

Q: Let's go back to Boogsie for a mo­ment. You start­ed to say ear­li­er that he is an anom­aly...

Robert­son: Boogsie recog­nis­es that his com­pe­ti­tion is not All Stars, Rene­gades or Des­pers, but Sil­ver Stars, which rep­re­sents peo­ple who don't know any­thing about Pan and want to feel com­fort­able. Be­cause mu­sic is like that. So when the band does all these runs and all these chro­mat­ics and all this ju­ve­nile har­mo­ny, peo­ple who are slight­ly ine­bri­at­ed are com­fort­able, for it has noth­ing to do with mu­sic.

If we don't know about mu­sic, we'll be play­ing pan-on pan. And if you're mu­si­cal­ly in­clined, it is mu­sic. Pan is an in­stru­ment that we're try­ing to de­fine as not an in­stru­ment, but some­thing spe­cial. Any­thing that has 12 notes is an in­stru­ment. And you bet­ter learn mu­sic be­cause you shouldn't be play­ing the pan, you're play­ing mu­sic... We have this new crop of arrangers who don't lis­ten to good mu­sic. I al­ways tell my stu­dents "in­tent is more im­por­tant than any­thing else." So here we are at a junc­tion...be­cause we're in mob rule. Every­body at the Sa­van­nah has an opin­ion, even though they don't have the where­with­al to have an opin­ion about the mu­sic. They don't know har­mo­ny or rhythm or melody. To them, it's ei­ther some­thing's sound­ing good or not.

Maybe that's why [the judges] have cur­tailed Boogsie. He is mu­si­cal­ly in­tu­itive and he knows the cul­tur­al think­ing in his genre. If your mu­sic is good, you don't need a gim­mick. The judges mark you, 10 for per­for­mance, 20 for...to me, that is sus­pect. I've been hear­ing a lot of re­gur­gi­tat­ed stuff. And that is not a sur­prise. But Boogsie is the epit­o­me of cre­ativ­i­ty, and he's not go­ing up against All Stars, but Sil­ver Stars. It pains him to do that. Go­ing against some­body who doesn't have that cre­ative thing like Bradley, who once put a fist fight in a (New York) band in­to the mu­sic he was ar­rang­ing, as it was hap­pen­ing.

It is disin­gen­u­ous, there­fore, to have a com­pe­ti­tion and you claim you're look­ing for ex­cel­lence.

Q: What does Boogsie's mu­sic do for you? What have you heard in his mu­sic this year that makes you sparkle?

Robert­son: In my trav­els to the Mid­dle East, I've mar­velled at how mon­ey grows in sand. Look how they've pi­geon-holed him and he's able to still come up with some­thing cre­ative. I like his in­tro­duc­tion and his ap­proach to the im­pro­vi­sa­tion. I like the har­mo­ny. He's say­ing in the mu­sic look where we are and what we're do­ing. What do you want us to do again? Look where you are. I like to think I've got care­ful analy­sis with­out emo­tion get­ting in the way. For in­stance, this present Pan Trin­ba­go of­fice would be good for the 18th Cen­tu­ry. How you change your life is by chang­ing your mind and you do that by chang­ing your think­ing. You might not be wrong if you call Trinidad the Siberia of mu­sic. It's so an­ti-mu­sic in many re­spects. Hence, "Do Some­thing for Pan." I had a Russ­ian lec­tur­er at Long Is­land Uni­ver­si­ty who gave me this line: There might be a mu­si­cian who speaks prop­er­ly but has noth­ing to say, and a guy who has a lot to say but he doesn't know how to say it.