Pe­ter Ray Blood

De­spite a hec­tic week­end I still man­aged to make it to the Queen's Park Oval on Sun­day to see the T&T Red Force mauled by the Guyana Jaguars on the third day of the fourth round of the WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Four-Day Crick­et League. Our lethar­gic bowlers were up against some ex­pe­ri­enced Guyanese bat­ters in­clud­ing vet­er­ans Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and Christo­pher Barn­well.

While the Oval game must have been en­ter­tain­ing for Guyana's fans–es­pe­cial­ly when Red Force painful­ly con­ced­ed de­feat af­ter lunch on Mon­day–for lo­cals, the week­end was filled with en­ter­tain­ing events show­cas­ing Christ­mas and Car­ni­val mu­sic. Ac­tu­al­ly, the week­end en­ter­tain­ment pack­age be­gan on Thurs­day evening when Spec­trum One En­ter­tain­ment host­ed the launch of Rum the Con­cept TV se­ries at Shak­ers on the Av­enue, on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook.

This event was al­so used to un­veil plans for the Jan­u­ary 10, 2016, re­turn of the once very pop­u­lar IT Mc Leod all in­clu­sive fete, to be held at The An­chor­age, Ch­aguara­mas.

Shak­ers as­sumed the am­bi­ence of "rum heav­en" on Thurs­day be­cause of the wide va­ri­ety of rums be­ing of­fered for tast­ing. Pop­u­lar brands and vin­tages of­fered in­clud­ed El Do­ra­do (5 and 15 Year Old); Mount Gay (Black Bar­rel and XO); Ap­ple­ton (Sig­na­ture and Rare Blend 12 Year); XM (5 and 12 Year); and An­gos­tu­ra (No 1, 1919 and Sin­gle Bar­rel).

Rum the Con­cept is a trav­el and cul­ture se­ries de­signed to pro­vide a mem­o­rable tele­vi­sion view­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. The se­ries is pro­duced and di­rect­ed by self-pro­claimed rum con­nois­seur An­dre Crichlow.

The true stage and launch­ing pad for Rum the Con­cept will be the IT Mc Leod fete, reprised in ho­n­our of the late Isaac Thurliff Mc Leod and the con­tri­bu­tions he has made to his com­mu­ni­ty and the lo­cal busi­ness world.

Be­sides Crichlow, among the liquor ex­perts seen on Thurs­day at Shak­ers were An­gos­tu­ra's Shel­don Roach, Reza Mo­hammed, Col­in Archer, and Spec­trum One's Col­in Blaze, co-di­rec­tor of Rum, the Con­cept TV Se­ries.

On Fri­day, cap­i­tal city Port-of-Spain was in a mess the en­tire day as the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC) held its an­nu­al Parang Com­pe­ti­tion at Wood­ford Square from the morn­ing, fol­lowed by the launch of the 2016 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion on Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade. The ISM launch, fu­elled by CNC3 TV and ra­dio fre­quen­cies Slam 100.5FM and 105.1FM, was off the hook as it fea­tured some of the more pop­u­lar so­ca artistes.

On Sat­ur­day night, PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra pre­miered its 25th an­niver­sary of Parang & Steel on Tra­garete Road, Wood­brook, at its New­town pa­n­yard, and the play­bill in­clud­ed Baron (Tim­o­thy Watkins), 2013 Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Star win­ner An­cil Val­ley, Los Di­nam­i­cos parang group and host band Sil­ver Stars. Char­maine Pouchet, wid­ow of the Steel & Parang founder Ed­win Pouchet, said this week, "Sat­ur­day was fan­tas­tic; great turnout and great per­for­mances."

Sil­ver Stars is al­so hold­ing the sec­ond edi­tion of its Parang & Steel

to­mor­row night, head­lined by Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rik­ki Jai (Sam­raj Jaimun­gal), Wendy Shep­pard and La Div­ina Pas­to­ra.

A rol­lick­ing time was had by the large crowd which at­tend­ed the an­nu­al Parang Street Jam held by Cheers Pub in St James. Peo­ple jammed the in­ter­sec­tion of Quam­i­na and Moon­er­am Streets and danced through the night to the mu­sic of Love Bunch parang group, Sapo­phon­ics Steel Or­ches­tra, Uni­ty Tas­sa group and a cou­ple disc jock­eys. Bal­last for the liquor which flowed like wa­ter, pa­trons en­joyed hops and ham, hops and roast beef, and chick­en wings pre­pared by Cheers boss-la­dy Yas­min Boland and her staff.

The week­end's big steel­band event was Dianton­ic Steel Or­ches­tra's fifth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions held in Siparia, at the cor­ner of Mary and Ed­ward Streets, on Sun­day evening.

Al­though the mu­sic fra­ter­ni­ty will be sad­dened by to­day's fu­ner­al ser­vice of much beloved mu­si­cian Raf Robert­son at the Cathe­dral of Holy Trin­i­ty in Port-of-Spain, at 1.30 pm, there is no let­ting up of live en­ter­tain­ment na­tion­wide. This evening, crack­shot pan play­er Dane Gul­ston will host the launch of 2016 Panora­ma CDs at his Massy Trinidad All Stars pan the­atre on Duke Street at 6.30 pm. Artistes ex­pect­ed to per­form in­clude De Orig­i­nal De Fos­to Him­self, Clive Tele­maque, Shel­don Reid, Daniel and De­nil­son Gul­ston, Rene­gades Ju­nior Steel and Robert Munro & Friends.

To­mor­row, Pan Trin­ba­go Inc will host its an­nu­al Christ­mas Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Din­ner at the VIP Lounge, Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, at 7 pm. Pan mu­si­cians and sup­port­ers are ex­pect­ed to ex­change T-shirts seen at Panora­ma for their fash­ion­able glad rags for the event.

Two hot Wood­brook fetes to­mor­row are Foxy, The Par­ty for Sexy Ladies (Pur­ple Pas­sion), held by Vic­to­ria's & The Good­men Crew at De Nu Pub (The Mas Camp); and Vice & ICE2 on De Av­enue, at Club Adren­a­line, 33 Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Things should cool down by Sun­day, de­spite the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) hold­ing yet an­oth­er edi­tion of its pop­u­lar Parang on the Broad­walk, on The Broad­walk, WMR, Care­nage, at 5.30 pm. Sun­day's con­cert will fea­ture Amantes de la Mu­si­ca and Vo­ces Jovenes.

Mu­sic Fes­ti­val As­so­ci­a­tion cel­e­brates 75 years in 2016

The T&T Mu­sic Fes­ti­val As­so­ci­a­tion pre­mieres its Di­a­mond Ju­bilee Cel­e­bra­tions with the host­ing of its 31st Mu­sic Fes­ti­val from Feb­ru­ary 14 to March 12, 2016 at venues in North and South T&T.

Found­ed in 1941 as the Trinidad Mu­sic As­so­ci­a­tion, the main ac­tiv­i­ty was the hold­ing of month­ly meet­ings and gath­er­ings at which its mem­bers played, sang and dis­cussed mu­sic. It was in this at­mos­phere that some ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple, spurred on by the inim­itable He­len May John­stone, de­cid­ed to hold a Mu­sic Fes­ti­val with the aim of en­cour­ag­ing the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of mu­sic.

The first Mu­sic Fes­ti­val was held in March 1948, with the pre­lim­i­nar­ies at the Roy­al Vic­to­ria In­sti­tute (now the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um) and the fi­nals at the Princes Build­ing (now the site of Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain). Since then, the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val has been a sta­ple of cul­tur­al life in T&T. It has cre­at­ed last­ing mem­o­ries for peo­ple in all walks of life and launched the ca­reers of many of our out­stand­ing mu­si­cians in all gen­res of mu­sic.

The 31st Mu­sic Fes­ti­val will fea­ture Ju­nior (day­time) and Open (evening) Class­es. Mu­si­cians, mu­sic teach­ers, schools and oth­ers who may be in­ter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing can ob­tain a copy of the syl­labus and reg­is­tra­tion forms at www.ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

Pa­trons and sup­port­ers can re­ceive the As­so­ci­a­tion's newslet­ter and up­dates on oth­er Di­a­mond Ju­bilee ac­tiv­i­ties by email­ing in­fo@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org us­ing the sub­ject "Newslet­ter re­quest." You can al­so keep up to date on Face­book at: www.face­book.com/ttmu­sicfes­ti­val, or on Twit­ter: @ttm­fa

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, con­tact:

Na­tion­al Of­fice: 9 Av­enue First, Ste. 4, St James; in­fo@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

North: 8 Rust Street, St Clair, (756-1236/789-4929); north@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

South: 2 Ruth Av­enue, Les Ef­forts West, San Fer­nan­do (333-0402); south@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

To­ba­go: 495-6441/771-1872/309-0750; to­ba­go@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org