Sean Nero

"When my back is up against a wall, I work best!" cham­pi­on steel­band arranger Len "Boogsie" Sharpe said yes­ter­day morn­ing.He was de­scrib­ing the imag­i­na­tive mu­si­cal lines and in­fec­tious phras­es that con­sti­tut­ed the scin­til­lat­ing arrange­ment of Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove's tune of choice, Jump High, which ul­ti­mate­ly led to the band's vic­to­ry in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma large band fi­nal at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The Wood­brook-based pow­er­house se­cured its sev­enth ti­tle in the cat­e­go­ry to suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend its ti­tle. Of the sev­en ti­tles the band at­tained, six of them were back-to-back."We had chal­lenges," Sharpe told the T&T Guardian."We want­ed to win. We didn't fin­ish our tune for se­mi-fi­nals. We were be­hind by 11 points. I want­ed to win Panora­ma, be­cause it hard to get two (in a row). I come back and do it, and when you get two, you want to get three; and three is the hard­est."

Sharpe did not want the pub­lic to walk away with the im­pres­sion that Phase II's feat was due to his ef­forts alone.He show­ered ku­dos on the en­tire team, start­ing with the tal­ent­ed bunch of young and vet­er­an mu­si­cians who were able to bond, in­ter­pret and shape his mu­si­cal ideas, re­sult­ing in the con­cise per­for­mance that brought home an­oth­er vic­to­ry.

But he knew the play­ers were hap­pi­er play­ing the song be­cause of the qual­i­ty steel­pan in­stru­ments they had. For that, he laud­ed pan tuners Roland Har­ri­gin and Bertram "Butch" Kell­man. He al­so praised the ex­ec­u­tive team for their dili­gence, as well as the band's sup­port base for their unswerv­ing com­mit­ment to the Phase II brand.

Boogsie's ju­bi­la­tion, how­ev­er, was tem­pered by his con­cern that Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials were try­ing to sti­fle bands in the large con­ven­tion­al cat­e­go­ry that can do more to make the com­pe­ti­tion more at­trac­tive.He point­ed to the ceil­ing of 120 play­ers per band, which he said should be lift­ed."Large is large! Is large band, and then they com­ing and tell you 120 play­ers. All them big bands does use more than the amount.

"I hear they (Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials) com­ing for me. I go with 120 be­cause I don't want them come and do me no em­bar­rass­ment thing, where I have to take play­ers off the stage." Boogsie said, "Let peo­ple play pan. Peo­ple com­ing from all for­eign and stuff. They pay­ing the pas­sage to come and spend this amount of time, to iden­ti­fy with our na­tion­al (mu­si­cal) in­stru­ment. Oh God! All yuh leave the thing alone nah man, large is large! It caus­es con­fu­sion, too!"

He said lead­ers of large bands have ad­vanced this po­si­tion to Pan Trin­ba­go on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, but to no avail.He said the at­ti­tude of Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials was to put the mat­ter to its mem­ber­ship, which re­sults in rep­re­sen­ta­tives of steel­bands in small­er cat­e­gories ad­ju­di­cat­ing on the sub­ject from which they should be ex­clud­ed."Small bands have a say in our busi­ness! Sin­gle pan band have a say in our busi­ness! That wrong!" he said.

"Every time we come up with some­thing, small and medi­um bands fight­ing we down! That wrong! This thing has to fix! If Pan Trin­ba­go say ex­tra peo­ple could play, it is our busi­ness to find mon­ey to pay the ex­tra peo­ple."

Phase II's Back-to-Back Record

1987 Dis Feel­ing Nice

1988 Woman Is Boss

2005 Tri­ni Gone Wild

2006 This One for You Bradley

2013 More Love

2014 Jump High

Sin­gle vic­to­ry:

2008 Mu­si­cal Vengeance