Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

As ear­ly as 1992, Chan­tal Es­delle’s out­stand­ing steel­pan’s per­for­mances were be­ing rec­og­nized. She was the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on Pan Soloist at Pan is Beau­ti­ful VI, Na­tion­al Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, joint cham­pi­on with Liam Teague. It is a mo­ment she re­calls to this day and she re­mains proud­ly the first fe­male and youngest com­peti­tor to win this award.

Her love af­fair with mu­sic be­gan quite by ac­ci­dent, at age four, when her fa­ther, a pan mu­si­cian who played bass pan with the High­landers, took her to the home of well-known mu­sic teacher Louise McIn­tosh, founder of the Pan Pipers.

“I told him I want­ed to stay,” she re­calls. “Ms McIn­tosh had us at­tend Sat­ur­day class­es where we would sing, play pan, play pi­ano and the recorder. So, it was a mat­ter of course!”

From ac­co­lades in T&T to a schol­ar­ship at Berklee

“Ms McIn­tosh en­cour­aged us to adapt pi­ano pieces for so­lo pan. I was not the first fe­male at the mu­sic school to do that, I was pre­ced­ed by the likes of Mau­reen Clement, Denise Lowe and Char­lene Car­navon. I stud­ied at her mu­sic school from age four to 18, achiev­ing ho­n­ours in Roy­al Schools Pi­ano (grade VI­II), voice (grade VI­II), and the­o­ry (grade VII).”

Es­delle would go on to achiev­ing ac­co­lades at Pan Fes­ti­vals and Mu­sic Fes­ti­vals be­fore head­ing to the Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic on schol­ar­ship. Berklee is the pre­mier in­sti­tute of mu­sic and the per­form­ing arts, of­fer­ing de­grees at its cam­pus­es in Boston, New York City, and Va­len­cia, Spain.

“My de­gree from Berklee was in Jazz Com­po­si­tion, with the prin­ci­pal in­stru­ment be­ing pi­ano. At the time that I at­tend­ed, steel­pan was not an op­tion as a prin­ci­pal in­stru­ment, that in no way stopped me from play­ing pan.

“Head of the en­sem­ble de­part­ment, fel­low Trinida­di­an Orville Wright, had me play lead on pan with his jazz en­sem­ble for at least two per­for­mances at the Berklee Per­for­mance Cen­ter,” Es­delle re­calls.

“It was clear to my pro­fes­sors that my com­po­si­tion port­fo­lio had the syn­tax of steel­pan and kaiso writ­ten all over it.”

The study of Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy

“I em­barked on my sec­ond de­gree ten years af­ter get­ting the first. This time I head­ed to York Uni­ver­si­ty. My first de­gree was about the prac­tice of mu­sic, my sec­ond, a Mas­ter of Arts de­gree in Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy.”

This de­gree cov­ers the study of mu­sic in its so­cial and cul­tur­al con­texts. Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gists ex­am­ine mu­sic as a so­cial con­struct in or­der to un­der­stand what mu­sic is and what it means to its prac­ti­tion­ers and au­di­ences.

“My the­sis: In OUR house: the re­al­i­sa­tion of ‘self’ through sound in Clive Bradley’s mu­si­cal arrange­ment of the ca­lyp­so ‘In my House’ for the Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra. It was based on the the­o­ry that much of the African sto­ry in the West­ern Hemi­sphere has been record­ed, stored and told with mu­sic and ex­plores how the arrange­ment and the process of learn­ing it is an ex­am­ple of this.

Des­per­a­does is at heart my band and the mem­bers helped me with the study, so it was an ho­n­our, priv­i­lege and in­spi­ra­tion to do that work.”

The gen­e­sis of the band Chan­tal Es­delle and Moyenne

Chan­tal Es­delle and Moyenne is a Caribbean Jazz Group from Trinidad and To­ba­go deeply root­ed in the kaiso and steel­pan tra­di­tions of the twin is­land state.

“My broth­er, dear friend, con­fi­dant, Kevin Sobers, who is one of my near and dears from School Pan Fes­ti­val, and I start­ed Moyenne in 1998. It is where we got to com­pose mu­sic, play mu­sic, de­vel­op the skill of im­pro­vis­ing.

“The group com­bines the unique sound of the steel­pan with the tra­di­tion­al rhythm sec­tion (keys, bass, drums). Our kaiso and steel­pan foun­da­tion are a re­sult of every mem­ber hav­ing been nur­tured and groomed in some of Trinidad’s lead­ing steel bands, in­clud­ing Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, Phase II Pan Groove, Fon­claire and Bird­song and Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra.

“Moyenne has per­formed with promi­nent ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, the Mighty Spar­row and the Black Stal­in, and famed pan­nist Len Boogsie Sharpe, and has made re­gion­al ap­pear­ances in Cu­ba, Ja­maica, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da and Trinidad and To­ba­go. Per­for­mances of note in­clude the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Jazz Fes­ti­val (2004 and 2014), Pan Royale, The To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence, Jazz on the Beach, Jazz Artists on the Greens and the Grena­da Spice Jazz Fes­ti­val. Moyenne al­so topped the Trinidad and To­ba­go Steel­pan and Jazz Fes­ti­val pan chal­lenge plac­ing third in 2012 and win­ning in 2013.”

What pan teach­es us

Es­delle, a pan­nist and mu­si­cian of to­day, yes­ter­day and to­mor­row shares: “Pan Peo­ple is My Peo­ple! In the fra­ter­ni­ty, there is a clear sense of con­nec­tion, know­ing that pan is cen­tral to our sur­vival and well-be­ing, be­cause it is how we play and cre­ate mu­sic, to­geth­er. Pan should be taught in all schools. It is a won­der­ful en­sem­ble in­stru­ment. Young peo­ple can have fun com­ing to­geth­er to play and de­vel­op mu­si­cian­ship, sen­si­bil­i­ty and sen­si­tiv­i­ty through en­sem­ble play­ing.”

This mu­si­cian, com­pos­er, arranger, ed­u­ca­tor shared her im­mense pride on the de­c­la­ra­tion of World Steel­pan Day by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of the UN: “It is an­oth­er recog­ni­tion of our re­silience and in­no­va­tion, where we can gen­er­ate some­thing out of noth­ing, us­ing it to hold on to our mem­o­ry of self, while cre­at­ing vi­brant ver­sions of our­selves in the present. It is a recog­ni­tion of our sur­vival tool, cel­e­brat­ing the cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the world!”

To con­tact Chan­tal Es­delle:

Email: eth­nic­jaz­zclub@gmail.com

https://chan­tales­del­le­and­moyenne.com/home