Steel Orchestras of Trinidad & Tobago - Panorama 1982
finals performances
Trinidad & Tobago - "Port of Spain was abuzz for Panorama 1982." -- Garvin Blake
Event producer is Pan Trinbago.
Coming off back-to-back wins with the immortal “Woman on the Bass” and Super Blue’s “Unknown Band”, Leon “Smooth” Edwards and Trinidad All Stars were poised to three-peat with their blistering version of Kitchener’s “Heat.” Just up de hill from Trinidad All Stars, Clive Bradley had returned to Desperadoes, after a one-year hiatus, to compose and arrange the classic “Party Tonight.” A short distance east of Desperadoes, in de Morvant Junction, Harmonites were trying to get back in winners’ row with Earl Rodney’s often forgotten gem “Pan Running Wild" sung by Squibby.
In Belmont, Casablanca were on the rise with a group of young, talented players and the unheralded arranger Henry “Bendix" Cumberbatch. Their brilliant rendition of Scrunter’s “The Will" was a warning shot, as Casablanca would go on to win the Music Festival later that year, featuring a monumental performance of Tchaikovsky's “The 1812 Overture” under the direction of Anthony Prospect. On Jerningham Avenue, across from the Savannah, the maestro Ray Holman was continuing to stretch the limits of the artform with his lyrical and elegant composition “Musical Showdown” performed by Pandemonium.
Down in de Village in Woodbrook, the gifted musical rebel Len “Boogsie" Sharpe wrote the forward-looking “Pan in a Rage" for Phase II Pan Groove. Further west, Power Stars were mounting a threat in St. James playing the veteran musician Edouard Wade's up-tempo version of Scorcher’s “Party Fever". At the other end of the east-west corridor, the accomplished Headley brothers did an inspiring interpretation of “The Will" for the Tunapuna band Exodus. The pioneering steelband Invaders, Deltones out of South Trinidad (Boogsie’s second band in the finals) and Sun Valley were also in the fight for pan supremacy.
Meanwhile, back in de Harpe, Renegades were arming themselves with Jit’s seminal masterpiece, “Pan Explosion”, Kitchener’s battle hymn.
See complete article Pan Explosion – The Making of The Jit Samaroo Sound by Garvin Blake.
Renegades Steel Orchestra
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