Trinidad
& Tobago - Now that I can see
things more clearly since eye surgery,
allow me to avail readers with more
material from the 2011 Panorama. And,
yes, I trust my ears.
Raf Robertson,
musician: Trinidad is not a
music place. When people hear me talk
like that, they say, “How you say that.
People does be in the panyard for
hours...” I say, “Whoa, whoa, listen,
Trinidad is a fete place, of which music
is a component of that.’’ I used to go
by Tower Records in New York after
midnight, and I would see people there
looking for music. That is an example of
music. And if I want, I could be very
acidic in saying that, sometimes,
Trinidad could be the place where they
send people in the music world who
behave bad. Banished to Trinidad.
_____________________________________________
Fonclaire’s “A Raging Storm” carries a
bold line that surely resonates both in
the Grand Stand and The North Stand,
which sits one-third empty in stark
contrast to an arty light show playing
all night on the ceiling, sometimes
matching colors with uniforms of panists
assembled at mid-stage, squarely in
front of the judges. “Dey tief we ‘Pan
by Storm’ in 1990.” Perhaps to underline
that sentiment, players are dressed to
the nines - in black. Maybe they plan to
put that horrible experience to rest
once and for all. Yet, they hope to
reprise the rhythmic jam of two decades
ago when Renegades snatched the title
from their teeth. Jackals all of them,
not necessarily fighting for scraps of
prize money, for the whole hog. Like
Phase II a few years earlier, they’d
become victims of the half-point
syndrome. Half a crumb dangling from
bloodied lips.
Ken “Professor” Philmore, there then,
here now, brings his war cry of
vengeance, animating
the troops to push this rack of pans by
so and that rack of basses across the
way.
Fonclaire
Steel Orchestra
He looks like Frankenstein in a
long black jacket and a Peter Minshall
hat, or a villain wearing a duster in an
old cowboy movie. A bandanna enhances
the image. When he strikes up the band,
the beat recalls the sweeping breadth
and pace of an era long gone. A raging
storm suffuses the work from the get-go. It’s the most technical score he’s done
- it
is how the ear receives the music at the
tip of the baton. It all rains upon us
just the way he’d summon the gods to
work the effects - multiple timpani to
augment the boom of basses and lower
register drums, as if to underscore the
theme, which, through the intro, the
judges already will have gotten the
message. 1991 had the taste of a
saccharine workout. This year’s message
arrives dark and hostile. What a
treatment of the adjudication system!
Maybe, it also has to do with 1991’s
“Pan in Ecstasy,” which they might have
filched from his back pocket, too.
Pickpocket is the word on the streets.
All in all, it’s Professor’s work. And
it ought to be enough. He should remind
himself at this stage in his career,
though, that it’s never good to keep
grudges. Or to go back to your old lady
after 20 years trudging through a storm.
Town remembers that you wuz robbed.
Twice. Now, bury it. And wait till next
year.
Contact Dalton Narine -
narine67@bellsouth.net
Leave
comments in
the
WST Forum
