ORVILLE WRIGHT continues his series of interviews with pan arrangers who took their bands to this year’s Panorama Finals.

Carlton Alexander has the distinction of taking a band with its roots in Tobago to the pinnacle of the Medium category in Panorama 2010. Like a selected few arrangers in T&T, he also had the task of grooming a band from Trinidad—Siparia Deltones—in addition to his Tobago chores. The judges saw his Tobago band’s performance and his arranging prowess as the best alongside some of the most talented in the arranging business. Steel Explosion made history, and one of the reasons I wanted to chat with Carlton was because of his unique approach to arranging—but more importantly—his
choices regarding the tunes he has made regarding Panorama performances. It was at his brother’s office in St. James on March 17, 2010 that I sat with him to get an insight into his craft and methodology.

OW: The last couple of years you have had a rather unorthodox approach to the choice of tune for Panorama. Last year, I critiqued you when you chose ‘I’m Not Drunk’ because I felt that there was not enough contour in the tune and it was quite repetitive. This year you chose Radica—a tune I never would have chosen for a Panorama performance—but you won with it. What drives you to choose these unconventional tunes for Panorama?
CA: I have a belief in music that does not have too much skirts in terms of—let’s say playing too many bass lines—in other words telling me where to go. I look for certain rhythmic things inside the song for example, the drum. I like the way the guy was expressing this song in terms of the rhythm and it didn’t have many skirts around it.

When you say it didn’t have many skirts around it, what do you mean? How is the skirt metaphor fitting into the whole Panorama/choice of tune thing?
Well, it’s like a building—it’s open. It’s like an open building that’s telling me, well listen—as opposed to a song that has a lot of bass lines. What I realize is a direction that is taking place with the younger artists like Bunji and Machel, and they are going back into a lot of the lavway—the African thing—they may not know they are going back into that. Coming from that Better Village roots that I have in Siparia, I recognized from backing up a lot of calypsonians like Bryner, Sparrow, Dougla that there is a change taking place relating to the total art—and I see art as architecture, music, sculpture, poetry. You see, you don’t need to have a lot of chords for music to become festive—a lot of life—you don’t have to have a lot of bass lines, you don’t have to have a lot of chords, and I pick up from those things. I realize it makes me more creative, more innovative when I have to think and cut sections through the song and say to myself, ‘from that rhythm I could develop a bass line’ or let’s say a specific direction where I want to go.’ Now this is as opposed to so many things going on in the song that it kinda locks me in. Going through this process, I say to myself, music is based on melody, harmony, and rhythm and as long as I am knowledgeable of those elements, if I have a verse and chorus, I can make use of that.

This year with Radica, it was not one of the tunes for instance that was composed for Panorama, and with all those tunes out there—about forty all told—did you have any difficulty zeroing in on Radica?
No. Let me tell you about Radica. There is a teacher named Mr. Bailey in Siparia—Mr. Stephen Bailey—he is an ex-RC Boys teacher in Sipiria, and interestingly one day I was walking on the street and he knows the family very well—my father, Clive and I as musicians, and he said to me, “Zan, Radica boy!” Yuh know dat kinda way? Ah say, “Yeah boy, ah hear it yuh know, but if I did hear it before I’m Not Drunk, ah might ah do that.”
 So I walk away and he say, “Radica, yeah boy, Radica is a good song!”
So anyway, then the gentleman in Tobago, his name is Iran Anthony, manager of Steel Explosion—alias “Douce”—he called me and said he got my name from Forteau and them, and said that he liked my work and had been listening to I’m Not Drunk, past music, Bee’s Melody and told me he liked the song Radica. I said, “Radica? You sure?” He said “Yeah man!”
 I said to him: “Radica! Those songs take work you know.” And I said, “What about Preacher’s song?”, because I said, okay, I would do a medium band but it had to be a back-in-time, because songs come out kind o’ late. So I said to him, “You sure about Radica?” And he said, “Yeah man.”  I introduced him to Preacher’s song, but he still came back and said, “I really like Radica!” And I said, all right. So he chose the song really.
You know Orville, I have been looking at the mood that is being created among the East Indian Chutney thing for a while now. There is a certain mood that is being created, and there is another song that I shared with Clive one time which was Bring It- another Chutney song by Bunji and Hunter. So what I realize is that certain music is coming through the country, and a lot of guys are ignoring it and they are not seeing where the music is going, and for me, I don’t know if it is the background coming from the folk, coming from the gospel, coming from the choir with my father, I get to hear those types of rhythms. Now all those little things were very important. I remember as a young fella, I used to go every Easter to the Siparia fete where the East Indians come down to give their gifts to the La Divina Pastora- it’s a famous religious thing all over the world where people come to give their blessing to the saint- and I remember in that thing something interesting used to happen. They had an activity where they trimmed a little baby and they would take the hair with some money and throw it below the school. In doing so, they will then dance with their rings on their ankles and then paint up themselves, and my hustle then was to go and trim the kid for twenty-five cents. When I did that, I was only interested in listening to them—listening to what they were doing because at that time I was playing guitar in the church with my father—so I used to listen to the instruments like the dholak and the ghungroo. And of course some of my Indian friends used to teach me Indian love songs, so I never divorced myself from that oneness. Another interesting thing about these songs is that it reminds me a lot about the roughness as you would find in the folk, the strumming like they have no fear of those types of rhythms—very natural. When I heard the song, I said there is not too much bass, there is just a I-V And it is very interesting also, you might think that as in I’m Not Drunk that those kinds of overlays and harmonies sometimes make you think, and I said, ‘Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a second here—in the second part of the song, he starts in a major on the fourth, and he moves up now to a whole tone from the fourth, but he stays on the D flat major—interesting!” It’s the same thing I discovered in I’m Not Drunk. So I said to myself, these guys are playing very simple bass lines and I could now cut sections through the songs and develop rhythms from inside of the song and harmonize it.

It is evident that you and “Douce” agreed on Radica as the song of choice for Steel Explosion. While that approach to choosing a Panorama tune is different from an autonomous arranger’s choice and/or a committee’s choice from the band, how did the members of Steel Explosion embrace Radica as the choice of tune?
Very interesting! There were about one or two guys and one in particular who was very close to “Douce” who was there when “Douce” made the decision, or was in the process of making the decision and understood what was going on. The other guys in the band—“Dat song boy? Radica boy? Dat song slow boy!” So they were sort of skeptical about the tune. Additionally, the guys in the band hearing all the different tunes the bands in Tobago were playing, kept them wondering about the choice. By the time the song was half way done, I saw a change—they began to see some sort of quality—because of course, they didn’t know what was coming.
Did you consciously or subconsciously go into the yard knowing that you had to convince some of the skeptics, or you just did your thing?
I did my thing. You see, they didn’t know what was in that song. I knew what was in that song, and I am seeing myself as a Trinidadian/Tobagonian with knowledge of certain rhythms that I can put in the tune that they will respond to because of the rhythmic thing. They are just listening to one aspect of the song and I as the arranger, am internalizing a lot of rhythmic aspects of the song that I could pull out.
This is a question that I ask every arranger so now’s your turn. The issue of choosing the tune for Panorama varies from band to band, and for me- and I guess for the readers too- it is quite interesting how different or similar arrangers approach this aspect of Panorama. With a tune like ‘Radica’, and having informed me that there were not many players in the band who were enthusiastic about the tune, did you go into the yard with a set plan for the arrangement or did you try to get inspiration from the yard—so to speak?
Before I go in the yard, just hanging out by, say Beer Gardens which is where my house is, I notice a long time now that people wait for this part of Radica, and this other part. I always recognized that when I pass by certain places like bars that are crowded and I see them waiting for that particular part. I said that is the key here. For instance in the intro, I sing it in my head and I saw it before I reach in the yard, and of course, other things. While I am in the yard now, I say, what part is that? I say that is ‘Radica, Radica wine down she bam-bam now’. Certain inspiration comes in the yard, but the concept—it came by just listening to the song and just letting things flow. Radica now—it start nice and it just builds up to all these elements that I could use in my arrangement. So all these other factors I will look at and I start to paint, I start to paint, and then as I go along in the yard now, I say, “Aha! Aha! Maybe I might see a situation here with something!”And I see in this part of Radica—just in the yard—you know that kinda way? That is how the tune develops. Now, I have a piano in the yard, and I sit by myself, and then I hear the voices and while all this is going on, I will say, “You see this song, this song needs double tenors”, and I would tell the manager this song needs a certain kind of players. (At this point Carlton demonstrated a particular rhythm.) So I said to the manager, “You will win if you have a judge that knows this song and is listening to this arrangement and recognizes these rhythmic patterns in the arrangement. That is fifty marks.”

You mention that you have a piano in the yard and I suspect that you teach from the piano. When you give, let’s say the double tenor a part as opposed to the quadraphonics for instance—are you taking into consideration the configuration of the notes on either of those pans and the ability of the pannists to execute the parts?
Coming from the pan, second pan is my instrument and I have been playing that since I have been about seventeen and I know the instrument—like when I’m doing something, I say, “Ah boy! That fella, the hand pattern dey! —umm, nah.” So that has an impact sometimes and I might change around the voicings. I know the three pan, I know the four pan, the double tenor is a pan that I have always been amazed of in the sense that it is—I can’t say that it is a cycle of fifths, I can’t say that it is a minor thirds, I can’t say it is a major thirds—but I like the tone of it. So I remember the tone of that instrument, and in terms of hand pattern when I am laying down the arrangement, I have a very good technician—one of the boys in the yard—and he always tips me off if indeed I might be putting something down that could be a challenge for the players. Sometimes I would say let’s do a drill on it, and if he thinks it could give the players some horrors, I would change around the voicings.

You mentioned drilling in your last answer, and I have been in a number of yards where the drillmaster would be going over a particular section over and over, and I would hear and see different rhythmic interpretations, but I am not always sure the drillmaster is really zeroing in on the purpose of what he is drilling. This drillmaster that you have, are you confident that he is focusing on the shortcomings within a passage?
The guy that I have now is a panman that plays all the instruments, and has a good background in theory. There are times I would say to him, ‘I want you to go down to the yard and do so and so for me’, and I would pinpoint a bar or a number of bars that I want him to work on. I sometimes even ask him to change a voicing somewhere in the arrangement and when I come in the yard we would listen to it. He is very good at that and he knows about breaking the whole thing down—even to the point of what the iron man does and stuff like that—which is a key to drilling. He has some experience with my brother, too, in the jazz idiom, so I am confident that he knows what he is doing when he is drilling the band.

I heard that during various stages of this year’s Panorama Steel Explosion at one point was at the top in terms of scores and at another point they were at the bottom. Can you talk about how you dealt with that sort of disparity?
I am not sure what you are talking about, but … Oh! Oh! Is that when we came third in the zonal finals in Tobago?

Something like that—a couple of people brought that to my attention.
I think that night the band was not very comfortable—the performance wasn’t that good, you know, and I am sincere with that. The performance at semi finals was really, really good. The performance in Tobago wasn’t good—they didn’t set up right in the first place, and I myself was not hearing the interplay of the interior coming out, and when the judge came out and say what they said, I had to agree because I was fighting to hear it.

Did the judges come to the panyard in Tobago and give oral feedback?
No.

Is it that it was only done for the large bands?
Yes, that did not happen for the medium bands.

When you get your feedback from the judges, talk about your process.
The feedback the judges… I got more with Deltones, can I talk about Deltones?
Sure, sure.
This was kinda strange. When they came to the panyard to do Deltones in the prelims the judges’ comments were hard to figure out, and they really put me in a different mind-set. One judge in particular talked about “those type of songs” and I guess the reference was directed to the choice of tune I made. I think that is not a good way to give an arranger feedback on the choice of tune, and I think they have a tendency not to respond to what they are hearing on the night of a performance. There was also one adjudicator, and it might have been the same person who said that there was not much of a motif to work with, and I think again that some of the adjudicators are not really listening to what I referred to earlier on as the interior of the arrangement. There is a lot more to a verse and chorus and the judges have to be able to listen to what’s going on outside of the verse and chorus.

These two bands that you arranged for, are there any similarities with regard to your approach to arranging and/or teaching or putting down the arrangement? For example, with Steel Explosion you knew what you wanted to do as far as choice of tune was concerned, did you have the same kind of autonomy with Deltones?
No. Deltones, for some reason, by education over the years, they have had a fairly young committee and I have been exposing them to fellas like yourself—to Happy, to Clive—I was the first arranger who brought them up to Port of Spain to hear Rudy play, hear you play, and Ron so I have had them listen to you guys, listening to Robert, listening to Andy, listening to whoever and educating them. And I had a group inside there called the Coal Pot Band doing all these different things, so they were beginning to see the essence and the direction of what it is I am trying to do. So when I said Roll It the first time, they say Roll It boy?—that was Alison Hinds song—so what happened after that is they sort of developed a respect for me and they more or less had the kind of confidence in me when I made a choice for a Panorama tune. Sometimes they would say, what Zanda t’ink he doing dey?, What Zanda t’ink he doing dey? because I show them all the African drumming, the folk and rhythms inside all these tunes that make me develop the arrangement out of these tunes that are out of the ordinary.

During this carnival season, I heard on more than one occasion—either through the media or among all these know-it-all folks in Trini—I heard them describing your creativity as having a strong jazz influence. Do you see yourself as doing jazz in a Panorama arrangement?
OK. I would say more extempoing you know. For instance, I worked with Barry Harris.

Let me interrupt you. For the reader, can you define extempoing?
Coming from Siparia again, backing up fellars like Lion and them, we did spontaneous extempo—you talk about your shirt, your pants and I take it and I work with it. So I remember the spontaneous way and the rhythm of the extempoing, and that kinda lavway ting. Jazz—I would say—it could have some influence because I did some courses with Barry Harris and hearing a lot of jazz players could influence the type of harmony that I used.

So from your perspective, it is more of a subconscious thing than a concerted effort to shape your arrangement in a certain way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really don’t set out to do any jazz.

(Interviewer’s note: Barry Harris is a well-known pianist and educator in the US and there are countless musicians who have either gone to his workshops or studied privately with him. A few years ago he was in Trinidad for one of the local jazz festivals.)

You spoke about the interior of the arrangement just now and I interpret that as your also delving deeper into the original composition looking for motifs and rhythms inside the tune to develop your arrangement harmonically and melodically. Can you talk about your process with these hooks in the tunes?
Okay. I know what the verse is doing, I know what the chorus is doing, I really get the song; but before I choose a song I come up in the north and get all the tunes and I would go to the different sources with all the tunes. As a matter of fact, when I heard Battle Zone I liked the song, but I said to myself, ‘if I have to go that road, this is a song that would compete with “Boogsie,” I competing with “Professor,” I competing with Robert—all them fellas I have to compete with if I choose this song’. But to answer your specific question, I tend to look at rhythm—and make it the centerpiece of my arrangement—and then I work melodically and harmonically from those rhythms. For example, last year when I did I’m Not Drunk, if you remember, I took a rhythmic motif from Drunk And Disorderly and used it in the arrangement, because I said to myself—I’m Not Drunk and Drunk And Disorderly, these songs are sort of saying the same thing, so this is how I sometimes take rhythms inside a tune and use it in an arrangement.

Much has been made about arrangers weaving fragments of other tunes into their arrangements, and a prime example of this was Silver Stars, who won this year again, and was quite successful with that sort of amalgamation. You obviously did it a year ago. What’s your perspective on this technique?
That is a very good question. I have also been checking myself too because when I listened to I’m Not Drunk the song is socially about the disorderly behavior of this person, and with Drunk And Disorderly, it happens to be the same thing—“every weekend ah in the jail”, embarrassment and all that kinda ting—so when I look at that, I have to say, that is a nice enhancement, and I have to see how I could tie that in, in terms of the orchestration. I was questioning the introduction Silver Stars used for Battle Zone. My understanding is that the title of Edwin Pouchet’s composition, Battle Zone, is also the title of a movie, and when he used a movie theme as an introduction, I really did not see anything wrong with it, but from my perspective, I thought it was a little disjointed.

When you do your arrangement, how do you get the spirit of carnival in the arrangement?
Interesting! I always had this thing about spirit of Carnival argument with them guys you know. If a drunk man coming down the road Carnival Tuesday and he swaying from side to side and he saying all kinda stupidness like ‘ah forget meh alpagat home boy’ and ‘star boy doh dead yuh know’, you go say that fella don’t have the spirit of Carnival? (This response brought about a prolonged chuckle from both Carlton and myself.) For you to capture the spirit of Carnival you must have the rhythms, and the instrument has to be an extension of yourself and you must be able to get that to the audience. So as long as you get that to the audience, you have the spirit of Carnival—it’s not any particular tempo, it’s not any particular tune, it’s just that you have to connect with the audience.

So from your perspective, is it possible to define the spirit of Carnival?
That kinda hard for me.

When it was announced that Steel Explosion won, where were you and what was your reaction?
I was at home because I had to get back to my daughter in Siparia who was alone at home. When I got home, I went upstairs and my daughter was looking at the broadcast on TV. I was a little tired and when I joined her looking at the TV, I actually dozed off. When they announced that Steel Explosion won, Peter Aleong called me and said, the band was successful, and I said, thank God.

What was “Douce’s” reaction?
“Douce” was happy. He cyah take the results and that kinda t’ing. He does run from all of that because he gets worked up. But he felt good about the result and all the fellas were happy with the result—especially the couple of guys I told you about who were skeptical about the choice of tune. Even after listening to the arrangement, I had more of an understanding of the song Radica and I felt it was a good statement that we won with it. Of course, the more investigation you do about music, the more knowledge you get, and I am still searching for some things, and by the grace of God, things are getting a little better and I want to know more.
I always remember when you demonstrated ideas from Bee’s Melody on the piano, (Orville interjected: ‘Wow! That was in 1992. That tape have real longevity boy!) I remember that well because I did the Bee’s with Deltones that year, and I said back then, that is what these guys who are arranging are supposed to be able to do—even judges I would say and this is why I responded to what you were saying. At least you could go and you could say, if you want to move from here you could do this, and this is what I do when I am orchestrating.

Now that you have had success with Steel Explosion with what I consider to be an unconventional approach to the choice of tune for Panorama, given that you chose I’m Not Drunk in 2009 and Radica in 2010, are you going to continue with those types of tunes as you go on with your arranging career?
Very interesting. What I see, what I look for—you see you don’t have to be going down that road—what could happen is that I look at what the kids do; it could be other social factors, and I say, ‘Aha! I watching them!’ I say okay, this is what is happening, that kinda t’ing, and I tend to move in that direction, and for now, Iinda staying on that same road.

Orville’s footnote:
Carlton’s interview was different from all the other interviews I’ve done, and while this statement has a clichéd tone to it, it was challenging for me to capture the sounds, rhythms, analogies and metaphors and put it down on paper. Because the interview was filled with the vernacular, I had to have my copy of Cote ci Cote la as I transcribed the interview from the tape so that I could find the appropriate colloquial sayings—or close to—in order to share the emotive passion that obviously could only be heard on the tape. At the core of this interview was Carlton’s choice of tunes for 2009 and 2010, and I must admit that the type of analysis he engages in as he selects his tunes for Panorama was very enlightening for me as a musician. While there are a few musical examples of what he demonstrated in this interview, there were many more that I would have like to have included. Much has been comparatively said about the qualities of bands from north, south and Tobago, and in the same way that Silver Stars was able to break through in the large band category after being in the medium category for a while, I predict that Steel Explosion—a Tobago band—will continue to be successful in the medium category. It is clear—that in spite of the fact that Carlton was adjudged the best arranger in the medium category, he is a humble and committed individual—conscious of the fact that he is still in a learning mode. This is refreshing.

‘Good Music Will Win Over Anyone’
ORVILLE WRIGHT continues his series of interviews with the
country’s top steeband arrangers

Arddin Herbert

Arddin Herbert, as arranger for Invaders steelband, is a fairly new face in a storied institution that spans seven decades. The band still maintains its original rehearsal space on Tragarete Road opposite the Queen’s Park Oval, and it was there on February 10, 2010 that I sat with Arddin as he was “bussin a lime” in the afternoon, waiting for the nightly rehearsal schedule.
OW: I know you have gone through the school system here where you did some musical studies, but where or what was your first arranging experience?
AH: It was with Players Symphony, a band from Belmont, and I arranged Fire Down Below.  At that time I was at Trinity College and we sort of entered into a barter agreement so that Trinity would use their instruments and I would arrange for the band.  Most of the players from Trinity filtered over to that conventional band and we went to Panorama.

Did you have any interaction with Ron Reid around that time?
I had interacted with Ron prior to that.  It was in 1983 when Woodbrook Secondary and Trinity College combined to form Woodtrin, and he was the arranger and musical director and we went to Festival and won.

I am aware that you arranged for CASYM (Caribbean American Sports and Cultural Youth Movement) in New York but can you talk about how you ended up landing the arranger’s gig for Invaders?
Over the years Invaders—as an organization—has changed arrangers a number of times.  I believe as one of the oldest steelbands it has had about twenty arrangers over the years, and the CASYM experience prepared me for the Trinidad experience.  It was the case where a couple of members of the management team decided that Arddin has been a son of this band, and he has been doing some good work in New York, and they called and gave me a shot at it.

Who preceded you as far as arranger is concerned?
Earl Brooks.

Did you feel any sort of pressure coming into that arranging chair?
Certainly.  Because the expectation was so high, and I felt as though I had to take Invaders out of the doldrums really, because they had not been qualifying for the finals of Panorama.  So it was like when your team isn’t winning and you go out and get a franchise player or you get a coach to make the team better, so it was a lot of pressure. But fortunately, by the grace of God, I made finals the first year.

That’s very good, what year was that?
2005.  So, there were many people who didn’t know of me and they were asking ‘who is this foreigner?’ because they looked at me as a foreigner- which is crazy- but they see me as a foreigner.

Don’t feel so badly, they look at me the same way too, and I just crack up when they call me a foreigner.  When I talk about the music and steelband, they say ‘Orville Wright? He ain’t living here, what he know ’bout steelband?’ But it is just part of the culture here. (Sustained laughter from both of us).
So the first year was quite successful in terms of getting the band to finals and our performance was really good, and I think we were the only band on that night to have gotten a standing ovation, and that’s when we played Say Say. You know, there is a CD titled Town Say, and that was based on the fact that people said Invaders should have won Panorama that year. So it was a really nice experience and it was filled with pressure.  Filled, filled, filled!

One of the cultural things about steelband in Trinidad is that when you come into a situation like this, there could be tension within the ranks of the band in terms of the respectability that should be given to an arranger. In your case as a foreigner, arranger, that is, trying to raise the level of the band, did you experience anything like that?
Yes, the old heads and the young heads—the old heads they have been extremely supportive because they remembered me from a little boy growing up, so they were happy to see me return to take the helm and try and get Invaders to their first ever championship.   The younger than the older heads were probably looking for a more local name, but obviously did not do their research to know where I had come from, my experience, qualifications and my commitment to the steelband movement.  So they were skeptical, but because of the immediate success, it kind of made them back peddle.

Prior to your success, I am aware that an arranger in your position will feel that resistance when you are in the panyard.  How did you choose to interact with the skeptics, in terms of winning them over?
Well that was not my focus in terms of trying to win them over.  I was just trying to create and produce good music that could be appreciated by them, as well as the audience, as well as the judges.  So I was not preoccupied with trying to psychologically win them over, but I just believed that good music would win over anyone.

Are you a trained musician?
When you say ‘trained musician’…( Arddin breaks out in hearty laughter. I try again).

Are you a schooled musician?  Did you go to school to hone your arranging skills?
Well, I am formally trained and have a Bachelor’s of Music from Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, specializing in composition but not in terms of arrangement.  What I learned was more of the conservatory traditional music education—classical type of stuff—and my instrument was pan.

So with regard to determining what style you wanted to adopt as an arranger, which of the arrangers did you seek out as a mentor?  Was there a conscious effort to pattern your arranging style after any one arranger?
Certainly. In my early years, I have always been mesmerized by Boogsie Sharpe—mesmerized! The guy is a genius. He is a genius! So my music is heavily influenced by his style so much so that people are criticizing me and telling me that I am sounding too much like Boogsie and you will never win a Panorama if you stay in that vein.  But my opinion is you have to have something concrete before you can go to the abstract so that you need to have a model to work from. Before you get your own style, you have to learn a style and then be able to say, I am going to move out of this box.  This is not only in terms of music, but art, period.  If you listen to the greats—be it R&B or pop—people sound alike, but eventually find a different style.  Those sorts of questions, I just laugh and say they obviously don’t understand how music was handed down.  Because even with the periods—Classical and Baroque for example—the composers of those eras learned from the composers that came before them and then they developed their own style. So I just listen to them and I don’t let them make me lose focus.  But certainly Boogsie is one guy that I have always listened to and I will continue to listen to him.  I have also listened to Bradley because he has a very unique style particularly with his extensions, his harmonies, his simplicity—yet he is very effective.  Another arranger that I have also listened to was “Smooth” because of his ability to create excitement to the point where it is impossible to remain still—you must dance.

Can you talk a little bit about your methodology in terms of structuring your arrangement from intro to ending?  In other words, do you plan your arrangement by saying that you want to achieve a certain amount of harmonic richness at this section as opposed to a melodically developmental section of the arrangement?
Depending on the piece of music and its theme—let’s say I am doing a song about war or thunder—whatever, then I try to create that sort of effect and the piece may not be very melodic, it will be punctuated.  If I am doing a piece that is a tribute to a musician or someone like that, then I will try to create that effect—in other words—paying tribute in terms of musical prowess as far as melody, harmony, counterpoint is concerned. So it depends on the theme.

Do you write your arrangement out before you go to the yard?
No I don’t. As a matter of fact I was speaking to a couple of arrangers and they said that they score everything, but I like to come to the panyard and get the vibe from the panyard, the mood, and the energy of the players.  I guess in this modern world that may be looked at as counterproductive, but it works for me.  I also think that there is a certain amount of soul that comes out of that environment as opposed to sitting down and having the arrangement computer-generated.  There is a certain kind of texture that you get from the yard because there are so many times that I would give a player a part and in listening back to the player play the given part, the player sometimes makes a mistake.  It is not unusual for me to say ‘What! What was that?’ And the mistake sometimes sounds so much better than what I intended, and I use that mistake and develop it to a point where it really sounds good.

As an arranger myself, if I have to do an arrangement, I usually conceptualize the arrangement in my head before I actually sit down and write the arrangement.  The mere fact that you get that texture and mood from the yard, there is the possibility that there can be a lack of connectivity or continuity from one section of the arrangement to another.  Have you ever encountered a situation like that when you try to get these eight minutes of music together?
Well, certainly that happens. Then I take a step back and look at it and say ‘Ok, there is a lack of cohesiveness here and I have to bridge it’, and then I focus on that bridging, trying to make those two individual sections one.  So it’s like marrying two different people but with the same goal, the same purpose, the same commitment.  So that in fact does happen.

So is that an Arddin thing or do you get that inspiration from the players in the yard?
I think it is an Arddin thing because it’s deliberate and does not rely on any external forces, and I guess this is where my formal training may come in and say, you know what, the best way to approach this may be by doing so and so.  Sometimes I just come in the yard and do it over and over- put in parts, and if I don’t like it I take it out, put in parts, take it out, so it also has an element of trial and error.

How long does it take you to put your tune down?
Typically, take for example in New York, I do that within a week because I have some young players that are…

….Crack-shots!
Well I wouldn’t say crack-shots; they are very good.  But I don’t look at them as crack-shots; they are very committed.  Crack-shot has a sort of connotation—a gallery kind of ‘I good’ and that kind of thing. But they are just committed and have the passion and because of that I am able to put down that song within a week.

Do you ever have a situation in the band when one of the section leaders would come up to you and offer suggestions on your arrangement?
All the time.  As a matter of fact, I have a couple of players here from New York, and I was taking out a part and one of them came to me and said ‘You  taking that out? You crazy!’  I said to myself that while I am creating music- and I know what I want to create- I am not doing it in a vacuum, I am doing it for other ears. So I certainly listen to them and when I listen back to it I sometimes say, ‘That sounding real good!’. So I certainly take a lot of advice from everyone, but more from people that count.   You know every one is opinionated so I am very careful in filtering what I change, and from whom I take advice.

In terms of the choice of tune for the band, I am aware that certain bands make a decision through a committee and pass that on to the arranger.  Can you talk about what happens with you and the band?
Of course.  With CASYM in New York, I have total control. If I say we’re playing Mary Had A Little Lamb, we’re playing Mary Had A Little Lamb. For the most part I do have that with Invaders, but the committee must hear about their choice and there are times when—you know you’re sure, oh yeah, that kind of thing—and this year we actually did three songs and made a choice as to the best one.  I guess that came from the fact that the previous two years we have not been extremely successful because we did not qualify for the finals. There was a sort of nervousness about choosing the right song.

In the previous years, whose choice was it?
Mine.  My guess was the committee decided to like—‘Umm, you know what? We have not qualified and the tune has been your choice’, and I really don’t get upset at all if the committee says play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I will tell them that I have reservations but at the end of the day, I am the employee.

But does that interfere with your creative process though?  Again, as an arranger myself, if I listen to a particular tune, I immediately hear things I can do with that tune. If I am being forced to arrange a tune that my head may not be totally into, the creative process is forced as opposed to having a natural flow. That may be good, but what are your thoughts on this?
Well certainly, when the pan tunes start coming out, what I do is start listening and I might hear a tune where I like the verse but I might not like the chorus, and there are some songs that you could really see some developmental ideas.  But you know, I am of the opinion that management hires the arranger because of his or her specialty,  experience, qualifications, and competence, so let the arranger have a major part in that decision-making. You have to believe in the arranger. But we are in an environment where everyone wants to win at all cost- and immediately. So it feels as though if some bands don’t see the kind of results they are looking for from an arranger after two years, they want to fire the arranger. But I quickly remind people that they have to look at how long it took Boogsie to win a Panorama, look how long it took Jit to win, and these guys are the best.  So sometimes you have to be committed and put some trust in the arranger and build upon that trust. You see, arrangers have different styles, and players kinda get accustomed to a particular style, so when a new arranger comes in, the players must adjust and it takes time for them to understand what the new arranger is doing.  You know, some arrangers might use the cellos to strum, some may use them to do something different- so it is all a gelling process.

Did you do any substantial listening to arrangers who preceded you in Invaders to find out any characteristics of an Invaders sound before you delved into this challenge?
I actually didn’t.  I think it’s because of what I grew up learning, hearing and playing and the fact that from my perspective, there was not an Invaders sound that one could have gravitated towards.

The issue of feedback from the adjudicators is one that conjures up different emotions from the arrangers, so can you share with me your process with regard to assessing the comments you get?  Do you make any adjustments, let’s say, from the prelims to the semis?
I delve into the things that make sense.  For the most part, if I recognize that the band is small in size or the setup was not good, or this line was inaudible—fine—maybe we need to make an adjustment in terms of balance.  But sometimes, judges say the weirdest things and I won’t pay attention to some of those things.  Certainly, I think there is a flaw in design of the scoring system.  There is an inherent flaw in the design.  I do believe some of the judges try their best, but I think Panorama has become too academic.  Re-harmonization! How much re-harmonization is sufficient to get the maximum points?  Do you re-harmonize just a verse, a chorus? What do you do to get those points?

I am glad you raised that topic because over the past three to four years I have raised that very issue about the way the points have been broken down, especially re-harmonization. The sub-category now has the most points in arrangement and not all the arrangers utilize that technique to the point that it deserves the most points in arrangement.  It was back in 2006 when “a high music person” recommended to Pan Trinbago that they add this specific breakdown to the sub-categories, and ever since it has been chaos.
Pan Trinbago needs to start recognizing that you need to have qualified people adjudicating.  It’s unfair that you have all these people—again I respect everyone—but you can’t have people that specialize in—say just voice—judging pan, people who don’t understand complex rhythms and percussive idioms.  It’s ridiculous.  Also, you can’t have people who got their diplomas, certificates or degrees fifty years ago who have not continued to improve or upgrade their knowledge to understand what’s new, what’s hip or what has evolved as far as judging is concerned.  The fact is you would continue to get the same results, and this is what has happened.  People are saying that Panorama is getting boring because it’s always the same results, the same six or seven bands that are always in the finals, and I am not saying that they are not deserving—I am saying that when you have adjudicators that are trained one way, the expectation and their affection for a particular style would manifest into that very bland show of music.  When you have a judge saying, ‘good hand action’. What does that mean?  Good hand action? It’s really telling, and one of the things that I am always outraged about is sometimes they give scores or points and no comments whatsoever.  My thing is, if you give me ten out of ten, you don’t have to say anything.  But if you are going to give me seven or six or five, you have to specifically say why you are giving me five out of ten.

I don’t know if you are aware of it or heard it on Sunday at the Junior Panorama, but before Jemma Jordan started the competition for the under 21 category, she mentioned that there needs to be a competition for a flag waver. There is a competition in Trinidad for almost everything that happens with pan, and that may be a way to get people involved; but somehow it lays a foundation for this competitiveness among the participants that inevitably fuels every competitor into thinking that they are going to win—which is not practical.
What’s not practical? Their thinking that they could win or their just not winning? (Hearty laughter from both of us.)

It all goes back from my perspective to the judges because it is a fact at the ending of the World Steelband Festival or Pan Is Beautiful, you never hear the amount of rancour or acrimony after the results have been announced, and I believe that the primary reason for that is the judges in that competition are well respected. So when they say this is what the result is, there is a level of respectability and credibility they get from everybody who enters that competition.  The same cannot be said about Panorama, and therein lies the role of the adjudicators who do not have the same level of respectability and credibility in the eyes of the arrangers and pannists.
Point well taken. Because I think the school or the Junior Panorama, for the most part, they would get it right, and it is because of the adjudicators who judge are arrangers and know what to look for, and you would not get that hostility. My question is, who is going to judge Boogsie? (Orville interjects: “Not who is going to judge, but who can judge Boogsie?”) Right, yeah. The judges that we do have- and not just Boogsie, I am just not using his name—some of them can’t even hold two sticks properly and understand the intricacies or complexities of what an arranger is trying to do.  They don’t appreciate and understand it, and if you don’t understand it, you can’t judge it.  I have always believed that judges should go around and listen to every band because if you are sitting down and hearing all this music for the first time, how could you judge that?  How?  They are trained in terms of voice and music education, and they are coming to judge this very complex percussive instrument—there is so much music that is going on at the same time and it has to change.  One more thing I would like to add to this:  I believe that they have to change the way they tally the final score.  I believe that if you have a panel of seven judges and four judges believe Band A should win the competition, how should the other three, overpower that majority of four?  That has to change.

There are many stakeholders in the pan community and a number of staunch Panorama supporters who believe- and are complaining- that Panorama is deteriorating.  Given some of the issues you articulated during this interview, what would you like to see in terms of change to bring Panorama back to its glory days?
Well I think from the audience perspective, there are not much patrons again.  Now, whether that is a result of the younger folks deciding to go to parties and all-inclusives and no longer really have any affection for pan, I don’t know.  I am not sure if it is also a case of where people no longer know much tunes that are being played by pans, because the stations now are pushing a different sort of music (Orville chimes in: “At a metronome marking of 160 beats per minute!”) Yeah, yeah it’s moving, nothing is slow and makes the sort of sense that it used to. I certainly hope that Pan Trinbago starts to market it in some different way.  They have to recognize that it’s not a case where pan or pan music is being appreciated the way it used to, and they have to employ a different approach, a different strategy to get patrons back in those seats.  I also think that venue is so important.  One day you have bands playing down in South Quay, you have bands playing in Victoria Square… we need to get some sort of facility that enhances pan music. They did away with the North Stand, and they have what is called the Greens where they have tents with people drinking and stuff. They don’t care what’s going on, and I don’t know if this is a way for them or the sponsors to make money. I believe in respecting the artform and have that lime somewhere down by the drag or something like that. But there you are playing and you have things going on on the other side.

You said your major in college was composition, and this year there were about forty-two tunes composed for Panorama. What do you think of those compositions and what do you look for when you decide on a composition for your band to play?  Is it the melodic line?  Is it the lyric?  Is it the harmonic structure?
Well, it’s certainly a combination of all.  Melody is extremely important, and I think if I had to choose one in terms of prominence, I would certainly go with melody and the harmonic structure, and then of course the lyrics.  As I told you earlier, in terms of theme, I always try to get a song with a theme that I can work with.   You see you are also playing to the audience and trying to get their thunderous applause and cheers to also influence some of the thinking of the judges.

Do you think that should play a role in how the judges arrive at their decision?
I believe that at the end of the day the audience should appreciate what you presented.  Now, whether that is done separately in terms of having a people’s choice, that may be the way to go.

One of the nuances that I noticed this year is that many bands are incorporating some vocalese as part of their arrangements.  What do you think of that?
I always liked anything that’s new, that’s catchy, that’s memorable.  When I think back to the ’80s and ’90s, those songs were memorable songs.  For some reason, you just don’t remember songs now.  It’s not like saying you’re listening to I Music, Woman On the Bass, Curry Tabanca, Ah Goin and Party Tonight, Pan In A Minor, and Rebecca—songs that you remember and they jump out at you.  But now, if you ask someone to hum a part of a song, they can’t do it.  For some reason, it’s no longer happens. I’m not sure if it is too much Blackberries and iPhones and stuff that people are so wired elsewhere, but for some reason people just don’t remember memorable things again.  And if in fact a vocal part is going to be a memorable moment—you know what? So be it.

Orville’s footnote:
This interview with Arddin was filled with lots of emotion, and there were times when Arddin and I were just caught up laughing at some of the anomalies of the Panorama competition, and we spent as long as a minute at times just cracking up at what we were discovering.  I was impressed with Arddin’s very serious approach, but that seriousness did not prevent him from having fun with what he was hired to do.  The mere fact that he knew and understood the role he had to play as an employee of Invaders’ organization was a healthy one.  I believe that sooner or later, Invaders will achieve that goal of Panorama Champion under Arddin’s leadership as the arranger.

ORVILLE WRIGHT Continues His Interview Series with Steelband Arrangers

Seion Gomez, arranger for Buccooneers from Tobago.

Seion Gomez is one of the young arrangers on the Panorama scene in the 21st century.  I’ve watched him grow as an arranger ever since he earned his undergraduate degree from Northern Illinois University (NIU), and might be the only arranger- or one of a select few- to have earned a graduate degree in music (NIU) and arranging for the Panorama competition. A couple of years ago the Junior Panorama was in tribute to him. For the 2010 Panorama season, he arranged for two bands, and I was fortunate to have gotten hold of him when he came back from Tobago where he is arranging for Buccooneers.   The following interview was conducted on February 10, 2010 before the Panorama finals of Feb 13.
Which was the first band you started arranging for?
SG: My first opportunity at arranging was for a primary school.

Which was?
SG: Diamond Vale Government Primary School.

What year was that?
SG: I believe it was around 1991 or something like that.

At that point, what kind of musical training did you have? What was the catalyst for your wanting to get into arranging?
SG: Y’know, I really don’t know.  There was a point where I just came out of secondary school, and I was doing really well at architecture—technical drawing and stuff like that—but I was also doing well with music.  So when I graduated from secondary school, I actually had to stop and look at crossroads to see which one I will be, and a lot of people thought that I should go and do architecture, but something just drew me towards music.  So, it was either John D. or UWI to do music. I registered for John D. but I also registered for UWI, and I woke up one day and I said ‘yuh know what?—music!’.  Now, a lot of people were upset with me but I thank my parents for allowing me to make that decision.  Well, this is where we are now.

While you were in secondary school, what kind of musical training did you have? Did you have theory classes?
SG: I was doing music lessons on the side.

What kind of music lessons were you doing? Were you focusing on any particular instrument?
SG: Piano and theory. So I was actually doing graded practical exams with the Royal Schools of Music. But you know at 15 - 16 yuh eh want to go to music lessons and play no piano and them kinda ting, so I was really focusing on the theory.  The piano—I could have played it, but I really wanted to play pan.  My father used to play with Phase II and I was all wowed with Boogsie (Len Boogsie Sharpe), and I used to go to the panyard with my father and I  looked at how Boogsie used to operate.  He stood in front of the band and just call notes, and at that time I did not understand what perfect pitch was and I said to myself, ‘that is a level of musicianship that he has where you don’t even have to think about it—it just comes to you—and I have to get to that level!’  At that point, Boogsie was my musical mentor, and I played in Phase II and tried to analyze everything he did.  When I got home after practice, I tried to figure out several things he was doing. Why he used that line; how he got this line; from which chord; and how come he was using notes that may not have been related to the chord and things like that.  So over the years trying to understand what he did took me to different areas of music.  I did my certificate course at UWI and when I left UWI I got a scholarship to Northern Illinois University (NIU).

How did that scholarship materialize? Who was responsible for your getting that scholarship?
SG: Actually, it was my godmother.  Dr. Iva Gloudon (head of UWI’s Sports Department). She and Cliff Alexis are very good friends and met while she was at school and she called him and told him that she had a godson here doing music and did not want him to make any wrong decisions and get in trouble. So I auditioned for NIU and passed the audition.

Did you audition on pan?
SG:  Yes, I did.  I had to do some recordings here and send it to the school. Everything was clear for me to go but money became an issue.  So I was here moping around the place for like a year to a year and a half, feeling real frustrated about what was happening to me. I approached the Ministry of Culture to help me with some sort of funding.

At that time, who was the Minister of Culture?
SG: Merle Albino DeCoteau was the Director of Culture at the time, and when I wrote the letter, I was told that my venture was too small.

What did they mean that your venture was too small?
SG:  I don’t know, I don’t know. We have a letter saying, sorry, they can’t help because my venture was too small. (Orville chuckles.)  Further frustration—my godmother came to the rescue again—she had a friend who was an associate with a company in Germany.  As a matter of fact, that company started the MIC program here which is involved in welding among other engineering fields, and she asked if they could get involved with assisting this young music student.  These people never met me, these people didn’t know me, they just wanted to give something, and these people gave me a scholarship.

Was this a scholarship for the entire four years?
SG:  Yes it was.  When I got to NIU, I met a gentleman by the name of Lester Trilla who was a big part of the scholarship program at NIU in terms of money.  He owned a drum company where Cliff Alexis used to go to buy drums to make pans.  One day he saw Cliff and wanted to find out what Cliff was doing with all the drums that he was buying from him.  Cliff invited him to a concert at NIU and at that time Liam was the only pan player at NIU and Liam played at the concert.  When the concert was finished, Mr. Trilla walked up to Cliff and asked “how could I help?”, and Cliff pointed to Liam and told Mr. Trilla: “That young man has no money to continue his education.  Help him.” And from that time, Mr. Trilla started a scholarship program for Trinidadian students coming to NIU.

That is a great story.  I recall after you got your undergrad degree, you and I had a conversation about music and much of what I was talking about (terminology) you were not too familiar with in terms of arranging.  Do you remember that conversation?
SG: Vaguely.

You have since gotten a graduate degree. What was the degree in?
SG:  It was in performance.

How many bands are you are you arranging for now?
SG: Two. Merrytones and NLCB Buccooneers from Tobago.

What are the categories of those bands?
SG: Merrytones is in the small and Buccooneers is in the medium.

Seeing that you are a schooled musician, do you score your arrangement or do you go into the yard and get inspiration.
SG: I write my arrangement on the computer using Finale. (Finale is a music notation software used by a number of professional musicians.) I sit in my room, close my door and write.  When I am finished, I turn the volume up and play the arrangement three, four five, six times.  If I need to change something, I would change it there. For me, using Finale to arrange for steelband, you have to have a very good imagination because Finale wouldn’t give you rolls and things like crescendos, so imagination has to be there.

Let me interrupt you for a minute.  When you set up your instrumentation, do you access a pan sound?
SG:  Yeah, yeah, yeah! When I get to the panyard at night, having the music there helps to cut down on the amount of time in terms of giving the music, and if I put music down and I realize that it is not sounding how I would want it to sound, I would make a change right there, and then write it in on the score.  A lot of the times when I put it down, it sounds exactly like what I want it to sound like.  That came over years of practice and experimenting and trying this and trying that to find my own way of voicing my sound.  Today, I have eight of my arrangements that are fully scored.

(Orville’s note: Music companies like Roland, Korg and Kurzweil sell modules with samples of most musical instruments that arrangers and composers use professionally, and a steelpan sound is part of those instruments in the module.)

When you talk about voicing, do you make a conscious effort to, for example, assign the tri-tone of a dominant chord to any particular family within the steelband instrumental family?
SG:  Wow; that is funny.  You know last night we did the Panorama in Tobago where Buccooneers won, and I did a radio interview and was asked the same question. How do I decide what goes where—in my head I have a sound that I want to hear so I would not give it to the basses because they do not have that clarity per se, so I would use the cellos, the quads or the seconds just to give it that body.  It depends on the part—how strong I want the part to come out, how loud I want the part to come out, how subtle I want the part to come out—that’s when I decide where it will go.

Let’s go back briefly to your experience at NIU.  Did you study arranging as part of your education?
SG:  To a point—not in detail—I think I did one minor class.

Was that a choice you made or was it because of the program of study you were enrolled in?
SG:  The program—I had so many different requirements tying my hand and that did not allow me to do much there, and that was my undergrad.  When I did my masters, I think I could have done it, but I really don’t know why I didn’t go for the arranging.

Do you think, especially now that there is a programme there for Trinidadians coming after you, that it might be a good idea for the administration at NIU to re-structure the curriculum so that there is an inclusion of arranging so that students can come back here and be more experimental with arranging.
SG: In terms of the program at NIU, it is not really a pan program.  It is a normal music degree and the instrument of choice is pan.

The issue of choice of tune is important as far as an arranger is concerned.  Do you make that choice or does a committee make that choice?
SG: The bands I’ve worked with so far, I have been fortunate in that they have allowed me to make the decision and I am thankful for that because it’s hard, it’s hard doing a tune that you don’t really feel.

The issue of adjudication is one that ignites a lot of acrimony after each Panorama round including the finals.  When you get your score sheet back from the adjudicators, can you talk about your process of evaluating what you get back?
SG: To be honest—I don’t read it.

(Seion and I chuckled quite a bit after this response.)

2010 Panorma champs Silver Stars. —Photo: ROBERTO CODALLO

That’s fine. You are not the only person who has had that kind of response.  Why don’t you read it?
SG: Because I would get comments like great job with introduction, well thought out and this and that and the other; very good use of motivic development, but the marks are not reflective of the comments.  They are also not telling me where you (the adjudicator) thought I went wrong or what you heard.  Instead, you are trying to guide me with what you want me to do, and not what you are hearing and trying to correct. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying.

I know exactly what you are saying.  Remember I did an analysis of a number of adjudicators’ score sheets last year, so I am in agreement with what you are saying.
SG: As an arranger, as a musician, you will know the faults of the music, right, you will know where you need to strengthen parts of the arrangement—you know.  The most I will do is look up marks, and if I get thirty-five out of forty, I have room to improve here.  I don’t really believe in changing music every round of the competition. I believe in doing a solid tune and working it through the competition—cleaning it up, tightening it up, smoothening it up, making it forceful, making it more musical—that is what I believe in. 

OK.  Give me an example of cleaning up.
SG: As I said, you will know where your band is falling short.  As simple as this—you will have a phrase, and at the ending of a phrase you would have a rhythm like this and just imagine somebody is playing
(Orville’s note: From a visual perspective, I hope non-musicians are able to notice that there is a subtle difference with these two rhythms; from an arranger’s perspective, one has to have a very good ear to recognize those differences during performace.)

Now, two or three people might be playing the second rhythm, and that muddies the music, so you want everybody playing the first rhythm, and you work to clear up that muddiness.  You might have an intricate run that everybody is not getting so it’s muddy, and when you go into it, the problem is not that they don’t have the skill to play it, but proper hand positioning.  So you help them create the easiest way to get to that passage, and  you go through the arrangement step by step and try and take out the knots and create a smooth flowing piece of music.

Do you have a drill man or do you do the drilling yourself?
SG: For Buccooneers from Tobago, I have Ben Jackson with me and he will do all the cleaning up.

Is that because of the back and forth from Trinidad to Tobago?
SG: Yes.  Ben and I have been working together for a long time and I met him at Sound Specialists, and as a matter of fact, Sound Specialists was the first band that I worked with for Panorama. Mr. Forteau came to NIU one year on some official Pan Trinbago business and observed one of the ensembles at the university. He heard an arrangement I did and approached me about doing a tune for his band when I came home for the summer. That led to arranging a calypso for the festival, and coming out of that, they asked me to work with the band for Panorama.  So I worked with Sound Specialists for about five years.

What kind of success did you have with that band?
SG: Well—first band in school—and you know when you in school you hearing all kind’a thing, all different kinds of music, and at that time, I was not Panorama mature. So I was hearing a lot of music crammed into the ten-minute period, and we made finals once or twice, but it was always the big bands—and then Sound Specialists.  If they were picking twelve, we were always thirteen—always around that area.  I would say that a lot of it was due to my immaturity in music—not in music but in arranging for a steelband for Panorama.  That discipline to know how much to put in an arrangement—it comes after a while.
You mentioned something about big bands.  Allow me to preface this question by telling you know about an interview I did with an arranger last year. He has not been able to break that ceiling and get into the higher echelon of the steelbands in terms of competition in Trinidad, and he also had this thing about the big bands.  My question to you is, what is your perspective on these so-called big bands? Do you see them always coming in 1-2-3-4-5 all the time for Panorama Competition?
SG: Not necessarily, you know. You see, the big bands were once small, and these bands have worked hard through the years and probably acquired the best instruments, the best tuners—a lot of them are very well organized—bands like Exodus, Renegades, All Stars, when you go into those bands, you see structure, and it shows during the year. If you see then at a play-out/gig, the way they look, the way they sound—they are well organized—and that helps in terms of Panorama.  I wouldn’t say that it is because they have the Boogsie Sharpe and, yeah, that is an asset too, but these bands went through what ever they went through, and they have gotten to the point where they have the numbers, they have the instruments, they have the arrangers, so they are doing well.  So at that point, the smaller bands now have to try and get to that level—it’s going to be hard.  A tenor pan right now is $6,000—it’s a lot of work, sponsors are not like before so it is a lot of work to get to that level.

What would it take to get you to read the comments on the score sheet?
SG: Don’t get me wrong eh. I would drift through it, I would drift through it.  But you see, read it to help me fix my tune—nah! It really doesn’t help.  I honestly think a lot of the music that goes through the savannah passes over the heads of a lot of people.

I am not putting words in your mouth but when you say a lot of the people, who are you talking about?
SG: The adjudicators.  I remember having a conversation with one arranger one time and he did an arrangement that had a three/four Castilian in the arrangement, and he said not one judge mentioned it in their comments.  I would think that is something you would comment on.

I totally agree with you.
SG: I mean, my arrangement this year with Buccooneers—I have two time changes.  One is not that obvious because of how we presented it, but the other, you know for sure that the time has changed. Nobody even said, ‘ok, you made a mistake at this point, or the band made a blunder at that point.’

Let’s just expound on this time change. Most Panorama arrangements are written in cut time, when you say you had a time change, can you—in order for the person who is reading this that does not know anything about music—explain what a time change is?
SG: I write my music in four-four—1-2-3-4: 1-2-3-4—not cut time.

Why do you write in four-four?
SG:  Well, once I started writing my arrangements I wrote in four-four and I just stuck with that.  So it was like an influence that became a preference. I go through an argument a lot of times with people who say calypso is supposed to be written in cut time and it can’t be written in four. I disagree.

Well it is not that it can’t be written in four, it is because of the pulse of the music that it is written in cut time.
SG: You could achieve the same thing in four. 

I agree but the pulse is different.
SG:  Yeah, yeah, It’s just a preference.

OK: So when you say you change the time, tell one of the ten thousand judges out there what you mean.
SG: I have a modulation—chromatically—where I use arpeggios starting with A, B flat, B, C, C sharp, D, D sharp, E. So we moving from 1-2-3-4: 1-2-3-4 to 1-2-3: 1-2-3: 1-2-3:1-2-3-4:1-2-3-4. Now if you’re sitting tapping your foot as you are going through the three-four, you have three measures of three-four, and then one measure of three-eight, and given the pulse of the tune as you continue to tap your foot, your beat will go off somewhere. Talking about the layman here—your beat will go off. So if your beat goes off at that point, and I’m a judge—I judge you for the preliminaries, the beat goes off: ‘Alright, I ain’t say nothing—probably I missed something.’ Then I judge you for semi-finals—the beat goes off: ‘Nah! Something wrong here!’ I would mention something, you know—even if you don’t realize that it is a time change. ‘You make a mistake here’ Something, something!  Nothing from the judges.
.
(Orville’s exercise for readers: For the reader to get a sense of what Seion is talking about here, sing, The Road, and tap your foot or clap your hand on the pulse of the tune. That would be the 1-2-3-4: 1-2-3-4. Then, I want you to sing the theme from the movie Dr. Zhivago [which is now technically in three-four time, and that would be 1-2-3: 1-2-3. Now I want you to alternate singing The Road and Dr Zhivago keeping the same pulse.] After you have done that a couple of times, you need to sing Dr. Zhivago but sing it twice as fast as you were singing it in three-four. That is now going to be the 123: 123 in Seion’s explanation of a time change. Technically, the value of the beat or the pulse that you were tapping your foot or clapping your hand for on the fast Dr. Zhivago has now changed, and this is what Seion is talking about. When you put all those nuances together, you will achieve a time change.)

This year there are quite a few bands coming from Tobago for the finals and you are the arranger for one of those bands.  You are up against some big guns in terms of arranging experience.  What is your mind-set coming into these finals?
SG:  Yes, as a matter of fact all the medium bands from Tobago (were) in the finals and I’m up against “Boogsie”, Carlton Zanda, Kareem Brown and Edwin Pouchet.  We are not focused on coming first, or second or third; we try and get the players’ minds into performing, and performing well.

I am delighted that you made that statement because one of the issues I have with the whole Panorama thing is that there is a perception that every arranger who enters the competition, goes in thinking that s/he should win and that is just not possible.
SG: Nah, it’s not possible. You see, my purpose, my goal is different from other arrangers, because part of me—I real love steelpan—I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, and I think my purpose in music in Trinidad & Tobago in steelpan is to spread the word of steelband. I mean—yes we have to live, because we live in this kind of world now, but my purpose is to spread the word. I have a little core of players who would move with me from band to band, and I asked them what is the purpose of just coming to play for Panorama—just to make a few dollars that would finish before carnival finish, anyway?  If you want to be a musician, set yourself up from now so that twenty years down the road there could be an exchange of ideas and the passing on of knowledge—no matter how much or little you know—you never could tell what could happen.  Pass it on, help somebody else, help them understand that this is just not about dollars and cents, but it is a gift that we have, and we need to continue with that gift.

Let me ask you one final question—Pan In the Classroom, Pan In The Schools—I tried to get your attention before you began your deliberation on Sunday for the Junior Panorama where you were an adjudicator for the Under 21 group. What are you thoughts on the whole Pan In The Classroom model?
SG: Well, I don’t really have a grasp of what they are actually doing.  But the idea—if I am thinking of it, how I am thinking of it—the idea of Pan In The Classroom is supposed to be a natural lesson in the classroom and not an extra curricula activity.  That way, we get more out of it as opposed to, come and play some pan nah boy.  I feel if it is just that, come and play some pan nah boy—we have a problem.  If it’s a lesson just as we would do Math, Social Studies, English, Steelband, Steelband history, Music, Theory, then we have more to gain down the road.

Editor’s note: Buccooneers placed sixth with 266.5 points in the medium band category in the finals of the Panorama competition which was won by Steel Xplosion with 280 points.

Orville’s note:
Of all the interviews I’ve done with arrangers, Seion was the youngest both in terms of age and maturity as an arranger. I must say though, that Seion provided a mature approach to his craft, and mirrored some of the challenges and frustrations that the other more experienced arrangers expressed. I am confident—as long as he remains on this path—that inyears to come, he will be a force to be reckoned with. This was the first transcription where I was driven to use musical notation to demonstrate what an arranger was trying to say, and I trust readers were visually able to connect with Seion on this. 

NEXT MONTH: Arddin Herbert, arranger for Invaders.

ORVILLE WRIGHT Begins His Panorama 2010 Series of Interviews With arrangers

RBTT Redemption Sound Setters at Panorama Finals at the Queen’s Park Savannah.

Winston Gordon, the arranger for RBTT Redemption Sound Setters from Tobago has, since 2001, matched the level of musicianship with his Trinidad counterparts by appearing in the finals of Panorama eight times.  The band placed fourth in 2002 with Music For The Soul by Hollis Wright, and while they have not been able to break the ceiling to get to the top prize for Panorama, under Gordon’s leadership as arranger, Redemption has consistently shown that it has as good a level of musicianship and skill-set on the instrument as pannists in Trinidad.
I have always been impressed with his arranging skills and fondly recall the crowd reaction when he first fused phrases from other tunes into his arrangement. On the Friday before the 2010 Panorama finals, I sat down with Gordon to get a peek into his mind as an arranger and to discuss his successes.  

OW: What process do you go through to select the tune for Panorama?
WG:  We do it the usual way as we have done in the past.  I gather as much music as I can from whatever source, mainly Alvin Daniell.  A group of us sit down and listen to the selections and we come up with what we think is most suitable, most likeable for us.  Of course, I give them some guidelines as to what we are looking for.

When you say them, whom are you referring to?
WG: A group of my members: the captain, the vice captain, and some of the key players- and we sit and listen.  Before we do that, I remind them- and as you would bear me out- any tune is a good tune; it all depends on what the music director can do with it.  I’ve seen some good tunes with an arrangement that is not so good, and I’ve seen some party tunes with a good arrangement, so it depends on who is the music director—what they can do with it.  Notwithstanding, my advice to them is that when I am looking, I’m looking for a melody line—the shape, the highs, the lows, the curve in the melody—I look at the chord structure and the progression that supports that melody. 
I look for certain idioms that I can use for my melodic and motivic development as well.  If there are tag lines, I look to see how effective they could be.  I look as well at the composer—how popular s/he is and how much airplay s/he could get with the tune, and I look at what kind of reaction I could get from the crowd. Is this a tune that people are inclined to sing along with—which is quite different from some composers—because when “Boogsie” composes a tune, that’s his tune.  If he composes a tune in March or August of the previous year, that’s what he going with, that’s his tune. So he looks at this thing differently—same applies to Pouchet, and all the other guys who did their own compositions.  You must have heard the rumour that “Smooth” had problems this year with his own composition and it almost divided the band.  I heard through the grapevine they had weeks of argument and discussion and eventually they settled on his tune, but they were not happy with it.  I understand they had a similar problem last year too. I will go far back and tell you, and maybe you don’t know that, but that is what broke up Starlift into Phase II and a group called Third World Symphony. Ray Holman was insisting that they play his tune.  He is the first man that started you know own tune kind o’ thing.

Pan On The Move?
WG: Yes, Pan On the Move, Pan On The Run, and he got to about fifth or sixth doing his own tune. He did a tune called Super Pan, and the guys didn’t like it after he did verse and chorus they felt they did not have a good selection because of the then perceived aversion to own tune. There was a big meeting and it went on and on with different arguments for and against….  He was insisting that the band play his own tune, but never won with it; “Boogsie” was the first person to have won with own tune kind o’ thing. 

This year, there were about forty-two tunes composed for pan or Panorama; how many of those tunes—percentage wise—do you think you, Winston Gordon, could have gone with?
WG: I didn’t listen to a lot because I had to make a decision some time around November, so what was available to me—of the forty-two tunes you heard—some of them came out in December and after. I didn’t want to wait, and percentage wise it would have been pretty low. I heard about five or six and I had to make a decision including the very Smooth Sailing.  Smooth Sailing and Pan On Fire were available to me, and  De Fosto sent that to me separately.

When you tell these key members in your band what you are looking for, do you see that as influencing them in any way in terms of leaning towards a particular composition for Panorama?
WG: No. I don’t try to influence them.  What I try to do is give them a sense of direction. It’s like judge and jury—a jury is supposed to make its mind up—but with direction from the judge, before a verdict.  You give them a summary of what the law is; what the guidelines are, what do you follow, and this is how we come to a decision.

You mentioned earlier that part of the process involves the crowd reaction to the choice of tune.  Is there any correlation with that reaction from the crowd and what the judges do when they listen to your arrangement?
WG: No. No, no, no.  To my mind, it’s a crowd pleaser and I am sure that the judges are influenced by it at times.  The crowd hears music differently to judges; but they are not musically educated and they can’t explain what they hear in an arrangement. But they are adjudicators in their own way, and represent a good barometer and sounding board.

But what I mean is- and I am only pursuing this because you brought it up- after you’ve completed your performance and the crowd is going crazy, crazy, crazy over your performance, as one who has adjudicated, do you think that reaction can have any impact at all on how the judges mark your performance?
WG: It should not.

It should not. But does that happen?
WG: It happens.  And I’ll tell you, if you take a band like Desperadoes—one of the more popular bands, All Stars, Phase II, big, big crowd support even with their own tune, 99.5% of them can’t even remember the damn tune the day after Panorama—they can’t even sing a line.  But because it is their favourite tune, favourite arranger, favourite band, they go with it.  I don’t have my own tune, so I have to go with a tune that gets a lot of air play and puts me in a position to get a good reaction from the crowd.  I am not doing this with the hope that the crowd reaction will influence the judges.  It should not be.  I have judged many times and I will not allow the crowd to influence my judgment.  But, there are times when a judge is compelled to listen to the reaction of the crowd.  It hit me last year with Silver Stars.  In the semis, midway into the tune, people were clamouring for certain movements made by Silver Stars.

When you say certain movements, what do you mean?
WG: Certain parts of the tune. The crowd was clamouring, they were roaring, and they were applauding, and the tune ain’t finish yet—some dynamics they may have used in between the tune and they sounded good and rightfully so; and if this happened two or three times during the performance, the judges are inclined to follow.  They are only human beings—passion, emotion and feelings at work.

There are not many bands that have a female as the leader or captain of the band.  What is your relationship like with Marie Toby that has supported your longevity with Redemption Sounds?
WG:  I don’t know.  Sometimes in life there is a chemistry that works that cannot be explained, and I think that works for us.  There is not any particular love between us, we disagree a lot, but we agree to disagree and we rationalize our disagreement.  She would call me half past twelve in the night and say, I really think that tune playing too fast, yuhknow, and she would tell me why—as a matter of fact that is one of our challenges right now, but I’ll deal with that later on.  I have to say to her—firmly—don’t expect me to temper my music with regard to what I would like to accomplish in the arrangement. I am not going to come down to what they consider their standard that they can work with, I want them to come up to my standard, which I think is the standard that I have to go to competition with, and I am very strong on that.

While we were walking to the room even before we started the interview, you talked about the fact that this year the judging is not what you expected.  Can you talk a little bit about what that other person said to you that prompted you to make that remark?
WG: I must admit as an arranger- and I would imagine most arrangers and bandleaders who don’t make it into the position they hoped for- are very suspicious about the judges. The judges are the ones who bear the brunt of all the frustration and get the blame.

What do you think is the cause of that?
WG: I have had, umm, my thoughts with respect to the ability of the judges to properly adjudicate on the performances and I say this because I don’t think they can hear everything because there is a lot of music going on in eight minutes, especially if you have to listen to seventeen bands in the large band category.  I respect every arranger that does some work going at a metronome marking of 120 beats a minute, and sometimes I get the impression that the judges can’t hear all that music going on during a performance. They might make notes about some tenor lines not being clean; the bands might sound a little messy and they may say that, right, or some bass movements are a little bit muddy and that needs to be cleaned up and that kind o’ thing, but a lot of good things  are happening and I don’t think they hear it.  There is not another way to judge a band except to have really good people there, but I am never convinced that the judges—I don’t want to call names for this interview—but there are some judges in my mind who are not as capable as I would hope to efficiently adjudicate on all the music. I heard of one judge who made reference to a minor section in an arrangement, and there was no minor part of the arrangement.  I could use examples because I believe a lot of good music goes to waste because the judges did not spend time- or had the capacity or the ability to determine exactly what was happening. And up until the last year when Silver Stars made a breakthrough, it was generally known that six places- five minimum- were already allocated for five bands.  As a matter of fact, you could say the same thing for Panorama 2011.  Their places are already booked.  I guess because of track record and big name arrangers.

Are you talking about 2010 or 2011?
WG:  2010 and beyond their places are booked. No judge in my mind prior to this year when one of the big bands did not make it to the finals- no judge was capable or had the testicular strength and the belly to say, Band X, you ain’t make it this year. It was like that before this year too.  Silver Stars made a breakthrough, which gave a lot of bands hope.  We could make it if Silver Stars make it.  We could make it to the top, but that is only to the top. Again going back to judges, we have judges who, and this is one of the key things, who don’t have a clue about what goes into putting a steelband arrangement together.  They are called upon to sit in an arena and listen to what hits them, and it happens so fast.  I heard an adjudicator said the first time they heard the melody of a certain tune is when he sat there in the forecourt to judge.  But you can’t understand my creativity if you don’t know what the basic lines are, so you are being unfair to me.  And the administration is responsible for that.  Sit them all down in a room.  When the bands start to practise, it’s very easy within the first week or three to know which band is going with what tune. Have them submit it by email or telephone—the name of your tune, the composer and you can get that together.  And when you have your judges—your sixteen judges or whatever, single pan, medium band, large band, have a session one day, and just as I give guidelines to my people in selecting a tune, have a head judge who must not be an administrative judge—must be somebody like Orville Wright or whoever and give guidelines.  Let’s listen to tune number one.  Here is the lead sheet, play the CD so that they could follow the key that the tune was played in; they could hear the fillers and they could see the chords.

This year there were five bands from Tobago in the competition finals.  Do you think that a band from Tobago could win Panorama in either large or medium category?
WG: Yeah!  They are close to it now.  If the judges are brave enough, the band that came first, Steel Explosion, could win it.

What’s the highest you have come in the competition”
WG: Fourth, fourth in 2002 with Music For The Soul.  You know something that I would like to boast about, we have gone to the competition with as few as 92 players, but there are bands that play with more than 120.  You know that? Every year there are bands that do that!  That is a miracle because power matters in that Savannah! Power makes a difference.  This year I have 97 players and we sounded big and made it into the finals. In 2002, I had 92 and we came fourth.  Yeah, the big name bands sneak in a few more and they dodge and hide when the people coming to count. I heard one time a band went with 144! It happens—and now they start doing a closer check, but the fellars know how to hide. I told Patrick Arnold a way to beat that is to give out these wrist-bands on the night of the competition, and if a band has 120 players, give the captain 120 wrist-bands and have them put it on.  When you take it off it’s destroyed, you can’t mess with that! And before you play, put up you hand to get counted.  If you ain’t have no wrist band, (OW interjects: “yuh kyah play”) not you kyah play, get off! Walk with two Regiment soldiers or some kind o’ thing so—no wrist band? Off! You coming to help push pan on stage? Ok—off, off, off!

Let me just interrupt you for a brief minute and let you know that everything you are saying, I totally agree with. But I also want you to know that a few days ago, I met with the President of Pan Trinbago and offered some criteria that judges should meet before they are seated as Panorama adjudicators.  He was very open to what I had to say and he promised to have a symposium some time after Carnival.
WG: Orville… Orville! What’s difficult about having this done in one day before Panorama and develop the judges’ capacity and their ability?  You have a lead person- like I said an Orville Wright or whoever- to lead them through just like I did when I gather my guys together to listen to the choices we have for Panorama. And I have the perfect example of the judge telling me that the first time he heard the song was when they played it just prior to the band performing.

That’s not good.
WG: That’s not good! And this is in the absence of a music score for Music Festival.  You think a man could sit down and judge Beethoven’s 5th without having the score in front of him?  It go sound good in yuh ear.  But is that what Beethoven wanted.  So in the absence of a score in front of him, he must have heard the melody or some of the intricate parts that you expect to come out.

So along those same lines, do you think it is beneficial for the adjudicators to hear the arrangement before they get seated on a panel?  The question is based on what you said earlier that there is so much music going on in the arrangements. As you well know, if an adjudicator is seen in a panyard, they are going to be viewed as biased towards that band.
WG: Well, if executives of Pan Trinbago supervise them, that’s okay. This year the adjudicators went to the panyards to give comments, you know that?

Yes, how was that process for you as an arranger?
WG: I took it in good spirits.  As a matter of fact I know some people were pushing a head—no it could go bias and that kind o’ thing…  But I thought if a judge tells me something, I would try as best I can to follow and take some of the comments he gave me.

Did all the adjudicators speak or was it just one.
WG:  No, all three spoke and gave comments.  One judge even told me that I could create some more fire in my arrangement if I played the tune at a faster metronome marking, and I did that. It worked.

Talking about metronome marking… when you talk about a pannist learning a piece of music, a lot of it has to do with retention, but a substantial part of it has to do with positioning.  You, as an arranger, when you give a tenor player a part, are you capable of playing the part that you give to the tenor player or do you expect the tenor player to just learn the part and play it.
WG: Well I’ll tell you, I use myself as a benchmark.  If I could do it, they could do it better because it’s their pan—their instrument.  For instance, I use a double second at home to prepare my music, and all the tenor part lines I do it right there, and if I could do it on the double second, they should be able to do it on a tenor.

Regardless of positioning?
WG: Some of them have problems because they were never schooled in how to play the instrument.  They just come and learn, and one of the problems that came out very clearly is the hand positioning, not the position of the notes.

When I talked about position, I was referring to hand position, not note position.
WG: Okay. You find the more experienced ones would know how to do this on one side of the pan, and then some people who are not properly schooled have problems doing that on the whole pan.

Seven, eight or nine years ago, I believe you were the first arranger to fuse fragments of other…
WG: (Interrupts) This morning I was thinking of that and everybody is doing it now.  If you heard Valley Harps, and I heard bands using pieces of 1812 Overture- I think they used something from 1812 Overture- I remember when we played War and Skiffle Bunch played the same tune, Liam Teague used something from 1812 Overture, somebody else used Star Wars theme, and Despers also used parts of other tunes. Boy, I got so much criticism in Tobago! People were asking me if I was playing a medley, and they knocked my ass to pieces.  Some judges, including judge (name called) condemned me for doing that; you know him? When I did Rain Melody by Preacher—that is the first time I did it—and I wondered what snippets could I put in this arrangement and Stormy Weather came to my mind.  I also remember Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head by Dionne Warrick and a few more rain songs I put in the arrangement, and boy people condemned me for that!  They condemned me before that in 2002 when I did Music for the Soul.  I did Rain Melody in 2001, and I did Music For The Soul in 2002 and I came fourth.  You were there for Rain Melody in Tobago and it had real rain that night.  You were supervising in 2001 and I put all kind of music into that arrangement including Mary Had A Little Lamb, and I was the first man to do that and it has taken off now—everybody doing that now.  I go’ tell you something with more history.  When I first started to arrange for a steelband, I had 10 – 15 guys in Port of Spain, and there was a competition for steelbands on the East Dry River side; my band was located on Picadilly Street, and they had this competition at Odeon cinema and there were about 5 – 6 bands.  We beat the s*** out of everybody—everybody.  You know what? I did not come first in the results—I got disqualified, and you know why? History in the making! I used an instrument they said was not steelband and on the basis of that, you had an advantage over the other guys.  You know what instrument I used? Drum set! No steelband had ever used it before, none.  Way back in the day when they had Anna and Southern All Stars when they used to have Music Festival—nobody used trap set, drum set—Winston Gordon had it and they throw meh ass out of the competition—no results, no marks.

(I got a big chuckle out of this story, and even as I transcribe now, the manner in which Winton said this still has me chuckling.)

Now that there is a new leadership team at the helm of Pan Trinbago, do you foresee any change in how the executive interacts with people like you and other stakeholders?
WG: We need that change.  There is a lot of talk still, and Diaz hasn’t been tested, but he means well, and every president means well, but meaning well and doing well is not the same thing, and it depends on the administration and the administrators who you have surrounding and supporting you.

Well, Winston, I know that this is an extremely hectic time for you and I appreciate your taking the time to chat with me.  Good luck with your performance tomorrow night.

EDITOR’S NOTE: RBTT Redemption Sound Setters placed ninth with 264 points in the Panorama Finals (Large Band category) which was won by Silver Stars with 291 points.

Reproduced from the December edition of the Guyana Review

Roy Geddes

You wouldn’t guess that Roy Geddes is seventy. Clad in his trademark Kangol and jeans Guyana’s celebrated Professor of Pan looks a full ten years younger. Now retired from the more hectic pursuit of pan-playing, his active mind remains preoccupied with the art form that has been his life. He talks about steel pan with the demeanor of a wizened veteran exuding the authority of a man who, this year, celebrates his fifty sixth year as a pan man.
Pan in Guyana goes back to 1947 just two years after its origins in Trinidad and Tobago. It started, Geddes says, “in backyards” and in the seedy pre-independence inner city slums of the capital. “Steel band started in the ghetto; in alleyways and on corners. It was a typical Porgy and Bess environment.”
Those years have been punctuated by two National Awards, a host of accolades and the unquestioned distinction of being one of the last of the great pan men of the Caribbean. How to take pan out of the ghetto; how to burnish its image and to locate it in what he describes as “a beautiful place” is Roy Geddes’ remaining ambition. He wants to leave a  legacy that is about Pan rather than self; a legacy that  acknowledges the humble origins of the music and pays deserving tribute to the hard men of the art form who, more than half a century ago, gifted the sound of  the cultured oil drum to the pantheon of the performing arts.
From Geddes’ own informed perspective, pan music, for all its celebration, for all its national acclaim, remains a prodigal son, still without a real place at the table of national culture.  He believes that long ago, Guyana ought to have created some   national shrine, some lasting public monument to pay fitting tribute to the role and the relevance of the steel pan. Until that happens Roy Geddes’ work will remain undone,
Pan, Geddes says, has been his life. “From very early on I was bombarded with pan. At Leopold and Cross streets there was the Chicago Steel Orchestra; there was the Casablanca Steel Orchestra in High Street and then there was the Tripoli Steel Orchestra in Leopold Street. These were the recognised bands of the day and they were all part of my own steel band experience.”
When you ask Roy about the journey that pan has made over those more than fifty years he pauses and fixes you with a stare. “I am not happy.” His voice recedes into a whisper as though someone else is eavesdropping.  “There has been no real spiritual development in the art form. There has been a lot of technological advancement but I feel sad to say that there has been no forward movement as far as the spiritual development of pan is concerned.” By spiritual development he means “the transformation of pan into a vehicle through which there can be a better way of life for pan men, the men who have worked tirelessly for the development of the art form. After all those years there is still no organization and it seems that there is no love for the persons who have given us the pan. Unless pan men begin to matter, the music itself is meaningless.”
He believes that much of the problem lies with the pan men themselves. “The art form may have come a long way but the pan men themselves have not evolved with the art form. They have to think of pan as a means through which they can give themselves a better way of life. I believe that the effort has to be collective. A band is a collective thing and if there is to be any forward movement it has to happen together.”

Geddes himself has brought the pan with him on his own personal journey through life. Through his boyhood days in the pan yards of Georgetown to his quiet retirement years he has embraced, and cared for pan music. Today, his home in Festival City is a well-ordered archive to the art form. Scores of magazine and newspaper cuttings, photographs of public performances noted events in his career and neatly framed listings of noted pan men, tuners and players, displayed on tables and walls. Pans adorned with the names of some of the best-known old-timers, the men he says who created steel band music, sit comfortably in the midst of a stunningly beautiful plant and flower garden; both well kept and tended by himself and Pat, his wife of more than four decades. “I will die a pan man,” he says.
Walking along the garden path that leads from the street to his front gate you catch the halting notes of an amateur on the first pan. He gestures in the direction of the music. “I teach pan to anyone who wants to learn.  I have a few students who come here and I teach pan at the Victoria Training Centre.”
On the subject of the   once famed Roy Geddes Steel Orchestra Roy is deliberate and defensive. “There is no Roy Geddes Steel Orchestra right now. That is all I will say on that subject.”
“I do not wish to say any more right now.” You detect in his tone that the deeper story behind the disappearance of what was once Guyana’s best-known steel band embodies part of his own sadness with the wider challenges   which the art form has had to endure.
When the discourse returns to the subject of his pan archive   he performs an elaborate gesture with his hand.  “All this is what we really need to share with younger people. We get schools from Berbice and other places coming here.  My wife and I have kept this going and we are the gardeners too.”
As for the future of pan Geddes is thoughtful. “In the same way that we now nickel the pan I am interested in nickeling the minds of the pan men. Everything is about people. We have played at all the concerts and delivered all of the classical music but the men, the real pan men have not been recognized. Pan is still in many ways perceived as “a ghetto thing.”
When you point out that children at some of the best schools have been playing pan  Geddes dismisses this as a patronage of the art form. “There is a lot of pan in schools but we do not have bands, we do not have dedicated teachers. We may have a few people who know about pan but there is no commitment.”
He blames what he believes has been the stagnation of the art from on what he says is a colonial mentality. “Until now people are still demonizing pan men. The only thing that people pass on about a pan man is that pan men were bad boys. We may have come from the ghetto but there are people who have come from the ghetto and who have led honest lives. We never stop to think that good people have come from the ghetto.”
Last year, as part of the preparations for the Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) in Guyana, Geddes was invited to help give shape to an envisaged National Steel Orchestra. “I have since withdrawn. It has not evolved in the way that it should. This has nothing to do with the Minister of Culture. It has to do with the mentality of the pan men themselves. When I was first asked to become involved I invited the tuners to my home so that we could work together to gain the kind of respect that pan deserves. Unfortunately, it fell apart because there was no togetherness. It is the same thing   that has been coming against pan over the years. We hear nothing about the National Steel Orchestra. It is not performing and it is the people’s money that has been invested in forming the Orchestra.”
Geddes has his own perspective on the future of pan in Guyana. “I would like to see the art form gaining some respectability. We need to commercialise pan music more for the sake of the people in the industry. We need to develop pan production as an industry so that pan men themselves can be comfortable, can lead productive lives and can look after their families.”

He bemoans the disappearance of the pan yards. “That is where the music begins, in the pan yards. Where are the pan yards? Where are the cradles of pan music? These days the pan yards are mostly around tables where people, some of whom know nothing about pan, talk about pan as if they know. These people know nothing about the amount of work that you have to do to produce a pan, to sync a drum.”
The current approach, Geddes says, is taking pan nowhere. “In any field the men who know must be given a chance. Pan men may not be academics but they know what is needed for the development of pan. Pan music cannot be developed around a table. It has to grow out of the pan yards, out of teaching and learning and out of performances.”
Geddes’ personal commitment to pan remains undiminished despite the challenges facing the sector. “I have taken bands far and wide in this country without the involvement of government or any other organization to raise funds for clubs. I have played for the church, for open air mass and for concerts. I have performed free of any charge just to give people an opportunity to listen to good pan.
The Chronicle Atlantic Symphony and Invaders have also done their part. Back in the old days Quo Vadis also played its part. There was a time too when there were competitions involving up to 15 bands. Now we have two and three bands playing in competitions.

The Hosay Massacre in San Fernando

By Dr Kumar Mahabir

Hosay celebration survives strongest in St James today.

Last Friday, October 30th, marked the 125th anniversary of what historians describe as perhaps the bloodiest massacre in Trinidad and Tobago under British rule. On October 30th 1884, 22 Indians were killed and 120 others injured in a hail of police gunfire at two Hosay processions in San Fernando. Included in the casualties were defenceless women and children.
 Many historians who have studied the event reveal that Hindus as well as Africans were part of the Indian and Muslim-based street processions. Historians also believe that never before had such a large, armed military force assembled in colonial Trinidad, or in any other West Indian colony, at any cultural event.
 Hosay is the commemoration of the death of the two soldier-grandsons of Prophet Muhammad who were killed in war in Iraq in 680 AD. The centrepiece of Hosay is the procession of taziyas made of cardboard and tinsel. They are symbols of the tomb erected over the remains of Husain, one of the two grandsons, in the plains of Karbala. Hosay is celebrated annually in Cedros and St  James in Trinidad. It has been banned by law in Guyana. In Jamaica, it is the second largest national cultural event. Hosay is not a festival, and it is not to be viewed or described as Indian Carnival.
In 1884, the government banned Hosay processions from entering the towns of Port of Spain and San Fernando. This was tantamount to killing the best part of the parade. An Indian by the name of Sookoo, and 31 others, drew up a petition to the governor which was rejected. Sookoo felt that the law was unjust and discriminatory, and consequently decided to defy the regulation with an act of civil disobedience.
In the 1884 Hosay, each estate had its own taziya, accompained by tassa drummers and stick fighters. There were processions from Wellington, Picton, Lennon, Rowbotton, Retrench, Estate, and Union Hall Estate.  Other processions came from Ne Plus Ultra, Corinth, Palmyra and St Madeline estate. It was a dramatic parade, attracting huge crowds of spectators annually in San Fernando.
 Police detachments were strategically deployed with cartridges loaded with buckshots to scatter-shoot into the crowd. A contingent of 74 policemen was headed by Captain Baker at Mon Repos Junction. Twenty soldiers arrived by special train from Port of Spain. Twenty-one British marines were sent to Princes Town to reinforce the police. The British warship, H.M.S. Dido, rushed down from Barbados to anchor in waiting outside the San Fernando harbour.
 Armed forces were placed at the three main entrances leading to San Fernando. They were posted at the Les Efforts junction, which was a toll gate that lay at the junction of Cipero Street and Rushworth Street. At this point, 34 armed men, 20 soldiers and 14 policemen were stationed. The other entrance was at the point where Royal Road met Mon Repos Estate. The next (northern) entrance was where Point-a-Pierre Road formed a junction with Mount Moriah Road. Through this entrance, crowds surged from estates like Vista Bella, Marabella, Concord, Bon Accord, and Plein Palais.
Few Indians believed that the police would shoot them down in cold blood. After all, they were simply participating in a customary religious procession. One survivor said that he did not believe that the police would “shoot people like fowls.” 
 The massacre took place on a Thursday. On horseback, Magistrate Arthur Child read The Riot Act amid the thunder of tassa drumming, chanting, singing, and stick-fighting. Few Indians could have really heard what was being read. Even if they had heard, few could have understood English at that time. Child ordered the police to shoot at the procession at Les Efforts. Two volleys were fired into the crowd, followed by some sporadic shooting. Those in the front of the procession were mowed down by a hail of bullets. Taziyas fell to the ground. The dead and wounded lay in pools of blood in the street. There was shock and panic. There were shrieks of terror and cries of pain. Some ran into the canefields.  Others scampered for shelter from the bullets.

At the Mon Repos junction, the stipendiary magistrate read the Riot Act. Shots were again fired. Again, tazyias fell to the ground, and men, women and children lay dead. The processions on the Point-a-Pierre Road were speared gunfire because they were persuaded to turn back. The nation was shocked into disbelief.
The number of Hosay participants who were killed on October 30th 1884 varies in different accounts. Historian Kelvin Singh concludes that 150 were wounded in the massacre. Those who were fatally wounded ran into the sugarcane fields where they were found afterwards. Others died weeks and months later at home and in the hospital. A reasonable estimate to make is that 22 Indians were killed and 120 injured.
Sadly, the events surrounding this significant day in the history of Trinidad are known only by a few. October 30th 1884 has been overlooked in many of the texts that chronicle the nation’s experiences during colonization. The courage of these jahajis [indentured immigrants] martyrs who fought and gave their lives for the freedom to worship must not be forgotten. The fact that Hosay survives to this day is testimony that the spirit of these martyrs continues to live.

kumarmahab@hotmail.com,
Dr Kumar Mahabir is Assistant Professor, School for Studies in Learning, Cognition and Education
University of Trinidad and
Tobago (UTT)

Shaggy

After daring to make a difference earlier this year, Jamaican superstar Shaggy and his group of friends are back with even bigger dreams for their second charity concert to be held on January 2 at Jamaica House.
Shaggy and his team, sponsors, employees of Bustamante Hospital for Children, as well as King of the Dancehall Beenie Man, were all out front for the hospital’s conference room for the launch of ‘Shaggy and Friends I Dare You 2010′. A smiling Shaggy, real name Orville Burrell, made an early appearance to greet his now extended family for the concert that last year raised J$27 million, which was used to buy much-needed equipment for the Bustamante hospital.
This year, according to presenter Dr David McBean, CEO of CVM-TV, the aim is to raise J$50 million. With that goal in mind, various sponsors have stepped forward including Digicel, KFC, Sagicor, Stewart’s Auto, Bank of Nova Scotia and Wisynco who have together donated J $11 million combined. Red Stripe has also pledged its support alongside a number of other companies.
Executive producer for the event, Shaggy, was first up to talk about the new developments and plans for the concert. This year, reminiscent of the diamond-selling artiste, there will be a diamond ticket priced at J$30,000. Shaggy commented, “Last year, we did it in eight weeks. This time we have a bit more time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Last year the $20,000 tickets were the first to sell off so this time we’re going super executive with $30,000. There will only be about 100-150 of these tickets so it’s best to get them in advance. It will be champagne style, all access everywhere.”

Henk Tjon

The Caribbean Community mourns the loss of three major literary figures in one week, saying their deaths have undoubtedly created a void in the continued development of the region’s culture.
In a press release the Caricom Secretariat paid its respects to Jamaica’s Trevor Rhone  and Trinidad and Tobago’s Wayne Brown who both passed away on September 15 and to Suriname’s Henk Tjon who died on September 18.
Rhone, who died at the age of 69, was known for his mastery as a playwright, exploring the experiences of ordinary people both urban and rural. He co-authored, with the late Perry Henzell, the Jamaican film The Harder They Come and authored Jamaican plays Smile Orange and Old Story Time the last of which has become a classic studied by students across the region for the CSEC examinations. Caricom said, “Through his exceptional talents as a playwright, director and actor Rhone contributed extensively to the cultural development of Jamaica and the Caribbean.”
Tjon,  61, was the co-founder of the Doe-theatre and founder and artistic director of the National Theatre of Suriname and the Alakondre Dron Music Ensemble. “His critical role and influence in the cultural development of Suriname has been tremendous,” said Caricom. Tjon was passionate about Carifesta and the cultural integration of the region.

Trevor Rhone

He also actively participated in every Carifesta since its debut in 1972 and served seven times, as designer and artistic director of Suriname’s cultural contingent to the Festival and as artistic director of Carifesta VIII held in Suriname.

Wayne Brown

In paying tribute to Brown, 65, the Caricom Secretariat noted that his  literary career encompassed his work as one of the leading poets of the Caribbean, short story writer and newspaper columnist.
He is best known for his prize-winning anthology On the Coast and as the biographer of the Jamaican sculptress Edna Manley, wife of the former Prime Minister of Jamaica Norman Manley. “His biting and often trenchant weekly columns in the Trinidad Express and Jamaica Observer newspapers earned him the admiration of many in the region,” Caricom said.
Brown made Jamaica his home where he made a lasting contribution to the mentoring, training and development of scores of writers both young and old through his writing workshops.
“Such was his influence that many went on [to] register for and earn MFA degrees from prestigious US universities and to be published internationally. More than any other single person, Wayne Brown was responsible for the development of a new generation of writers in Jamaica,” Caricom said.
The Caribbean Community applauds the excellent contributions of these cultural icons and mourns their deaths.
It extends condolences to their relatives and to the governments and peoples of Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

By ORVILLE WRIGHT

LOUISE McINTOSH

When I learnt about the passing of Miss McIntosh I was conflicted. How do I pay my respects to a woman who had had such a profound impact on me as a young classical player even though she had never been my music teacher?
I had known that she was ill. Her niece, Pat Drayton, had told me about her condition, saying that Miss McIntosh wanted me to know.  Hearing that it was cancer of the pancreas, I immediately feared that she would not be long with us.   Of the eighty different kinds of cancer, pancreatic cancer is the worst. I had already lost someone to it. Last year, on May 24, my older brother had died, not too long after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 
It took quite a bit of maneuvering to get to Trinidad for her funeral on Monday September 14 and back to Boston in time for my classes. It was, after all, only the second week of class; it would have been unfair for students to miss classes so early in the semester.  As it turned out, Caribbean Airlines’ schedule worked in my favour. I was able to attend the service at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Mt. D’or Road, Champ Fleurs and still make it out of Trinidad on Monday afternoon.
For all the years I knew Louise, she, like me, had attended the Good Shepherd Anglican church in Tunapuna, so I was somewhat surprised that her funeral service was to be at a Seventh Day Adventist Church. I want to state quite unequivocally that I see nothing wrong with changing faiths; we are all children under one God.  In any case, Louise was never afraid of change and her decisions  were always well thought out.
Walking to the church on the day of the funeral, I was not sure what to expect. This was my first time attending a funeral in a Seventh Day Adventist Church. I knew that Len “Boogsie” Sharpe had offered to play at the funeral and was on the programme. As I was entered the church, I was immediately struck by the musical instruments before me.
When you think about the Pan Pipers Music School, you see the brainchild of Miss Mc Intosh that has blossomed into an institution encompassing all facets of music. But perhaps most important than anything else about it is the fact that Louise—long before anyone else had even entertained the thought and a full twenty years before it was declared the national instrument- had embraced the steelpan as an important instrument of choice for children wanting to learn music.  
The presence of the National Steel Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jessel Murray was a fitting tribute to Louise McIntosh at her funeral. In no way am I suggesting that she had been disrespected. Miss McIntosh was, after all, honoured with the Public Service Medal of Merit (Gold) in 2005. But I do believe that if education policymakers had embraced her concept of teaching music for the steel pan, schools in Trinidad and Tobago would have been much farther along in incorporating the national instrument in the school curriculum. 
I have no doubt that Miss McIntosh’s legacy will endure for a long, long time.  The eulogies and words of appreciation at the service spoke volumes about her impact on generations of students with whom she had so generously shared her passion for music and perpetual commitment for making children feel at home—at her home- when they showed up for lessons. 

Saturday was the day to be at Miss McIntosh’s Pan Pipers Music School; whether you were beating pan, learning to play the piano, getting a boof every now and again, or just having some tea, it was the place you just had to be on a Saturday.
Miss McIntosh’s parents and my parents had quite a lot in common. They were maccummeres. My home on Bowen Street was just around the corner from hers on Niles Street in Tunapuna. Our fathers, Mr. McIntosh and Mr. Wright, both worked for the Trinidad and Tobago Railway. Both of us had pianos at home and as far as Louise and I were concerned, we were the ones who really carried the music gene in our families.  Back in the day, it was not unusual for family visits on Sunday afternoons, and it was on those visits that I got to know Miss McIntosh’s passion for music and the arts. 
As far as I could remember, we both had phones at home, but in dem days, maccummere and dem going by each other house to ole talk.  I also remember going to the McIntoshes with my father who would always send me to some part of the house where I could not see the piano keyboard. Once I was out of sight, he would play a note on the piano and call out to me asking: “Orville, what note is that boy?” and I would say “G Daddy”. Always, he would boast about my ability to tell any note on the piano, neither of us aware that he was actually nurturing and grooming the perfect pitch that I was born with.  That was the kind of relationship enjoyed by the Wrights and the McIntoshes.
At the service, it was just heart-warming to hear Louise’s students speak about how she had enriched their lives.  I am not sure whether Wayne Harris—a tenor with a richness of tone comparable to some of the best in North America—was a student at Pan Pipers Music School, but performance at the funeral, indicated the kind of impact that Miss McIntosh had on the music scene.  When a past member of Pan Pipers, Brent Cyrus, approached the podium I thought he was going to sing, despite the fact of the recorder in his hand, so musical was his voice. I must confess that it was the first time that I heard bent notes played on a recorder with such brilliance.
For me, the highlight was the contribution from Emile Baptiste, a past student of Pan Pipers who spoke on behalf of all Louise’s students.  Taking his time, he delivered a string of anecdotes to demonstrate how Miss McIntosh has approached her school, mixing the methodology learnt at Training College with the art of music to bring out the best in her students.  
And then there was the steelband performances.
Louise’s funeral service was the first time I was hearing the G-Pan in an orchestral setting.
It’s been two years and two months since the G-Pan was unveiled but until that day, I had only heard a tenor by itself and had actually played the bass pans in Phase II’s yard. The National Steel Symphony Orchestra performed the processional and recessional at the service as well as some very well executed classical pieces.  I spoke briefly to the conductor, Jessel Murray, and was thrilled to learn that all the members of the band were reading their parts.  The tonal quality of the instruments was really pleasing to the ear, and the technology and tuning that went into the instruments proved to be worthy of Dr Copeland’s team and UWI’s involvement in the development of the G-Pan.
Despite having heard Boogsie play many times before, I was confounded by his expertise on the instrument. He played What A Friend We Have In Jesus with all the nuances that anyone in the educational field could analyse and pass on to a student as an example of how a solo performance should be performed.

He started off by simply playing the melody, and at the completion of each chorus, he added elements like embellishment, intricate accompaniment, re-harmonisation—all with one stick in each hand—which, for me, really exemplifies Boogsie’s awesome talent. I know that from wherever she was, Miss McIntosh was relishing the quality of music at the celebration of her life.
Miss McIntosh had never taught me music, but I clearly remember going to her after learning a piece of classical music and asking her to critique my work.  She always offered some advice to help me improve on what I was doing without being too critical.  Pan Pipers Music School really flourished after I left Trinidad to study abroad, and in many ways I wished I could have benefited more from Miss McIntosh’s musical wisdom. 
Her passing has left a big void as far as music education is concerned in the St Augustine/Tunapuna area, and I do hope one of her former students takes up the mantle and continues her work. 
I spoke to Louise in March 2009. She said then that she was still teaching, and the reason she had to teach was because she had left a very secure position as a teacher with the government to devote all her time to her passion for music.  I do not know of many people in Trinidad who would have done that, and it really shows the true character of a person dedicated to music and to the arts.
May she rest in musical peace.

The CLR James Research Centre at Cave Hill campus received a major enhancement to its library resources when the cricket papers of the late Stephen Alleyne, former Chief Executive Officer of World Cup Barbados Inc (2007), were handed over to the University of the West Indies.
The presentation took place on Friday, June 26, 2009 during a brief ceremony attended by principal of Cave Hill campus, Sir Hilary Beckles, Alleyne’s widow Dr. Yolanda Alleyne, his sister Lisa and his long time friend Philip Nicholls who was also a long serving member of the Barbados Cricket Association’s board of management.
 The papers comprising thousands of documents which were saved over more than a decade, including part of the Cricket World Cup legacy, will be used to assist students in their research in the development of Barbados and West Indies cricket. Dr. Alleyne who handed them over to Sir Hilary felt they would add to “the development of thought in the future and plans for the future” of the game.
Sir Hilary said he believed the papers would be used by generations to come in cricket research and noted that the UWI had plans to honour Alleyne’s legacy for his tremendous contribution to cricket in Barbados and the Caribbean.
He pointed to the invaluable role which Alleyne played in facilitating the hosting of World Cup matches at the 3Ws Oval, enabling it to be the first university worldwide to be accorded such a privilege.
Alleyne died at age 47, in October 2007 months after the final of the tournament was played at Kensington Oval, Barbados.
Reprinted from www.cavehill.uwi.edu