Pe­ter Ray Blood

Rudolph Valenti­no Charles must be turn­ing in his grave, giv­en the con­tin­u­ing crime sit­u­a­tion in Laven­tille, which has been hav­ing a de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fect on the steel or­ches­tra he helped car­ry to great­ness since 1958. Last Mon­day marked the 25th an­niver­sary of Rudolph's pass­ing and, sad­ly, nary a word of re­mem­brance was ut­tered in his mem­o­ry...not even a pan note struck. As Mon­day passed just like any oth­er mun­dane Mon­day, the doors to the im­pres­sive per­form­ing arts com­plex atop Laven­tille Hill re­mained shut, not un­like the doors of most homes that line the steep and nar­row road­way that leads to Des­per­a­does' pa­n­yard, that re­main locked af­ter sun­set on ac­count of the crime surge.

Hav­ing re­turned up the Hill af­ter be­ing forced by the crim­i­nal el­e­ment to prac­tice on Queen's Park East for C2K10, some of the band's mu­si­cians not res­i­dent in Laven­tille are re­port­ed­ly ap­pre­hen­sive about go­ing to the pa­n­yard to prac­tise. A no­table ab­sen­tee from the up­com­ing Pan in the 21st Cen­tu­ry com­pe­ti­tion is Des­per­a­does, hold­er of two liens on the ti­tle. Mum's the word on the Hill and through­out Laven­tille, as res­i­dents are scared out of their wits to talk about the go­ings-on in their com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tin­u­ing hos­til­i­ties be­tween "gangs" are hurt­ing the world's most cel­e­brat­ed steel or­ches­tra and this is a trag­ic sit­u­a­tion in it­self, not to men­tion that the pan­nists them­selves are not in­volved in the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Col­lat­er­al dam­age?

The lat­est ca­su­al­ty of the un­re­lent­ing crim­i­nal on­slaught on Laven­tille is 29-year-old David "Word" Phillip, who was shot to death at Strak­er Vil­lage, off Pic­ton Road, on March 21. Friends of Word are say­ing that his was a sense­less killing in that he was not af­fil­i­at­ed to any gang nor was he in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. While what is go­ing on in Laven­tille is clear­ly a sad in­dict­ment on the au­thor­i­ties in this coun­try, the res­i­dents them­selves must al­so shoul­der some of the blame, as it's the chil­dren of the el­ders who are per­pe­trat­ing the crime. The time is long over­due for the res­i­dents of the Hill to em­u­late their neigh­bours of John John and take charge of their com­mu­ni­ty, erad­i­cat­ing crime once and for all in Laven­tille. On the 25th an­niver­sary of his un­time­ly death, Laven­tille is cry­ing out for an­oth­er strong, charis­mat­ic leader like Rudolph Charles, who al­most sin­gle hand­ed­ly had the Hill un­der heavy man­ners, and es­tab­lished Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra as a shin­ing bea­con in the pan­theon of steel­band ex­cel­lence.

A leader of men

Aside from be­ing an as­tute leader of men, and com­mu­ni­ty, Rudolph was al­so a ge­nius pan sci­en­tist, in­vent­ing some of pan's most as­tound­ing in­stru­ments, in­clud­ing the Ying Yang, nine and 12 bass­es, the Quadro­phon­ic Pan, the Mar­shall Tone Pan, and Rock­et Pan. Rudolph walked with kings and com­mon­ers with equal ease and aplomb, and tales of his close friend­ship with late Fa­ther of the Na­tion Dr Er­ic Williams are still re­lat­ed in an­i­mat­ed tones.

A con­sum­mate pan­man, Rudolph's first love was un­doubt­ed­ly the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, so much so two phras­es he'd nev­er use were "steel­band" and "beat­ing pan." He al­ways re­ferred to a pan ag­gre­ga­tion as a "steel or­ches­tra" and per­form­ing on the in­stru­ment as "play­ing pan." I still have a vivid rec­ol­lec­tion of Rudolph's fu­ner­al at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain–the biggest fu­ner­al I've ever at­tend­ed. His body car­ried in a cus­tom-built "pan char­i­ot," Rudolph's re­mains were cre­mat­ed in Ca­roni.

The au­thor­i­ties con­tin­ue to refuse to ho­n­our Rudolph in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner, de­spite years of pe­ti­tion­ing by his fam­i­ly and mem­bers of the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty for a posthu­mous na­tion­al award. This, to me, is not just a burn­ing shame but a slap in the face of every pan­nist, or an­oth­er way of say­ing 'it's fine to have pan named the na­tion­al in­stru­ment but know your place, in­ven­tors and mu­si­cians–you are still re­gard­ed out­casts, the dregs of so­ci­ety, grudg­ing­ly ac­cept­ed, and just bare­ly tol­er­at­ed.'