Pe­ter Ray Blood

The names Des­per­a­does, Rudolph Charles, Bertie Mar­shall, Mer­le Al­bi­no-de Couteau, Robert Greenidge, Sul­li­van Walk­er, Fred­die Har­ris, Ter­ry Joseph, Kei­th Smith and Ul­ric Box­hill are all well known as shin­ing stars of Laven­tille. How­ev­er, a new star is ris­ing in Laven­tille, in East­ern Quar­ry to be ex­act. That star is Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, a two-time cham­pi­on Panora­ma steel or­ches­tra, and one which con­tin­ues to bring pride to the com­mu­ni­ty of Laven­tille. Sound Spe­cial­ists cel­e­brat­ed 35 years of ex­is­tence last year and con­tin­ues to turn out win­ning arrange­ments in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ace arranger Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore. The band has made it to the Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nals for the last ten years and is the 2007 and 2008 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on in the Medi­um band cat­e­go­ry. The Laven­tille-based band and Courts (Uni­com­er T&T Ltd) have been part­ners for over two decades now, and Courts, con­tin­u­ing to pledge its com­mit­ment to the band and the wider Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty, con­tin­ues its sup­port of steel­band mu­sic and lo­cal cul­ture in the twin-is­land re­pub­lic. Sound Spe­cial­ists, which placed third in the 2012 Panora­ma fi­nal, is man­aged by Richard Forteau, cap­tained by Kern John, with Rudo Forteau as the drill mas­ter. The East­ern Quar­ry, Laven­tille band fields 90 play­ers for Panora­ma, while its stage side team is made up of 35 mem­bers to pro­vide mu­sic through­out the year for plea­sure and com­pe­ti­tion. Sound Spe­cial­ists is one of the top-notch steel or­ches­tras short-list­ed to per­form at this year's Pan in De Coun­try­side se­ries of open-air con­certs, staged in To­ba­go and in rur­al Trinidad com­mu­ni­ties, by Pan Trin­ba­go.

How about a 50th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary Car­ni­val?

To­day I say a hearty thanks to the many of you out there who phoned, texted, BB'd and e-mailed me com­pli­ments on my col­umn last Fri­day. I was par­tic­u­lar­ly touched by the call from Mar­i­lyn Moze, CAL In­vaders' old­est ac­tive sup­port­er who turns 80 in Sep­tem­ber. Mar­i­lyn, I have every faith that Pan Trin­ba­go will put all the wrongs right and make the 2013 edi­tion of its ex­clu­sive-pan J'Ou­vert pa­rade along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, through Wood­brook, a tremen­dous suc­cess. This year's event, though ap­par­ent­ly ham­pered by poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween dif­fer­ent arms of the se­cu­ri­ty forces and the May­or's of­fice, was even­tu­al­ly a most en­joy­able pro­duc­tion. While it's a great idea to re­move all mu­sic trucks and DJs off the Av­enue for the du­ra­tion of the pa­rade, greater mon­i­tor­ing must be en­forced along ar­te­r­i­al thor­ough­fares in the Wood­brook area as many res­i­dences and prop­er­ties were de­faced by un­car­ing mas­quer­aders seek­ing al­ter­na­tive routes. Con­tin­u­ing from last Fri­day, I re­it­er­ate that some­body, be it the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T or the broad­cast­ers as­so­ci­a­tion, needs to heav­i­ly in­vest in train­ing re­porters and broad­cast­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers and video­g­ra­phers as well, in the prop­er cov­er­age of Car­ni­val in its many facets.

It was Pix­ie Du Coudray who re­mind­ed me on the week­end of the good old days when, be­fore an an­nounc­er was as­signed to do live Car­ni­val broad­casts, he/she was re­quired to vis­it every mas camp there was, as well as every pa­n­yard and ca­lyp­so tent, to ac­quire in­for­ma­tion on the sub­ject they would be cov­er­ing. Back in the day, me­dia lu­mi­nar­ies like Tony Williams, Mervyn Telfer, Bob Git­tens, Phill Sim­monds, Ger­ard Agos­ti­ni, Allyson Hen­nessy, Pat Bish­op, Sharon Pitt, Josanne Lennard and Du Coudray her­self in­ti­mate­ly knew what they were look­ing at on stage, and com­men­tat­ing on. As far as the com­mem­o­ra­tion and cel­e­bra­tion of the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence is con­cerned, I'd like to in­form the gov­ern­ment and the pow­ers that be that Ja­maica, which al­so turns 50 this year, com­plet­ed its 50th In­de­pen­dence lo­go in 2010. When would we see ours? A friend in Lon­don sug­gest­ed a theme for the oc­ca­sion two years ago, but has re­ceived no re­sponse from any of the agen­cies he sug­gest­ed it to. He al­so sug­gest­ed on the week­end, that since last year, T&T should have in­vit­ed the world to a 50th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary Car­ni­val in Au­gust. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it's now way too late to plan, or ex­e­cute did­dly squat for this his­toric land­mark in our na­tion's ex­is­tence.