Pan Buzz

George "Rampi" Ram­per­sad is fly­ing the flag in Den­mark. You might ask: "Who is "Rampi"?Rampi is well known through­out the East West Cor­ri­dor with Tu­na­puna All Stars. Pan has been Rampi's life since grad­u­at­ing from St Mary Col­lege, Port-of-Spain. This pan­nist, com­pos­er and arranger achieved a mile­stone with a CD called Pow­er of the Word, which I had a chance to hear, and have found the mu­sic and lyrics to be noth­ing short of awe­some. Con­grats Rampi.

Pow­er of the Word is a classy mu­si­cal doc­u­ment that will gain in im­por­tance long af­ter Rampi has passed on. This is a ma­jor work that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans like David Rud­der should take a look in. Rampi has his own 12-mem­ber band Den­mark All Stars and makes a liv­ing play­ing and teach­ing the pan.Pow­er of the World is orig­i­nal mu­sic and is now avail­able at all record shops. He thanks all those who have helped him on this pan jour­ney, es­pe­cial­ly Michael "Pen­ta" Cu­pi­dore.

'Panaway' to hit air­waves

Talk­ing about com­pi­la­tions, word out of Brook­lyn, USA is that com­pos­er Miguel Reyes is threat­en­ing to shake the por­tals of pan with a song called Panaway. It is just one of the many songs on the CD com­pi­la­tion Lock­down. The ti­tle song lock­down will be sung by De­sign­er (Kei­th Prescott).

Panaway, which cel­e­brates the fact that pan has moved away from T&T, and is now in­ter­na­tion­al, should hit the air­waves in two weeks time.Miguel raised eye­brows with Panora­ma Fest in 2010. Crit­ics rat­ed this com­pi­la­tion high­ly.The Buzz un­der­stands the smash hit sin­gle In My Ear will make it to the new CD in new clothes.

Ru­fus in the house

Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders will hold its sixth edi­tion of Pan Parang and Pork at the Queen's Park Oval on Sun­day at 3 pm.A packed pro­gramme is on af­ter as well as "Ru­fus," in all tastes, shapes and sizes, will be on sale.Come on down, hear H20 Ph­lo, Scrunter the Hunter and oth­er per­form­ers.Ad­mis­sion is just $250 for one set­ta sweet pan mu­sic, parang and food.

Pro­fes­sor Benoit teach­es chil­dren

The Bri­an Benoit Cen­tre is mak­ing a great con­tri­bu­tion to his com­mu­ni­ty of Quar­ry Street, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain. The man who is called "Pro­fes­sor Bri­an" is mak­ing sure Trinidad & To­ba­go's next wave of pan­nist are mu­si­cal­ly lit­er­ate. On Sat­ur­days he con­ducts mu­sic class­es at the Harlem Syn­co­pa­tors Pan The­atre, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the old­est liv­ing fe­male pan play­er and pi­o­neer, Daisy James Mc Clean. Bri­an, who just com­plet­ed Grade five in his mu­sic ex­ams.

Natasha, Chan­tal in Bish­op's fund-rais­er

Bumped in­to one of my favourite pan­nists Natasha Joseph re­cent­ly. I love Natasha, and have al­ways liked to see her play.Since her days with Panazz Play­ers this af­fa­ble mae­stro of the dou­ble sec­ond sways like a co­conut tree in a gen­tle breeze.

Com­pos­er, pan­nist and arranger Natasha gave us Some­thing Dif­fer­ent ear­li­er this year, but now she tells me there will be no pan song next year. How­ev­er, you can catch this amaz­ing per­former at the Lit­tle Carib in Wood­brook on No­vem­ber 19, at 6.30 pm, in a fund-rais­er for Bish­op Anstey High School's SHIP project. She joins Chan­tal Es­delle and Moyenne in an evening of pan and Jazz.

Talk­ing about Jazz, it's about time Kei­th "Bald Head" Di­az puts this tal­ent­ed To­ba­go lass on the Her­itage Park Pan Jazz pro­gramme.

Peanuts, Boogsie to set pan world afire

Two great pan­nists Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and Ja­son "Peanuts" Isaac are gear­ing to set the pan world afire.Both es­tab­lished pan­nists, arrangers and com­posers have new CDs that show class. Peanuts launched his com­pi­la­tion, King of the Hill, two weeks ago and "Boogsie" is about putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es to his Trib­ute to Spar­row. Both CDs are col­lec­tors items and are ex­pect­ed to hit the record shops be­fore Christ­mas.

King of the Hill fol­lows Peanuts de­but CD, Peanut Punch, a jazz-flavoured disc of pop­u­lar songs. The com­pi­la­tion will fea­ture his 2012 pan song, Pan Tur­bu­lence, now sweep­ing the air­waves, Pan Re­demp­tion, Ten Com­mand­ment of Pan, Ruc­tion, Vibes of a Mad­man, Hard Wine, Jam Dem Raw.

I heard Boo­gie's Trib­ute to Spar­row and was blown away. This CD is awe­some! It con­tains favourites like Ed­u­ca­tion, Salt­fish, Dan is the Man, Rose, Jane, Sa sa Ye, Pan­man, Roy­al Jail, Mem­o­ries, and Drunk and Dis­or­der­ly.