Champion arranger Leon Smooth Edwards is determined to secure victory for reigning champs Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars in this year's large conventional category of the National Panorama Competition. He said the band will not make it easy for its music rivals and is boosting its performance style to hold on to the title won last year.
Trinidad All Stars wants to register a hat-trick of wins to equal nine-time National Panorama champion BP Renegades Steel Orchestra which has held the record to the past 16 years. The celebrated Duke Street band's first attempt at three consecutive wins was 31 years ago in 1982. Three decades later, the band intends get it right this time.
"I am never under any pressure! Never! Even when I just started I was never under any pressure. And why should I be under any pressure? I'm cool," said Smooth in an interview at the Duke Street panyard of All Stars last Wednesday during the start of the band's Panorama 2013 rehearsals.
"In 1982 when we were going for the three-peat, the very Carnival Saturday, I flew out of Trinidad. I got news that my wife was sick and in hospital (abroad), so I did not start the band (on stage). That made a big difference. Hopefully, I will be Trinidad this year for the finals, so it will be a different result, a different scenario.
All Stars has chosen Clive Telemaque's Bounce and Drive as its tune of choice for the competition "I think it's one of the top tunes out there. Why not go with it?," Smooth asked when questioned about the choice. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the National Panorama Competition produced by Pan Trinbago and Smooth is thrilled that Trinidad All Stars was able to contribute to many of the events' highlights.
"One of the reasons I started arranging (and) sacrificed playing pan was to assist the band. I was a (playing) member of the band and I believe the band was supposed to be getting all the pips. Had I gone out like Boogsie (Len Sharpe) and (Robert) Greenidge and do solo works, the band might have suffered. That was the priced I paid. I pushed the band rather than myself," he said.
"So I am happy that the things I had sowed paid off. "I couldn't see how I could have been a player and still service the band. Being a player meant I would have had to put aside a lot of practice time to hone my skills. At the time, I did not see anybody else stepping in to hold the reigns."
Smooth is comforted by the fact that in All Stars there are in-house arrangers if he not be available to do the band's arrangement at any time. He admitted that with age his retention was not as sharp, so he no longer pre-arranges the band's music at home, before taking it to the panyard. Instead, he does all his arranging in the panyard.
Commenting on the number of young pannists the band continues attract and the natural abilities they possess, Smooth said it was good to know that the band was not depending on one person and succession planning is alive. "It would have been rough if you were coming here and you were hardly seeing players. Once you seeing people I am happy. This is looking like the Panorama side already. So Kudos!"