Witco Desperadoes, Sagicor Exodus, bpTT Renegades and RBC Redemption Sound Setters are some of the top steel orchestras that will match wits and performance skills, as they vie for supremacy in the inaugural First Citizens International Steelpan-Jazz Challenge. Also joining the fray is a representative band from the UTT, made up of faculty and students and coordinated by renowned arranger, Leon "Smooth" Edwards. With qualifying and final rounds on October 1 and 28 at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, the challenge is a new feature specially introduced to mark the tenth staging of the annual T&T Steelpan & Jazz Festival. More than 15 bands have confirmed their participation.
They will draw for playing positions tomorrow. For this year's challenge qualifying round, bands will perform one song, chosen from a provided list of 20 calypsoes that include classics like Bees Melody (Kitchener), Forward Home (Andre Tanker) and Pan Rising (Len Sharpe). Finalists will play two songs from the same list. With the excitement building, several panyards are abuzz with activity, perhaps seeing the challenge as an opportunity to prove that their abilities are not just one-dimensional. Bands are allowed to use from eight to 12 musicians and to choose their special combination of pans and other conventional instruments.
To adjudicate the competition, organisers have engaged the services of reputable musicians/educators headed by Orville Wright and including Ron Reid and Etienne Charles. Wright, former chair, Performing Arts Department, University of Massachusetts, has rewritten the judging criteria for National Panorama and the World Steelband Festival. Just recently, he conducted a workshop on jazz arranging for the steelband at the NAPA. Reid is an associate professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Boston and currently heads the Sunsteel Sextet. He has been involved in the development of Panjazz and Caribbean improvised music since his teenage years.
He was a regular participant at the jazz listening and experimental music sessions organised at Queen's Royal College by the late Scofield Pilgrim. Charles has been a member of Phase II and is now considered one of the brightest new jazz prospects in the world. He will be the feature artiste at The Many Moods of Kaiso, the finale of this year's T&T Steelpan & Jazz Festival.
• For more information on the International Steelpan-Jazz Challenge and the Tenth Annual T&T Steelpan & Jazz Festival log on to www.steelpanjazzfestival.co.