Pan Buzz

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the lat­est "pan­woman" in Trinidad & To­ba­go and the world, must tell pan­men some­thing, and tell them soon. What she must tell them is whether the steel­band head­quar­ters will be built on the Or­ange Grove, Trinci­ty lands any time in the near fu­ture.With the Bud­get read, de­bat­ed and passed in both Hous­es, the na­tion's thou­sands of pan­nists are nowhere near­er to know­ing if the frame of shame and eye­sore on Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way will be dis­man­tled, and a spank­ing head­quar­ters built.

Kam­la made the promise to build when she stepped in­to a heat­ed, and un­nec­es­sary row be­tween PanTrin­ba­go and Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters over the trim­ming of the $1,000 Panora­ma stipend to $800.Both com­bat­ants threw words, luck­i­ly, back and forth in an ex­er­cise that threat­ened the 2011 Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and cre­at­ed un­ease in pan's con­stituen­cy un­til the charm­ing Kam­la stepped in.

Now pan­nists are ask­ing their newest friend and col­league, "what's the score?" as Pan Trin­ba­go and pan­nists re­main in lim­bo over the con­struc­tion of their head­quar­ters.A whop­ping $3.7 mil­lion was spent and all there is to show for the mon­ey wast­ed is a rusty skele­ton of a build­ing.

Blue mag­ic takes over

I don't want to talk too quick­ly; but there are no con­do­lences to­day, thank God. But the talk in town is that cul­tur­al sol­dier Rolph Warn­er got a send-off fit for a king.Pan and ca­lyp­so dom­i­nat­ed at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, in a mas­sive show that fea­tured three-time Road March champ Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert, Can­dice Al­can­tara, Sonya Le Maitre, Singing San­dra, Nat­tie Pierre, Robert Munroe, Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, Du­ane O'Con­nor, Karen Ashe and last but by no way least, Su­perBlue.

Like a ma­gi­cian, Blue trans­formed the event in­to a cel­e­bra­tion af­ter "sleep­ing pill trib­utes" threat­ened to mar the event. Blue took over....the rest is now his­to­ry, and of course, the talk in town.An­oth­er talk-in-town is who will be in the arranger's chair at the PCS Sil­ver Stars now that the band's vet­er­an arranger, Ed­win Pouchet, is un­der the weath­er these days. It is left to be seen if he will as­sume mu­si­cal con­trol of his beloved Sil­ver Stars.

An­oth­er talk-in-town is the 2012 Mu­sic Fes­ti­val is on at the Queen's Hall, St Ann's. Now, don't con­fuse this with the bi­en­ni­al Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val which will al­so be on in 2012.So bath­room singers start get­ting those vo­cal chords in or­der.Ja­son "Peanuts" Isaac's Pan Re­demp­tion is the test piece for vo­cal­ists in the (vo­cal­ist so­lo) cat­e­go­ry. The Elaine An­der­son Chal­lenge Tro­phy is at stake. A video of the song Pan Tur­bu­lence is now on You Tube.

Pan Fam­i­ly eat them raw!

I am in a con­grat­u­la­to­ry state of mind.Con­grat­u­la­tions go out to the Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly that is mak­ing a habit out of win­ning com­pe­ti­tions.This group of ex­pert mu­si­cians, led by dad Cory, is for­mi­da­ble. They flayed the chal­lenge of com­pe­ti­tions in the in­au­gur­al First Cit­i­zens In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­pan Jazz Chal­lenge.It was licks like lentil peas for six ri­val ag­gre­ga­tions - Star­lift, Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters, bptt Rene­gades, and Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Re­pub­lic Bank, now play­ing a more ex­ten­sive role in the steel­band world with Ex­o­dus.Re­pub­lic Bank, like Sco­tia­bank and RBC, has been al­ways in step with pan. Its Pan Mi­nors project is tru­ly ex­cit­ing and help­ful to steel­band de­vel­op­ment for many years.

In win­ning the chal­lenge, put on by Pan Trin­ba­go and the QRC Foun­da­tion, the Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly won $50,000 smack­ers.

'Sa­van­nah Par­ty' on Jan­u­ary 15

The talk in town is that "Sa­van­nah Par­ty 2012" (Na­tion­al Panora­ma semi­fi­nal) will be held in the Big Yard (Queen's Park Sa­van­nah) on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 15, 2012.It will be pan in your pam-pa-lam that Sun­day, as some 30 bands from the var­i­ous zones; North, South/Cen­tral and East, come tum­bling down the bar­ber green.

Sor­ry, Elsworth

Pan Buzz is not too big to say sor­ry to Elsworth James. In my copy last week, I failed to tell read­ers that Elsworth shook the rafters of De Nu Pub in Wood­brook at the Ja­son "Peanuts" Isaac Pan CD/Com­pi­la­tion launch.He sang Crabs in A Bar­rel and Tak­ing Back The Stage.Mean­while, Elsworth will launch his new CD-Hid­den Par­adise-at the Caribbean Busi­ness Ex­po on Sat­ur­day. Venue is the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya.

A packed en­ter­tain­ment pro­gramme awaits through this four-day ex­po, in­clud­ing Bro Valenti­no, Adesh Sama­roo, Max­imus Dan, Bro Re­sis­tance, Crazy, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters and De Orig­i­nal De Fos­to Him­self.

Boogsie, Lexo greet warm­ly

Two for­mer col­lab­o­ra­tors of pan songs-Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and An­tho­ny "Lexo" Alex­is-ex­changed pleas­antries at the cel­e­bra­tion (fu­ner­al) of Rolph Warn­er on Sat­ur­day.On­look­ers were stunned by the cor­dial­i­ty be­tween the two.Both men ruled the roost for six years de­liv­er­ing high-qual­i­ty pan songs, un­til they fell out.