Pan Buzz

If you see Pan Buzz's face long like a long man­go, it has to do with the pan tur­bu­lence now en­gulf­ing the par­ent body of pan, Pan Trin­ba­go. There have been two res­ig­na­tions of key mem­bers of the Cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive-trustee Kei­th Simp­son and Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore. While some may want to dis­miss this as a blip on Pan Trin­ba­go's radar and con­tin­ue with busi­ness as usu­al, I think it is a se­ri­ous body-blow to the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Over the years, Pan Trin­ba­go has been fight­ing to shore up its cred­i­bil­i­ty and put its fi­nan­cial house in or­der, but this de­vel­op­ment is a ma­jor set­back as the pan body flies in­to a con­tro­ver­sial head­wind. The wide pub­lic­i­ty of the res­ig­na­tions can on­ly fu­el be­liefs among pan­men on the ground and the wider com­mu­ni­ty that all is not well. Pan Buzz, too, has been hear­ing dis­cor­dant notes, al­so not­ed by Simp­son and Ram­sey-Moore in their res­ig­na­tions, about a di­vi­sion in the ex­ec­u­tive, al­le­ga­tions of uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions and ex­pen­di­tures, and a dic­ta­to­r­i­al style of lead­er­ship.

Add to that claims of a lack of re­port­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy is­sues not be­ing ad­dressed. Pan Buzz, a known de­fend­er of the pan, is con­cerned that the pulling and tug­ging can­not do the or­gan­i­sa­tion any good, as it strives to present a pro­gres­sive im­age. Pan Trin­ba­go has sur­vived a stormy pe­ri­od with the for­mer Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, who lashed the or­gan­i­sa­tion in a run­ning bat­tle on trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and de­pen­den­cy. Both the Min­is­ter and Pan Trin­ba­go ri­ot­ed in a messy ver­bal dis­play un­til the Prime Min­is­ter in­ter­vened. With elec­tions due in Oc­to­ber, it will be in­ter­est­ing to see what hap­pens, and if this cur­rent tur­bu­lence will af­fect the out­come. Mean­while, an emer­gency meet­ing is card­ed for Sun­day at 10 am at Scherzan­do pa­n­yard, Curepe, where Pan Trin­ba­go's pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az will ad­dress the mem­ber­ship on al­le­ga­tions made about the run­ning of the or­gan­i­sa­tion and oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing Pan Trin­ba­go.

Pan on a high­er note

I have al­ready told you that if you haven't caught the per­for­mance of the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO), part of your life is miss­ing, as this or­ches­tra is tak­ing pan to high­er heights. This band is play­ing mu­sic sweet­er than Ca­roni brown sug­ar, and will soon be in ac­tion at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), as part of the na­tion's 50th an­niver­sary In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions. The Pan on a High­er Note con­cert fea­tures the NSSO play­ing clas­sics, jazz and ca­lyp­so. Pan Buzz is hop­ing north­ern­ers do bet­ter than south­ern­ers in their at­ten­dance of the bmo­bile-spon­sored St Mar­garet's Boys steel­band jam this Sat­ur­day at the Grand Stand Con­course, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. As man I am feel­ing to drop some heavy bullpis­tles on south peo­ple's backs, for their poor show­ing at the Skif­fle Bunch Pan The­atre Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do, last Sat­ur­day. We need to sup­port the youths as they dis­play their mu­si­cal skills. They can­not play to emp­ty au­di­ences, that is not en­cour­ag­ing. On Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er, is pan in your pam­palam with Rene­gades Youths, St Fran­cois Girls' Ris­ing Sun of the Vir­gin Is­lands and host St Mar­garet's Boys'. Ac­tion starts at 2 pm.

Pan stal­warts leav­ing us

Pan Buzz has been hit a se­ries of dead­ly blows in re­cent weeks, as sev­er­al pan stal­warts have left us in quick suc­ces­sion. Ju­nior Pouchet, Paul Camp­bell, Ed­die Year­wood, Orville Wright and now Fran­cis "Pea­cock"Wick­ham. On the distaff side, El­lie Robert­son of Girl Pat Steel fame, who died in New York re­cent­ly. Stay­ing with El­lie, to­geth­er with a group of mid­dle-class women, un­der the as­tute tute­lage of Hazel Hen­ly, did for fe­male pan­nists what the Cur­tis Pierre-led Dix­ieland did for pan­men, they broke down the bar­ri­ers of prej­u­dice and lib­er­at­ed pan­women. Their con­tri­bu­tion has not yet been ac­knowl­edged. But Pan Buzz hopes it will be. Fran­cis Wick­ham has his name etched in the En­gine Room Hall of Fame. He was a mean iron­man of the In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra, in such com­pa­ny as the great Corey Iron of South, and Ran­dolph "Brad­dy" Brad­shaw of the Des­per­a­does. In the heady days of the steel­band, Wick­ham was a fear­less ri­ot­er and de­fend­er of the In­vaders.

Pan Buzz sends con­do­lences to fam­i­lies, rel­a­tives and friends of these two dis­tin­guished pan peo­ple.