Pe­ter Ray Blood

Stel­lar cast for­pan jazz fes­ti­val

Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate alum­ni David Michael Rud­der re­turns to school on Oc­to­ber 18 for a grand per­for­mance.

One of T&T's most revered artistes, Rud­der will be one of the stel­lar acts on the cast to grace The Court­yard of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, St Clair, for the 2014 edi­tion of Pan Royale.

Rud­der is billed to per­form with his band, led by long­stand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tor, gui­tarist Wayne Bruno. Rapid Re­sponse weaves pop, jazz, blues and so­ca strains in­to a propul­sive fu­sion that en­hances the in­ci­sive lyri­cal ex­pres­sions and pro­found cul­tur­al al­le­gories which have brought Rud­der de­served com­par­isons to Mar­ley, Fela and Spring­steen.

Some of the bright­est stars in the worlds of pan, so­ca, Latin jazz and world beat mu­sic will align at the stag­ing of this T&T Steel­pan and Jazz Fes­ti­val's (TTSJF) con­cert pre­sen­ta­tion, sched­uled to be­gin at 6 pm.

This year's con­cert line­up in­cludes world-renowned trum­peter Char­lie Sep�lve­da, a pro­fes­sor in Latin jazz stan­dards and Afro-Cuban mu­sic at Puer­to Ri­co's Con­ser­va­to­ry of Mu­sic. A two-time Latin Gram­my nom­i­nee, Sep�lve­da, who re­cent­ly record­ed his fourth al­bum fea­tur­ing his close friend, Latin jazz leg­end pi­anist Ed­die Palmieri, will be backed by an all-star Trinida­di­an-Puer­to Ri­can ag­gre­ga­tion com­pris­ing Gad­win Var­gas (con­gas); Gabriel Ro­driguez (bass); Raul Mal­don­a­do (drums); Michael "Ming" Low Chew Tung (key­boards); and Natasha Joseph (pan).

Al­so fea­tured is Trinidad's sitar mas­ter Mun­gal Patasar and his fu­sion band Pan­tar. A dis­tin­guished mas­ter artiste in res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, Patasar is an ac­com­plished mul­ti-in­stru­men­tal­ist who has earned nu­mer­ous na­tion­al ho­n­ours for his con­tri­bu­tion to T&T's cul­ture.

Pan­tar de­liv­ers a coura­geous, com­pelling blend of tra­di­tion­al In­di­an mu­sic, jazz, ca­lyp­so and reg­gae with steel­pan ac­cents.

Massy Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra cel­e­brates its 79th an­niver­sary this year. Re­cip­i­ent of the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) in 1982, All Stars is an eight-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on and is wide­ly re­spect­ed for its in­no­va­tions in pan's de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing adapt­ing clas­si­cal mu­sic to pan and the cre­ation of the bass pan (cred­it­ed to their for­mer cap­tain Neville Jules).

The band's record­ings of ca­lyp­so hits Woman on De Bass and Cur­ry Ta­ban­ca, both arranged by Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards, have brought many new lis­ten­ers to steel­band mu­sic.

At Car­ni­val 2014, All Stars was judged Band of the Year (Large) for its pre­sen­ta­tion Four Gen­er­a­tions of Sailors, on­ly the sec­ond steel­band to se­cure the ti­tle in the past 51 years. Ex­pect All Stars' Pan Royale per­for­mance to em­body its his­to­ry, pi­o­neer­ing char­ac­ter and over­all mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence.

Con­verse­ly, a ris­ing star with­in the steel­band world, the Su­per­novas Steel Or­ches­tra was formed just four years ago in Sur­rey Vil­lage, Arou­ca. Led by Am­rit Sama­roo, son of the leg­endary steel­pan arranger Dr Jit Sama­roo, Su­per­novas' de­but at Panora­ma 2012 brought it an im­pres­sive sec­ond-place fin­ish in the Small Band cat­e­go­ry. The band se­cured that cat­e­go­ry's top spot at Panora­ma 2014.

Su­per­novas' var­ied reper­toire in­cludes Latin, jazz, In­di­an, clas­si­cal and ca­lyp­so, each se­lec­tion played with pre­ci­sion and youth­ful in­spi­ra­tion. It has per­formed to rave re­views at var­i­ous events through­out Trinidad and is poised to win many new fans at Pan Royale 2014.

Pan Royale 2014 is a trib­ute to Ains­ley Mark (1944-2014) TTSJF co-founder and the for­mer chair­man of the QRC Foun­da­tion, an alum­ni-led as­so­ci­a­tion that rais­es funds for the pres­ti­gious school.

It's a home­com­ing for this event as it was last held at Queen's Hall. Strik­ing a har­mo­nious bal­ance be­tween up­com­ing and vet­er­an tal­ents, home­grown and in­ter­na­tion­al acts, Pan Royale 2014 is cer­tain to hit all the right notes.

Tongs on Fire chas­es rain away

It was one of the bet­ter or­gan­ised fund-rais­ers I have at­tend­ed and to think it was or­gan­ised by a mere hand­ful of peo­ple. The sec­ond an­nu­al Tongs on Fire BBQ com­pe­ti­tion was held at the Boys' Scouts As­so­ci­a­tion, St Ann's, last Sat­ur­day.

The brain child of at­tor­ney Nicole Patrick and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor El­ton Prescott, the ben­e­fits of the event are twofold–bring­ing friends and fam­i­ly to­geth­er to pro­mote good food, good meat and pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tions, and sup­port­ing caus­es that may be over­looked in light of trendi­er en­deav­ours.

This year the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the event was the T&T Fire Ser­vice whose Fire Pre­ven­tion Aware­ness Week be­gan on Sun­day.

This year the weath­er was not as threat­en­ing as that of one year ago at the first edi­tion of this event, staged at the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre in Tacarigua. But, per­sis­tent rain, gusty winds at times and the promise of a mud bath did not keep the keen­est of com­peti­tors away, nor the pa­trons.

Nine groups took part in the com­pe­ti­tion, judged by Du­ane Sylvester, Con­rad Par­ris and Pe­ter Ray Blood, co-or­di­nat­ed by Nathalia Na­sib-Cle­tus, where Team Hog Up the Place, led by broth­ers Brent and Stew­art Sankar, won Peo­ple's Choice. Hog Up the Place al­so won the Best Pork Ribs award.

Oth­er teams on win­ners' row were Ven­ture Cred­it Union (Best Tent); Sagi­cor (Best Team Spir­it); and, Tri­ni Jam (Best Fish). Sec­ond year par­tic­i­pant Hy­att Re­gency, led by Ja­son Sealy, won the award for Best Chick­en. Tony Vieira and Team Pork Ca­bal, al­so a win­ner last year, topped the Ex­ot­ic cat­e­go­ry and, in a sur­prise move, do­nat­ed their win­nings back to the char­i­ty.

A big sur­prise to pa­trons, aside from ac­tu­al­ly see­ing all the BBQ chefs and spir­it­ed helpers cook their meals, was the guest per­for­mance by Massy Trinidad All Stars and the Tu­na­puna Rhythm Sounds. All Stars was re­al­ly en­ter­tain­ing, hav­ing pa­trons danc­ing the evening away as the Duke Street band played a con­cert-like, full length per­for­mance.

Kings of so­ca parang and pork in Ari­ma

The Christ­mas star will soon re­turn to the east­ern sky, herald­ing the yule­tide sea­son and an­oth­er edi­tion of the mas­sive an­nu­al Kings of So­ca Parang and In­ter­na­tion­al Food Fes­ti­val event pre­sent­ed by Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions (RGP). This will be RGP's fi­nal ma­jor event of 2014 and they are as­sem­bling an im­pres­sive pro­duc­tion at the Ari­ma Velo­drome on De­cem­ber 6.

This year's run of the event is sub­ti­tled The Bac­cha­nal and Pork Edi­tion, keep­ing in mind that the Gen­er­al Elec­tions are tak­ing place in 2015 and al­so the con­tin­u­ing ban on hunt­ing, which means no wild meat so the next big meat of the sea­son, pork, will be of­fered in many fash­ions by the many spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed food ven­dors and cooks.

Two mu­si­cal kings of po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy–Mighty Midget Cro Cro and Pink Pan­ther–will ig­nite the fire­works with new parang songs ex­plor­ing a vast ar­ray of po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and oth­er is­sues in­clud­ing some per­son­al mis­ad­ven­tures of politi­cians and oth­er pub­lic fig­ures in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal are­na. These per­for­mances will in­clude a taste of ca­lyp­soes for Car­ni­val 2015.

Oth­er pop­u­lar artistes who will serve as the peace­keep­ers and get the peo­ple danc­ing in­clude the kings of so­ca parang Scrunter, Baron and Ken­ny J, as well as the clown prince of the genre The In­cred­i­ble My­ron B. Al­so per­form­ing are Nin­ja, Im­pulse, Rono­man, Mar­cia Mi­ran­da and oth­er top acts among them tra­di­tion­al parang and more.

As for the food fes­ti­val el­e­ment of the event, RGP promis­es a tru­ly lav­ish lay­out, of­fer­ing 15 dif­fer­ent pork dish­es and when you pur­chase one pork dish, you get an­oth­er one free.

Al­so there will be a wide se­lec­tion of tra­di­tion­al lo­cal Christ­mas fare with in­ter­na­tion­al sea­son­al cui­sine and al­so con­tem­po­rary dish­es and oth­er lo­cal year-long favourites. There will be lots of bars serv­ing up those Christ­mas favourites like re­al sor­rel, gin­ger beer and ponch de cr�me as well as pre­mi­um drinks.

Dis­count­ed ear­ly bird tick­ets go on sale from to­day. Any­one need­ing in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to vend­ing and tick­ets can con­tact RGP (628 9158); Face­book/RG­PEVENTS;

Twit­ter; In­sta­gram.