Nass­er Khan

Arranger, com­pos­er, pro­duc­er, teacher Natasha Joseph has been an am­bas­sador for the steel­pan, rep­re­sent­ing T&T in many coun­tries such as USA, Lon­don and Japan, To­ba­go Jazz, Bar­ba­dos Jazz, St Lu­cia Jazz and Grena­da Jazz fes­ti­vals.

Af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in the Pan Ra­ma­jay soloist skills com­pe­ti­tion in 1993, Joseph went on to join the Panazz Play­ers and toured ex­ten­sive­ly with the group. Panazz won the Sun­shine award in 1997 for Best Record­ing by a steel­band.

A self-taught mu­si­cian, Joseph has shared the stage with many lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al jazz artistes such as Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore, Elan Par­le, Chan­tal Es­delle and Moyenne, Michael Booth­man, Clive Zan­da, the late Raf Robert­son, Ar­turo Tap­pin of Bar­ba­dos, Joe Baione, Kim Wa­ters of the USA, Je­re­my Led­bet­ter of Cana­da, Alex­is Baro of Cu­ba, Char­lie Sepul­ve­da, Fi­del Morales, and Gabriel Ro­driguez of Puer­to Ri­co.

For the past five years, she has been the steel­pan fa­cil­i­ta­tor for the FCB steel­pan and jazz work­shops in Trinidad, and al­so teach­es steel­pan and gui­tar pri­vate­ly. Her teach­ing in­cludes stints at St An­drews Pri­vate School, Bish­op Anstey Ju­nior School, Sa­cred Heart Girls', pri­vate class­es in mu­sic the­o­ry, im­pro­vi­sa­tion and steel­pan rudi­ments, Black­man's Pri­vate School, and founder of Mu­sic JYM (Jun­tos Y Mejo­rar).

In June 2012 she re­ceived her diplo­ma in Record­ing En­gi­neer­ing and Pro­duc­tion from The Au­dio In­sti­tute of Amer­i­ca.

A well-known drill­mas­ter, Joseph has helped to bring Phase II Pan Groove to vic­to­ry in 2013 and 2014, and sec­ond place in 2015 in the Na­tion­al Steel­band Panora­ma. She has been work­ing with their arranger Len "Boogsie" Sharpe for the past sev­en years. She is al­so the arranger for the Star­lift Ju­nior Steel Or­ches­tra, which placed fifth in the non-schools cat­e­go­ry for Ju­nior Panora­ma 2015. She al­so arranges for Plat­inum Steel Or­ches­tra, an all-fe­male sin­gle pan band tak­ing part in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma 2016, a first in the com­pe­ti­tion's 53-year ex­is­tence

Q: Tell us about your ear­ly years and your fam­i­ly...where born, where grew up, schools at­tend­ed in­clud­ing pri­ma­ry, etc?

A: I was born in Barataria. Both of my par­ents were from south, so my ear­ly years be­tween the ages of three to sev­en were spent back and forth be­tween Thick vil­lage, Fyz­abad, and Barataria. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, I at­tend­ed Pep­per Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment School and St There­sa's RC School in Mal­ick. I at­tend­ed Mal­ick Sec­ondary Com­pre­hen­sive School, and I'm cur­rent­ly a stu­dent at the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts, UWI, pur­su­ing a cer­tifi­cate in mu­sic. My fa­ther was an ace pan­nist with So­lo Har­monites.

What at­tract­ed you most to the steel­pan?

As a younger per­son grow­ing up I did not like pan at all. I al­ways found that it was too noisy un­til one day, I heard the beau­ti­ful arrange­ment of the song Sail­ing by the late Clive Bradley for the band then known as Fer­trin Pan­de­mo­ni­um and al­so, Catel­li All Stars' per­for­mance of Cur­ry Ta­ban­ca. I was cap­ti­vat­ed by their per­for­mance and en­joy­ment of the mu­sic.

What are some of your favourite pieces of Tri­ni mu­sic?

The mu­sic of Clive Zan­da, the late An­dre Tanker and Earl Rod­ney.

Which of your work do you rate as the most sat­is­fy­ing and mem­o­rable?

Work­ing with young peo­ple. The work I do with the Eth­nic Jazz Club which is led by Chan­tal Es­delle, and Panazz Play­ers' his­to­ry of per­for­mances, tours and record­ings. I have learnt and con­tin­ue to learn a lot from these ex­pe­ri­ences.

What is your favourite pas­time/in­ter­est/ hob­by out­side of per­form­ing/play­ing?

Lis­ten­ing to mu­sic, play­ing ta­ble ten­nis and just re­lax­ing.

What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have? What are your 'steel­pan' plans for the fu­ture?

One of my goals is to en­sure all pan play­ers have an ap­plic­a­ble un­der­stand­ing of mu­sic the­o­ry. It will make a huge dif­fer­ence in the un­der­stand­ing, ex­e­cu­tion and the time it takes one to learn an arrange­ment.

Of all your shows, con­certs, per­for­mances, which would you like a first-time au­di­ence, lis­ten­er or view­er to ex­pe­ri­ence?

Kaiso­ca Quar­tet, which is led by Kyle Noel, is a group com­mit­ted to keep­ing our cul­ture alive while stay­ing cur­rent. Oth­er mem­bers of the group are Chan­tal Es­delle, Dou­glas Re­don and I.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

Sec­ond place in the 1994 Pan Ra­ma­jaysoloist skills com­pe­ti­tion.

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of T&T?

Nev­er stop be­liev­ing in your­self, there is no end/stop­ping point when it comes to learn­ing. Ap­ply your­self at all times, whether it be to­wards school­work, band prac­tice or train­ing. There is noth­ing that you can­not do–can­not means will not, so push your­self es­pe­cial­ly when things feel hard, and al­ways have pa­tience with your­self, your peers and your teach­ers.

If you could pick any singer and/or band to per­form just for you who would you choose?

Earl Rod­ney and Ja­son Bap­tiste

Do you play mas? What thoughts do you have for the im­prove­ment of Car­ni­val, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to the steel­pan?

I have nev­er played mas. But if I ever de­cid­ed to play it would be with All Stars, I have loved their sailor mas since I was a child. I hope one day we can fig­ure out how to have Panora­ma with­out the com­pe­ti­tion as­pect of it.

Who are the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired you the most, in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al?

My biggest in­spi­ra­tion and en­cour­age­ment came from Mr Richard Gaskin who was my form teacher in Mal­ick Sec­ondary Com­pre­hen­sive School. There is where I learned to play steel­pan and was al­ways in awe of his skills as a mu­si­cian. He is a mul­ti-in­stru­men­tal­ist with per­fect pitch who taught me some valu­able lessons in ar­rang­ing and ap­proach to play­ing mu­sic. Earl Rod­ney, Clive Zan­da, Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, Robert Greenidge and the late Clive Bradley have al­so been great in­flu­ences in my ca­reer.

What dai­ly mot­to do you live by?

Once you be­lieve you will achieve.

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with N, the oth­er with J, your ini­tials.

Nice and Jazzy.

�2 If you have any sug­ges­tions of per­sons who should be fea­tured in this se­ries please email Nass­er Khan at nkhantt@gmail.com