DAVID CUFFY

It was an oc­ca­sion for rem­i­nisc­ing by sev­er­al el­ders of the steel­band move­ment, an en­ti­ty that rep­re­sents the most in­ter­est­ing and in­spir­ing de­vel­op­ments in grass-roots mu­si­cal cre­ation and cul­ture. The venue was Pan Con­nois­seurs Pan The­atre on the West­ern Main Road, St James, on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon where they gath­ered to com­mem­o­rate the 60th an­niver­sary of the Point Cumana Boys Town Steel Or­ches­tra's win­ning the first Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val on March 11, 1952.

The fes­ti­val was an in­tro­duc­to­ry steel­band cat­e­go­ry in the bian­nu­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val host­ed by the Trinidad Mu­sic As­so­ci­a­tion. It was staged at the Globe Cin­e­ma in Port-of-Spain where the band was re­quired to play the test piece Un­der The Mara­bel­la Bridge and a tune of choice, for which it chose the se­lec­tion You Are My Heart's De­light.

Six past mem­bers of the now de­funct Boys Town Steel Or­ches­tra present at the func­tion were George "Yoyo" Kallicha­ran, Eu­gene Williams, Clarence Eve, Kelvin Pier­re­point, Ger­ald Gor­rin and Trevor Alexan­der. Un­able to at­tend were Clyde Bon­terre, Ken­neth Palmer and Gas­ton Nunes (bet­ter known as ca­lyp­son­ian Smi­ley).

All were pre­sent­ed with awards of ap­pre­ci­a­tion ac­quired through the benev­o­lence of the Afrikan Cul­tur­al As­so­ci­a­tion and Pan Lovers In­ter­na­tion­al, pro­duc­ers of the event. Or­isha el­der, Chief Alag­ba Ifa Tayese Erin Fo­la­mi (Es­mond King), who pos­sess­es an ex­ten­sive back­ground and knowl­edge of the ear­ly steel­band move­ment, chaired the pro­ceed­ings and en­cour­aged many of the el­ders among the large turnout of steel­band en­thu­si­asts to share their ex­pe­ri­ences of the ear­ly days in the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

They turned the event in­to a vir­tu­al his­to­ry les­son, re­call­ing the in­stru­ment's evo­lu­tion and giv­en its record, urged more par­tic­i­pa­tion by pri­vate en­ter­prise and the Gov­ern­ment. As an ex­am­ple, we learned how In­vaders Bay in Mu­cu­rapo got its name, and were made aware of the gen­e­sis of the PHI pan from its in­ven­tor Kei­th May­nard.

The re­sult­ing con­sen­sus was that in the land of its birth, the steel­pan was, un­for­tu­nate­ly, still to be found on the back-burn­er of cul­tur­al con­sid­er­a­tions, de­spite the in­stru­ment be­ing "a spe­cial en­ti­ty," and every pan­man "a bril­liant mu­si­cian." Re­peat­ed calls were made for wider me­dia recog­ni­tion so that "60 years of ded­i­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment would not have been in vain."

El­der of Wit­co Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, "Tash," ex­pressed the gen­er­al feel­ing that im­me­di­ate na­tion­al at­ten­tion be giv­en to record­ing the in­stru­ment's check­ered and tur­bu­lent his­to­ry from the el­ders, since "pret­ty soon the Chief Mu­si­cian will be call­ing most of us home." Mak­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions to the six Boys Town mem­bers were Kam­biri De Suza, Pel­ham God­dard, Earl Brooks, Owen Ser­rette, Earl Cros­by and David Ed­wards.

What prize did Point Cumana Boys Town Steel Or­ches­tra re­ceive for the his­to­ry-mak­ing achieve­ment? No one could re­call.