Leg­endary pan icon Len "Boogsie" Sharpe on Fri­day be­seeched the pan fra­ter­ni­ty to ho­n­our Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore's wish to put a woman in charge of PanTrin­ba­go by vot­ing for Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore for pres­i­dent in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

Pay­ing a mu­si­cal trib­ute with a ren­di­tion of Philmore's mega-hit Pan by Storm at the fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts South Cam­pus in San Fer­nan­do, Sharpe al­so pe­ti­tioned for PanTrin­ba­go to be re­named.

He said Philmore was not hap­py with PanTrin­ba­go’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion

He re­called Philmore told him once: "The sit­u­a­tion in pan with all these dif­fer­ent com­mit­tees tak­ing charge of pan and not do­ing noth­ing, noth­ing at all. We come like the laugh­ing stock of the world and this is our gift to the world."

Philmore, he said, was try­ing to so­lic­it his sup­port to fight to get Ram­sey-Moore, of To­ba­go, elect­ed.

“This is not a po­lit­i­cal thing I talk­ing.” Re­call­ing a re­cent con­ver­sa­tion with Philmore, he said, Philmore told him, “We have a woman who is the pres­i­dent… and he go­ing to tell all his part­ners to vote for Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, a woman. Woman is boss.”

Claim­ing that the male heads of PanTrin­ba­go did noth­ing for the pan move­ment, Sharpe said, "We have change the name PanTrin­ba­go be­cause that name very shame­ful. Ram­sey-Moore is among eight nom­i­nees who are con­test­ing the post of pres­i­dent of PanTrin­ba­go in Oc­to­ber 28 polls.

Dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice, an emo­tion­al Sharpe broke down in tears, hugged Philmore’s cas­ket and al­so played a tune on Philmore's pan which was mount­ed next to the gold-coloured cas­ket.

Sev­er­al speak­ers spoke about Philmore end­less love for his fam­i­ly, pan and peo­ple, his great­ness as a pan­man, com­pos­er, arranger, his de­sire to up­lift the steel­pan move­ment and how he loved to share hugs and kiss­es.

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies cam­pus prin­ci­pal Bri­an Copeland said Philmore played a piv­otal role in the work they did on the steel­pan at the UWI steel­band lab­o­ra­to­ry.

“Ken was not just a re­mark­able com­po­nent of the art of pan, he was a re­al­ly en­er­get­i­cal­ly kind-spir­it­ed in­di­vid­ual as well he was a shin­ing ex­am­ple of young as­pir­ing pan­nist every­where.”

Close friend and mu­si­cal com­pos­er, Mark Lo­quan, who cre­at­ed 11 songs with Philmore for Panora­ma, nine of which were sung by De­stra Gar­cia, said year af­ter year Philmore would be dis­ap­point­ed with the Panora­ma re­sult and would oc­ca­sion­al­ly voice the lack of re­spect and recog­ni­tion for his work.

Say­ing that Philmore be­lieved in teach­ing the youths, Lo­quan was hope­ful that bands, schools, uni­ver­si­ties would bring back some of his arrange­ments.

For­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, who knew Philmore for 30 years, said he was a pan am­bas­sador who mes­merised peo­ple with his tal­ent and per­son­al­i­ty.

Com­ment­ing on the in­fa­mous Fon­claire’s half-a-point de­feat at the 1990 Panora­ma fi­nals with Pan by Storm, Car­mona said, “How can I for­get that band Fon­claire that won Panora­ma but nev­er re­ceived the tro­phy or the cheque or the by­line ‘Big Band Panora­ma Cham­pi­ons. What Pro ex­pe­ri­enced as an arranger and com­pos­er few can and will able to en­dure. Fon­claire, a band that he arranged com­ing sec­ond four times.”

Car­mona said that “mashed him up” but it nev­er broke his spir­it or re­solve. Be­cause of the love that Philmore in­spired him to have in the pan, he said as pres­i­dent he would give the gift of a pan to every world leader he met coax­ing them to in­vite steel­bands to their coun­try.

Say­ing that Philmore nev­er al­lowed bit­ter­ness to be a part­ner in his life, Car­mona said the politi­cians would do well to fol­low his ex­am­ple of love and com­pas­sion. He called on PanTrin­ba­go to grant Philmore’s wish for har­mo­ny in the pan move­ment, and chal­lenged pan­men to car­ry on Philmore’s in­ter­na­tion­al vi­sion.

Re­call­ing that in 2000 his or­ches­tra Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra won the World Steel band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val with Philmore's Pan by Storm, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said the flag at City Cor­po­ra­tion was flown at half-mast in Philmore’s ho­n­our.

In her eu­lo­gy, Philmore’s sis­ter An­toinette Philmore spoke about her broth­er’s love for pan from an ear­ly age. She said her broth­er achieved his dream to take pan to the world and show that any genre of mu­sic can be played on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Re­call­ing the ac­ci­dent which led to his demise, she said her broth­er was on his way home af­ter an event when his ve­hi­cle was struck from be­hind and skid­ded off the road on Re­pub­lic Day.

She said Philmore suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries, in­clud­ing bro­ken ribs and a punc­tured lung, but re­mained con­scious. He re­mained ward­ed in hos­pi­tal be­fore he suc­cumbed to heart fail­ure on Sep­tem­ber 30.

Rev Richard Williams, a pas­tor at the Cathe­dral of Chris­t­ian Ex­cel­lence where Philmore wor­shipped de­liv­ered the homi­ly while trib­utes were giv­en by PanTrin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, De­stra Gar­cia, his chil­dren and oth­er rel­a­tives and friends. While this was tak­ing place, Fon­claire was belt­ing out Philmore’s com­po­si­tions.

Among the hun­dreds of guests at the fu­ner­al were Cul­ture Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, Min­is­ter Allyson West, oth­er politi­cians, mem­bers of the var­i­ous cul­ture fra­ter­ni­ties, oth­er en­ter­tain­ers, busi­ness peo­ple, friends and rel­a­tives.

The ser­vice was fol­lowed by a mu­si­cal pro­ces­sion through the streets, led by Fon­claire, to Guides Fu­ner­al Home where fam­i­ly and friends at­tend­ed a pri­vate cre­ma­tion.