SAN­DRA L BLOOD

The steel­pan—of­ten hailed as God’s gift to the world—con­tin­ues to prove it­self might­i­er than the sword. Its ini­tial tri­umph came at the T&T Mu­sic Film Fes­ti­val (TTMFF) 2023, where a doc­u­men­tary cel­e­brat­ing the icon­ic Panazz Play­ers not on­ly be­came a his­toric fes­ti­val fea­ture but al­so won the Peo­ple’s Choice Award.

Ti­tled Panazz: The Sto­ry, the doc­u­men­tary was a last-minute en­try in the stu­dent film cat­e­go­ry, sub­mit­ted just be­fore the 2023 fi­nal reg­is­tra­tion dead­line. It vivid­ly traces the jour­ney and mu­sic of the jazz pan en­sem­ble, Panazz Play­ers, from their for­ma­tion in 1992 through a decade of in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim un­til 2002.

The film was ini­tial­ly writ­ten, edit­ed, and pro­duced by Adam Bartholomew, a Trinida­di­an mu­si­col­o­gy stu­dent at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty un­der the guid­ance of Pro­fes­sor Anne Shref­fler. Adam lat­er col­lab­o­rat­ed with his un­cle, Bar­ry Fin­bar Bartholomew, founder and leader of Panazz, and a three-time win­ner of the In­ter­na­tion­al Pan Ra­ma­jay com­pe­ti­tion.

Now 22, Adam was the on­ly stu­dent in his Har­vard class on the His­to­ry and Phe­nom­e­non of Mu­sic who pre­sent­ed a film—es­pe­cial­ly one about the steel­pan—in­stead of a writ­ten pa­per. His unique ap­proach earned him an A grade.

Adam said he was in­spired to tell Panazz’s sto­ry af­ter learn­ing from his un­cle about the band’s ac­com­plish­ments, in­clud­ing their per­for­mances at the renowned Boston Sym­pho­ny Hall.

His project al­so sparked the for­ma­tion of Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s first steel­pan group—the Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Steel­pan En­sem­ble—which Adam co-found­ed with fel­low stu­dent Eliz­a­beth Ben­nett. The en­sem­ble was made pos­si­ble with sup­port from Bar­ry, HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences, and the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try. Adam not­ed that his doc­u­men­tary of­fered many of his Har­vard peers their first ex­po­sure to the steel­pan.

Fol­low­ing its fes­ti­val suc­cess, the doc­u­men­tary gar­nered over­whelm­ing praise. How­ev­er, Bar­ry’s ded­i­ca­tion to ex­cel­lence drove the de­ci­sion to el­e­vate the film fur­ther. With Adam’s agree­ment and sup­port from MITTCO, Panazz: The Sto­ry, was re­mas­tered by Trinida­di­an-British sound en­gi­neer Gra­ham Carr at Ha­lo Film Com­pa­ny in Lon­don. The en­hanced ver­sion has been draw­ing sold-out au­di­ences and gen­er­at­ing glob­al and cor­po­rate in­ter­est.

The doc­u­men­tary pre­mièred at Movi­eTowne, San Fer­nan­do, on Au­gust 24 last year, fol­lowed by a screen­ing in To­ba­go five days lat­er. This year, its am­bi­tious “Sum­mer-Plus Tour 2025” kicked off in June.

It was screened at Nani­ki/Bar­ba­dos Mu­se­um in Bar­ba­dos, as well as in Boston, Toron­to, Lon­don’s Win­drush Film Fes­ti­val, and as the open­ing fea­ture at Wash­ing­ton DC’s Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. It was al­so pri­vate­ly viewed at Gem Stone in Trinidad for spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests. This month it will be shown at Lon­don’s Ritzy Cin­e­ma.

On Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­pan Day next month, the film will be screened in New York City’s Times Square and in Bar­ba­dos dur­ing Car­ifes­ta. Sep­tem­ber will bring it to au­di­ences in New Or­leans, and in Oc­to­ber, it’s sched­uled for a pre-Car­ni­val screen­ing at AMC Cin­e­ma in Mi­a­mi. Plans are al­so in place for a Japan­ese tour next year, with screen­ings in Os­a­ka and Tokyo dur­ing Ex­po 2025.

A Cana­di­an ed­u­ca­tor who at­tend­ed a screen­ing re­marked: “It’s a movie that should be part of the cur­ricu­lum in terms of un­der­stand­ing the con­tri­bu­tions that pan has made to mu­sic, the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of it, and the ori­gins of the in­stru­ment. It re­al­ly should be some­thing that every­one has ac­cess to.”

Panazz: The Sto­ry fea­tures promi­nent mu­si­cians, in­clud­ing Dane Gul­ston, Natasha Joseph—the group’s on­ly fe­male mem­ber—Cur­tis Ed­wards, Sean Ed­wards, Yohan Pop­plewell, Fe­lix Wal­cott, Glen Sween, Nigel Williams, Shel­don Web­ster, Kei­th Coombs, Richard Joseph, Sean Black­man, Er­mesto Gar­cia, and Ar­turo Tap­pin. The band’s man­agers are Lisa Ghany and Bar­ry Tom Yew.

Panazz’s five al­bums are cur­rent­ly stream­ing on Spo­ti­fy and Ap­ple Mu­sic.