The jour­ney to de­ter­mine the cham­pi­on steel­band of the world, Panora­ma 2026, has more than a few in­ter­est­ing na­tion-build­ing and ap­pro­ba­to­ry sto­ries to it; so we must lis­ten and learn from the pan, them pan­men; and them young women and men who in­her­it this ting and does play dey­self with it like they own it; and yes, they do.

The re­al­i­ty of cre­ation and own­er­ship is buried in­side the evolv­ing steel­band cav­al­cade; there are life sto­ries and in­her­i­tances which go be­yond who win, who lose, and who gets thief in Panora­ma.

In this some­times jumbie um­brel­la na­tion that doesn’t al­ways recog­nise where we come from, steel­band Panora­ma makes us aware of the en­durance of the cre­ators of the pan, the evo­lu­tion of the in­stru­ments, and the cul­tur­al in­tent of men and women who start ex­per­i­ment­ing with pan.

When we jamin’ in Panora­ma, con­sid­er for a mo­ment how the in­no­va­tors, the gi­ants of the pan move­ment, con­ceived of an in­stru­ment, a sound through which they want­ed to ex­press their feel­ings, and the spir­it of a peo­ple and their evolv­ing cul­ture. Re­flect, in be­tween win­ing and scream­ing for your band, that this steel­band thing start­ed 85-plus years ago dur­ing an ig­no­min­ious era in man’s his­to­ry (WWII) when he slaugh­tered an es­ti­mat­ed 70 to 85 mil­lion hu­man be­ings.

That was the time and the en­vi­ron­ment when Alexan­der Rag­Time Band, Tokyo, Oval Boys - In­vaders, Cross of Lor­raine-All Stars, Des­per­a­does, Rene­gades (bands which still play­ing in Panora­ma) emerged in­to in­sti­tu­tions of hu­man achieve­ment, and have made it through the rain and reign of stig­ma, al­le­ga­tions of hooli­gan­ism, low-class par­tic­i­pa­tion, and the sounds which were once de­scribed as “noisy in­stru­ments”, but have to­day been turned in­to sym­phonies of mu­sic, and with it a mea­sure of re­spectabil­i­ty. Nonethe­less, it still have them that make ex­cus­es for not putting pan on the Coat of Arms; no dif­fer­ent from the colo­nial au­thor­i­ties who al­ways found rea­son to ig­nore the qual­i­ty of the peo­ple and their cre­ations

Nev­er mind them, when we jump­ing-up in de Panora­ma we must re­mem­ber Spree, Jules, Man­nette, Pile, “Muff Man” Williams - “with meh vagabond hair style”, and ar­guably the great­est tenor man of all time, Emanuel “Cobo Jack” Ri­ley, who was touch­ing pan with mag­i­cal sticks, and re­leas­ing sound and tex­ture which have be­come part of Panora­ma.

Close to his pas­sage to an­oth­er life, the said Muff Man Williams told me he was still work­ing on get­ting his 36-note Spi­der Web tenor in­to per­fec­tion; that is com­mit­ment to an ide­al which them young tesses and tessees now win­ing be­hind dey pan and play­ing they self - but “you have to look be­neath the sur­face”—Mys­tic Prowler.

Think about the na­ture and as­pi­ra­tions of our an­ces­tors, what they set out to achieve from the most prim­i­tive of con­di­tions—“ah woman throw­ing she overnight poe close to where ah tun­ing pan,” Jules in Hell Yard. In de West, man suck salt be­low the Bread­fruit Tree in re­spectable Wood­brook while El­lie turn the steel drum from in­side out, to out­side in, and he bred­dar, “Birdie”, tun­ing pan.

In John John, the Bar­rack Yard weh ah woman fool-up ca­lyp­son­ian Spit­fire, drink he rum, and rest him down with ah re­frain: “Ah go see yuh, we go ketch-up, pard­na, wey yuh name again, don’t for­get de ad­dress that ah give yuh, 29 Port-of-Spain.” Those are sto­ries which emerged from the gen­e­sis of pan and ca­lyp­so and are at the beat­ing heart of Panora­ma.

Tokyo with its bad john side, Marabun­tas, ready to fight at Green Cor­ner to pro­tect dey pan and woman; them is to­ries yuh have to know bout when yuh daugh­ters and sons jam­ming in style with thou­sand-dol­lar phones in they back pock­et – teach them that ting ent come easy. Tell them bout Prince Bat­son run­ning through the Dry Riv­er with a dust­bin he tief for Jules to tune while feel­ing the pain of po­lice bootoo in he back.

But that is not the on­ly part of the steel­band sto­ry at the “Big Yard”. Pan­man and he pan crossed the stages of Carnegie and the Roy­al Al­bert Halls. Panora­ma to­day al­so rep­re­sents the con­tin­u­ing and evolv­ing pres­ence of the New­town Band (Sil­ver Stars) of the Pouchet and Chan broth­ers, and the mid­dle-class Col­lege Boys from St Mary’s and QRC, who Ian Lam­bie does still re­mind we bout.

But even be­fore them, there were Ernest Fer­reira and Cur­tis Pierre from Cobo Town who cre­at­ed Dix­ieland; Col­lege Boys jamin’ pan and suf­fer­ing the wrath of their teach­ers at St Mary’s for such low- class be­hav­iours: “All ah dat in Car­ni­val, is ah Cre­ole bac­cha­nal,” (Spar­row).

Star­lift, Ex­o­dus, Har­monites, an­oth­er era of bands in Panora­ma and cross­ing over ge­og­ra­phy are Fon­claire, Siparia Del­tones, Skif­fle, and we must al­ways re­mem­ber when Bob­by Mo­hammed (Guin­ness Cav­a­liers 1965) rock the Big Yard stage with Melody Mas and put wa­ter in the eye of town pan­men who felt in­vin­ci­ble.

(To be con­tin­ued.)

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and News Di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.