Mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly pan mu­sic, con­tin­ues to be the balm to curb crime and vi­o­lence. Last week­end’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nals, held at Vic­to­ria Square (Small Bands) and at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (Large / Medi­um Bands) was proof of this. While 58 steel­bands en­ter­tained thou­sands, there was nary a re­port of se­ri­ous crime or vi­o­lence in or around the na­tion’s cap­i­tal.

The east­ern end of Ari­api­ta Av­enue in­to west­ern Park Street was blocked to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic on Sat­ur­day night and was dot­ted from Colville Street to Vic­to­ria Square by 30 small steel­bands. Top­ping the com­pe­ti­tion was Laven­tille Ser­e­naders. Down south, at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, Nishard M and Neval Chate­lal and ran away with the 2018 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch ti­tle.

On Sun­day the mass­es made the an­nu­al rit­u­al­is­tic trek to the Sa­van­nah to hear 28 medi­um and large steel­bands for ap­prox­i­mate­ly nine hours and be­hav­iour at all three ma­jor events was ex­em­plary.

As I wrote in an ear­li­er ar­ti­cle, this year’s Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion isn’t about which band sounds good but about which arranger best in­ter­prets a band’s tune of choice and which drill mas­ter suc­ceed­ed in get­ting the mu­si­cians to per­fect­ly ex­e­cute the piece. It will all come down to these two con­stants re­gard­less of how much gim­mick­ry some bands try to utilise like shout­ing Spar­ta-type out­bursts (300 movie), singing lyrics to songs, us­ing moko jumbies and sexy dancers, or pan­nists stand­ing on bass racks while per­form­ing. The proof of the pud­ding will be in the mu­sic and the men be­hind the mu­sic next week Sat­ur­day night.

As far as arrangers go, Ard­din Her­bert, Du­vonne Stew­art, Carl­ton Zan­da Alexan­der and Len “Boogsie” Sharpe are the main mu­si­cians in main con­tention for next week Sat­ur­day’s epic pan fi­nale in The Big Yard.

This year, so­ca mu­sic is the win­ner in car­ni­val. De­spite the short sea­son, I must com­pli­ment our pro­duc­ers and artistes for com­ing up with some tru­ly beau­ti­ful melodies and arrange­ments, a few of them be­ing top of the line in terms of in­no­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty.

Right off the top of my head, in terms of cre­ativ­i­ty, I think of for­mer So­ca Monarch Olatun­ji for com­ing up with the most unique Body­line. In­spired by Swing mu­sic of the ‘40s, way be­fore Olatun­ji was even con­ceived, this sin­gle, as well as its video, are ina class by them­selves.

An­oth­er sin­gle that has caught my fan­cy is Hulk, record­ed and per­formed by Blaxx. I am ea­ger to see how he will per­form this song at next Fri­day’s In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch fi­nal.

It’s been a while since a young com­pos­er/artiste has im­pressed me like Aaron “Voice” St Louis has. The two-time In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch seems set to prove that not on­ly can light­ning strike twice by can hit a third time with his in­fec­tious Year For Love, on the Up­en­do Rhythm. In fact, I love all the songs on the Up­en­do Rhythm by the likes of M1, Machel Mon­tano and Turn­er.

As far as there be­ing a so­cial com­men­tary in so­ca, in sim­i­lar vein to Year For Love, it is Blue Soap, fea­tur­ing Yan­kee Boy, Olatun­ji, Or­lan­do Oc­tave, As­ten Isaac and Rik­ki Jai. These two songs have good lyrics.

I must ad­mit that al­though I al­so love Iw­er George’s Sa­van­nah, Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller’s Hel­lo, Shal Mar­shall’s Splin­ters, Marzville’s Give It To Ya, and the re­leas­es by MX Prime & Ul­ti­mate Re­jects, I have a par­tic­u­lar fond­ness for Patrice Roberts’ Start the Par­ty (Sweat Fuh Days). This dit­ty has man­aged to cap­ture the feel and sound of ca­lyp­so mu­sic of years gone by while fus­ing with the so­ca of re­cent times.

Oth­er so­ca songs that have moved me thus far have been Full of Vibes (Voice & Marge Black­man); Rough Wine (Machel); World’s Bend (Salty & Travis); Fam­i­ly (De­stra); Par­ty til we Drop (Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter); Feel­in’ Good (Claudette Pe­ters); Par­ty Start (Skin­ny Fab­u­lous); and, Over­due (Er­phann Alves).

James Brown was hailed as “the hard­est work­ing man in show busi­ness” but I have got to be the wickedest man in en­ter­tain­ment if one is to go be that old adage “no rest for the wicked.”

My week­end is burst­ing at the seams with car­ni­val events to cov­er be­gin­ning tonight with the re­peat of Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions’ Ca­lyp­so Through the Years, at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa), Port-of-Spain. This show is re­peat­ed be­cause of pub­lic de­mand fol­low­ing last week­end’s bumper pre­miere at the same venue.

The very pop­u­lar Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller with Hel­lo and Patrice Roberts, whose Start the Par­ty is a hot Road March favourite, are to be added to the cast that al­so in­cludes David Rud­der, Chalk­dust, Gyp­sy, Baron, 3 Canal, Trinidad Rio, Fun­ny, Lu­ta, Re­la­tor, Rik­ki Jai, Iw­er, Ron­nie Mc In­tosh, Tony Prescott, Ru­pee, Ed­win Year­wood and Tom­my Joseph.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing I head to Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do for Kaiso Fi­es­ta, the 2018 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch se­mi-fi­nal, and af­ter that, at around 8 pm, I head to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege on Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James for its an­nu­al fund-rais­ing all-in­clu­sive fete.

Among the many events I am forced to miss out is Sat­ur­day night’s Mendez Dri­ve Cool­er Fete Car­ni­val Edi­tion be­ing held at 2 Mendez Dri­ve Diego Mar­tin from 10 pm. Again the cast is led by Voice, and in­cludes Nailah Black­man, Marzville and up and com­ing so­ca star Ke­tu­rah. Pop­u­lar DJs in the mix are Howie T, Du­ane & Pen­ny, Elon from South and Se­lec­tor Jr.

Sleep seems un­like­ly on Sat­ur­day night as I promised for­mer Road March cham­pi­on Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter that this year I will at­tend his Ad­dic­tion break­fast par­ty be­ing held at his res­i­dence at 1 Darceuil Lane, Mau­si­ca Street, Ari­ma on Sun­day morn­ing from 4 am.

Sun­day af­ter­noon in­to Mon­day morn­ing is noth­ing short of mad­ness, be­gin­ning with the beau­ti­ful women of the De­fence Force Re­serves hav­ing their se­mi-in­clu­sive fete at the Re­serves Head­quar­ters, Mail Road, Mac­queripe, Ch­aguara­mas. Trans­port for this par­ty leaves RBC, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain be­tween 3-5 pm, and mu­sic will be by Or­lan­do Oc­tave, Snakey, Preedy, Im­pulse, The Prison Band, De­fence Force Sin­gle Pan Steel­band, plus DJs Have a Time, Gab­by Kabu­ki and Chris Boynes.

On my re­turn from Ch­aguara­mas it’s straight to the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza on Rich­mond Street for what promis­es to be one of the fes­ti­val’s best fetes — Epic Events & Mar­ket­ing So­lu­tions’ Pan­in­clu­sive – Pan Lime in D City, de­fend­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Massy Trinidad All Stars, Shell In­vaders, Wood­brook Play­boyz, D’ All Starz fea­tur­ing Blaxx, Ri­car­do Drue, Tizzy and Ted­dyson John, Chut­ney-So­ca band Dil-e-Nadan, fea­tur­ing Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine and a very spe­cial full band per­for­mance by the leg­end him­self, King David Rud­der backed by Wayne Bruno & Rapid Re­sponse.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I will al­so be miss­ing this year’s One­ness par­ty in 2017, host­ed by the St Ann’s RC Church on Sun­day af­ter­noon at the Queen’s Hall Carpark in St Ann’s. Keep­ing the theme of a Food-in­clu­sive Fam­i­ly Af­fair, One­ness will again pro­vide good, clean fam­i­ly fun and top-notch en­ter­tain­ment with the fast-ris­ing Brass 2 D World, Os­car B & Vibes, Su­perBlue, Ron­nie McIn­tosh, and many more. There will be food ga­lore, a well-stocked bar and lots of fun for chil­dren at this fam­i­ly event.

Or­gan­is­ers are promis­ing that your fam­i­ly will feel safe with the pro­fes­sion­al se­cu­ri­ty team and se­cure park­ing will be avail­able at the St Ann’s RC Church com­pound and the Scouts As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T with free shut­tles to and from the venue.

Ad­mis­sion is a steal, pegged at $375 for adults; $175 for teens; and, $75 for Tweens 12 & un­der, guar­an­tee­ing the best val­ue for mon­ey any­where this sea­son. so, get your tick­ets at the Church or Queen’s Hall Box Of­fice now and re­mem­ber all pro­ceeds go to­ward the restora­tion of this his­toric church and na­tion­al her­itage site.

For more in­for­ma­tion, call 624-1284, 624-1426, 497-4104, 497-4116 or 764-8800 or email stannsparish.of­fadm@gmail.com

If this week­end is just a taste of what to ex­pct­ed the en­su­ing week­end, Jah help me. No­tice I have not men­tioned Mon­day’s Monachel Mon­day So­ca King­dom. That ac­tu­al­ly is the start of the Car­ni­val week­end, one which will last sev­en days and nights.