JoY in Joyland

Phase II Pan Groove Steel Orchestra, one of the leading steel pan orchestras of Trinidad was practicing, preparing for the first phase of competition which culminated in the national Steel Pan Championship, Panorama, in the Queen's Park Savannah in the capital city, Port of Spain. Pan orchestras are one of two reasons to put Trinidad on a life’s bucket list -- the extravagant bird population being the other reason.  

The Steel Pan drum was created in Trinidad, originally from the 50 gallon oil barrels, cut, welded and tuned to create individual notes. They evolved into a full range of ‘instruments’ including smaller tenor drums with higher pitched multiple notes, double tenors, guitars, cellos and more — all steel head drums. Each large steel pan group consists of up to 125 players using anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's instrument is on a metal rack with the larger multiple drums on wheeled carts. In the pan yards, every night through Jan and most of February they practice one song that they will perform, over and over again — maybe as many as 100 times a night — the leader altering the arrangement as the weeks count down to the finals.  In these bands one might see a young — maybe a 9 year old — girl playing next to a 60 something woman next to a dread-locked Caribbean dude. Although women were discouraged from playing pan which was associated with a criminal element until the early 1980s, as more women became involved pan music became socially normalized. 

But first the semi-finals -- in the Queen’s Park Savannah, will would narrow the field down to ten bands to compete on the main stage of the Panorama.  As the field of bands narrows through the winnowing of the semifinals, the top players in bands that have been eliminated are poached to play in the bands that have moved onto the finals.

We had been attending Phase II’s practices a number of times and had the pleasure of walking in amongst the band while they practiced, lifted by the beat of the bass section -- with up to nine full barrel drums surrounding the drummer -- and carried away by the high pitched melody of the soprano section. Under the streetlights of the pan yard the sections take their turns learning their individual parts while visitors sipped on cold beer and took in the free entertainment. 

Other large bands include The All Stars, one of the frequent winners of the Panorama, the Renegades, Redemption and Desperados, with names reminiscent of the violent past history of the pan drum. 

The evening of Panorama, the streets surrounding Queen’s Park Savannah are lined with vendors offering corn soup, games of chance, jerk chicken, coconut juice and plastic souvenirs which add to the festival atmosphere.  Pan orchestras congregate in cacophonous groups leading up to and lining the drag, practicing their parts next to other orchestras playing their song….musical schizophrenia! The various ‘instruments’ range from 1 to 12 drums.  Pan pushers were needed to push the larger racks up the ramp onto the stage. We volunteered to help out and felt quite privileged — but also fortunate to have kept all my toes due to a flip-flop blowout — to be on the main stage with Boogsie leading Phase II Pan Groove.  

The leaders are celebrities in their own right, with stories of last minute 'saves' in the competition. Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharp the leader of Phase II, an extraordinary pan musician, gleaming in a green satin suit with matching fedora commanded the stage.  The story going around about Boogsie is that he had been released from a Florida jail in time to fly back to Trinidad and in the last two weeks before Panorama to completely re-compose the band’s song, to lead Phase II in the Panorama competition to success. A little cultural diplomacy greased the wheels of justice.

                                  

Five years later we have returned to this musical world of Trinbago — Trinidad and Tobago.  We again attended the Semi-finals of the large orchestras which was a case of musical overstimulation.  We spent at least five hours roaming around the drag and the streets leading up to it Main Stage. There were fourteen bands; ten would make it into the finals.  Our favorite band, Phase II, was in full form and we stood in the middle of the orchestra as they practiced -- ear piercingly loud, in the belly of the whale as she screeched and moaned to a Soca melody.

Phase II took second place going onto the finals.  We wanted to hear more pan yard rehearsals so our driver Leon took us to Couva, a small city near our rural lodging.  He had played in this band, the Joylanders — a medium orchestra — and as we pulled up to the pan yard where they’d already started their practice under the streetlights, he pointed out their new barn sized hall complete with a concessions kitchen and spotless restrooms. 

     We timidly walk across the street and stand alongside the bass drums — six barrel drums to a player, booming out the bass line.  Wanting to hear the full mix of the band we move around to the front, near the leaders and the conductor/arranger. The song they are working on this year is Is Our Turn…and they are determined that it is their turn to take first place this coming Sunday in Tobago.  

Stefon, the conductor, calls for a ten minute break and as we all walk to the hall across the street a young woman with a winning smile greets us, “Hi I’m Cassie and I’m the band’s marketing manager. Do you have any questions about the band? “ “Yes, I do…tell me about the band and the song you are playing”.  “The band started in the early 1960’s and about 35 of us perform, throughout the year at various functions here and stateside. The song is Is Our Turn is written by Winston 'DeFosto" Scarbourough. He writes many of the pan orchestra songs. We have refreshments inside and t-shirts for sale. Would you like some chairs to sit on?”  Three moulded plastic chairs appear in front of the band. But apparently they aren't up to Cassie’s standards of hospitality, for within minutes the plastic chairs are replaced with sturdy metal chairs sporting cushioned seats.

Sitting in comfort we enjoy the rehearsal after the break and are intrigued to see that Stefon is still tweaking the arrangement when he says to the double tenors, “When we go G - B flat…I want you to go G - C".  They play that section about a dozen times to lock it in and it adds a new lushness to the song. Then he moves onto the ending which, to my ear, is a bit anti-climatic. He interjects two stops with the bongo playing contrapuntal rat-tat-tat and the pans finish with a traditional but very fast cha-cha-cha; much more dramatic and satisfying.  Repeating the new parts causes band members some embarrassed laughter — over a missed beat or off beat — but the band quickly tightens it up to a precise finish.  

How to describe the sound of a pan band -- imagine dropping the contents of kitchen drawers and cupboards — not to mention the metal garbage can — from the top of a ladder and have it all land to the tune of Chopin’s Interlude.  

Everyone must put Trinidad on their musical or cultural bucket list because, not only is it difficult to describe, recordings can barely do it justice. We, JoY, aka Jean or Yata are delighted to have returned to Trinidad, the Joylanders home.