SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

“If mu­sic is the food of love, play on,” says the late Eng­lish ac­tor, play­wright and po­et William Shake­speare in the first line of his play writ­ten in 1601, Twelfth Night. His dream was to act, write and in­flu­ence the world pos­i­tive­ly--and mu­sic, in all forms and fash­ion is be­ing played on.

And who can for­get the late Amer­i­can civ­il rights ac­tivist, Mar­tin Luther King Jr back in 1963, he too, had a dream.

He had a dream to end racial­ism in Amer­i­ca, and un­war­like, fight for jobs and free­dom for blacks, so, on Au­gust 28, 1963, he de­liv­ered his speech, I Have a Dream. Jobs and free­dom ma­te­ri­alised.

But, like the song The Im­pos­si­ble Dream (The Quest), writ­ten by Joe Dar­i­on, com­posed by Mitch Leigh, and made fa­mous by leg­endary singer, ac­tor and pro­duc­er, the late Franklin “Frank” Sina­tra: at times we will “dream the im­pos­si­ble dream; fight the un­beat­able foe; bear the un­bear­able sor­row,” and “run where the brave dare not go,” un­til the dream is brought to life--the kind of dream we want chil­dren to dream and make no­ble his­to­ry.

“To right the un­rightable wrong” that pan com­pe­ti­tion has out­lived its po­ten­tial, and to un­rav­el the im­pos­si­ble dream came to light when Bar­ba­dos-based T&T pan­nist Nevin Roach set forth his ini­tia­tive--the first vi­ral pan com­pe­ti­tion as host­ed on In­sta­gram by @IV­EN88.

Panogra­ma 2020, a so­lo-edi­tion event, saw its live pre­lim­i­nary rounds streamed on April 24to 25 with 22 pan­nists, where judges David “ZigE” Wal­cott of Bar­ba­dos, Ken­neth Joseph, grad­u­ate of North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty, and Ojay Richards, T&T, had the task of nar­row­ing down the field to 17 se­mi-fi­nal­ists on the 30, to the top ten fi­nal­ists on May 3.

The sched­uled 7pm fi­nal com­menced ten min­utes lat­er ow­ing to tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, as some­what ex­pect­ed dur­ing live pro­duc­tions, but an apolo­getic Roach in­vit­ed the au­di­ence to stand (in their liv­ing rooms), put their right hand across their chest to sing the of­fi­cial an­them for the vir­tu­al show.

In a bit­ter-sweet mo­ment, how­ev­er, Roach ex­tend­ed birth­day greet­ings sub­se­quent­ly, to Carl­ton “Xan­da” Alexan­der, dis­tin­guished mu­si­cal arranger and di­rec­tor of the 2020 Na­tion­al Panora­ma large-band cham­pi­on Des­per­a­does whose birth­day was on the date of the fi­nals while, in same breath, ad­vised that the com­pe­ti­tion turned out to be in ho­n­our of the re­cent Covid-19-de­ceased US steel­bands’ sup­port­er, Mar­tin “Dougie’ Dou­glas, who would have been 72 years on said date.

It be­ing “a plea­sure to bring greet­ings on be­half of the Pan Trin­ba­go Cen­tral and gen­er­al ex­ec­u­tive,” pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore says she’s very pleased and hap­py for the ef­forts…con­grat­u­lat­ing Roach for his cre­ativ­i­ty and ini­tia­tive.

“Oh how you’ll miss the pa­n­yard and so­cial­is­ing to­geth­er, but we all must wait on the gov­ern­ment fur­ther ad­vice. We are work­ing on a plan on how to move for­ward.”

She wished all the fi­nal­ists the best, with an ad­di­tion­al sweet note that Pan Trin­ba­go will spon­sor each fi­nal­ist of that night, to the tune of US$100.

To­tal to be amassed was 110 points cat­e­gorised for com­peti­tors’ Tune of Choice, and a Ran­dom Tune se­lect­ed by Roach.

Nine-year old tenor pan­nist of To­ba­go’s Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra Jadon Phillip; 2019 Rag­ga So­ca Monarch, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines’ Hance John and his ac­com­pa­ni­ment DJ and pan­nist, Rod­ney Small; and Bar­ba­di­an dancer Nan­di Yard, sup­plied spe­cial en­ter­tain­ment.

Roach re­minds that key ob­jec­tives of Panogra­ma are to help pan­nists and the world keep fo­cused, and to raise funds to as­sist pan­nists in need dur­ing this Covid-19 pan­dem­ic as many are un­able to work.

He im­plores even if it’s US$1 or $2, they add up, ad­vis­ing that pay­ments are to be made by way of Pay­Pal.

Roach show­ered ap­pre­ci­a­tion on Courts Sounds Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, and oth­er steel­bands for hav­ing start­ed to as­sist oth­er pan­nists, and on his as­sis­tants who worked in the back­ground.

He thanked the spon­sors and all oth­ers who made the fi­nal prod­uct a suc­cess; at­tract­ing the 1,000-plus view­ing au­di­ence and In­sta­gram.

No­ble his­to­ry made: Panogra­ma breathed life and love in­to the body of pan; that this COVID-19 pan­dem­ic can­not kill the per­form­ing arts.

Prizes in­clud­ed: cash (win­ner Earl Brooks Jnr re­ceiv­ing US$500), com­pli­men­ta­ry de­sign­er hats, pan sticks, and on­line ses­sions with world renowned mu­si­cian Liam Teague.