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  • Thanks for the posts.  Pan real sweet.

  • Big Sid I did misquote you my apologies.

    • Cecil:

      Apology graciously accepted. Wasn't that big a deal anyhow...

      I'm glad you were not attempting to make mischief...

      - Big Sid

  • I just was able to take in Mia Gormandy's piece with Birdsong.

    I like her work very much. She's brimming with talent, she's brimming with creativity. As a performer, we already know how good she is (Flight of the bumble bee). So I come to this with anticipation. How will she do as arranger?

    I am not disappointed. Butttt... she is holding back...

    I just wrote and uploaded a piece on the esoteric significance of the flag woman. It forced me to consider the respective roles of the sexes in this art form called panorama. And where I come out is that arranging is at some level very much the man's role. As arranger, a woman will tend to hold back, I feel.

    Steelband arranging, not only by role, but also by tradition, is a man's thing. You don't have to be a bajon, you don't have to be a ol' nigga (in the best sense of that term, connoting a kind of never-back-down integrity). But it helps. The art form has moved away from the early days of gang warfare and etc. But still.

    The TASPO fellows that took the art form to Europe had that kind of ol' nigga integrity, like Paul and Barnabas in their missionary journeys. I met some of these guys, the ones that stayed on in London, others that went to France and Denmark and wherever else. If the history of the art for is ever properly written (no offense to Kim Johnson), these would be recognized and even lionized as exceptional men. Come to think of it, at least one was honoured with an OBE, and that is too little. My point? It was a job for men, and special men at that.

    Can a woman do the job is the question. As to pure musical talent, no question. But does the job require more than that? The hard-back men of yesteryear are now only a memory. The youth of today that are into the music will have no problem cooperating with and working under a female captain, arranger or what-have-you. That is not the issue. It's not an issue for Renegades, let along the nice UWI students of Birdsong.

    I raise a different question, which I just addressed in another blog on the flag woman. Basically it is that there is something in the *panorama* genre that is quintessentially a dance of sex hormones. The flag woman symbolizes the female. The arranger is like a bard lusting after the female, putting his desire into music. How then can the woman occupy the role of the bard?

    As to musical abstraction, of course it can be done. But the panorama music is a feeling, it is an expression, it is a yearning, all of those things, coming out of carnival, as a carnival art. The woman as arranger will hold back, because to wear the pants, as it were, would be for her to deny some of her femaleness. Ergo, she will hold back. Not consciously perhaps, but subconsciously.

    I don't want at all to discourage Mia, because I want to see her become a great lady of the art form, like Pat Bishop. She has that talent, that potential, I feel. But as to panorama arranging, I think women in general will not fulfill completely their talent. The job requires an ol' nigga vibration, albeit with a certain sensitivity. Still.

    - Big Sid

    • Big Sid, I think women has the ability to do most anything a man can do, plus have ah period and make a child, opportunity is what they need. With time all those women arrangers will be just as good as the men. that's my opinion.

      • Cecil,

        I remember the last Olympics when the boy from South Africa won the 400m. He collapsed after crossing the finish line. He didn't leave anything on the  track. That's what it took to set some stupendous new record in the event. He didn't leave anything on the track.

        I think panorama arranging, and performing, is similar. You can't hold back (unless it is artistic restraint for greater artistic effect). Therein lies the challenge for women. The issue is not talent, ability, or creativity, it is giving free rein to it. The female arranger has to worry about remaining, or appearing to remain, "lady-like". 

        By contrast, Boogsie could collapse after a performance, like the afore-mentioned South African quarter-miler. No problem. And Bradley could "get on" in front the band, no problem, as he did for "Stranger":

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMGbbECD9k

        Let's face it, it's harder for a woman. 

        - Big Sid

        • Fascinating discussion -- BIG SID!!!

          • Claude,

            I'm glad you like it.

            I only hope, the women do not misconstrue what I've said and "take a tu'n in my backside"...

            I have nuff respect for women ... and the furies they know well how to unleash when provoked...

            So I do not seek to provoke, rather to have a honest discussion unaffected by whatever the latest trends in political correctness. Our pan elders would not want it any other way.

            - Big Sid

            • Well, I have been on this forum for a number of years and seldom does ONE appear (one as in BIG SID) who comes on and is able to MIX the ACADEMIC with the consciousness of the "ole nigga culture" as effortlessly as you are able to do.

              The unique nature of your expression is sure to create misinterpretation -- I am not surprised by that.

              One another note, I saw you hint at a topic that I have been pondering on very recently and you started to shine a light on my darkness. So you could you send me an email at realtyeyes@hotmail.com and I will elaborate.

        • Big Sid, them women go take a "tun" in yuh Backside for saying they lack the "ability and creativity"

          Serena Williams could lick-up about 80-90% of her male counterparts I'm sure..

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