Dalton Narine’s Panorama Notes 2013

by Dalton Narine 

Phase II logoGlobal - Someday, Phase II drill person Natasha Joseph will arrange for a large band in the Panorama, “but I’m biding my time.” For now, arranger Len “Boogsie” Sharpe relies on her ability to conduct rehearsal sessions, so indispensable has Joseph been to him and the band.

 

Joseph, of Barataria, has been working alongside Sharpe since 2007, the year his arrangement for Carib Dixieland won the Tobago Panorama. She’d been preparing for the glare of the lights since she was 11, when she began to teach herself music by absorbing material from secondary school work books.

 

....In 2003, Joseph was accepted at Berklee College of Music in Boston, but couldn’t pick up enough sponsorship “to go through even one semester. I tried real hard, all over the island.”
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  • Congrats to Miss Joseph. This shows what drive and dedication can do for someone travelling the hard road of success.

    I must ask you Mr. Narine; What are your thoughts on Desperadoes and Skiffle's performance?

    • Desperadoes was on everybody's 1-2-3 list. But when a former band member hinted two nights before the Rama that the rendition of Kenneth Charles' Hammer Time "wasn't there yet," I'm inclined to think that it never got "there." Wherever "there" resides. As man, I had them quite up the hill looking way down on "town." But, as the saying goes, egg have no right in rock stone dance. Yes, the music was sweet too bad, yet dat doh change de price of chocolate. Catch my drift?

      As for Skiffle, frankly speaking, I was deep into the personalities of the band and the compositions of the lyrics and music, having written a story for WST (to be published at their convenience). I'll say, though, that Ray Holman probably never had challenging harmonies like those he weaved in Sapna - The Dream, and his efficiency in stringing particular chords is borne out in the execution of the performance. If, as pan piong Martin Daly suggests - that 40 points should be credited to a truly innovative piece played in a separate category of the competition - I'd have dismissed the second half of that statement entirely and pushed them higher up the ladder. Yeah, yeah, I know Trinidad All Stars played a chutney calypso, Curry Tabanca, in the 1987 Panorama, but Sapna is a different song with all the colors of Phagwa and steel, a hybridization of all ah we. The flag, then.

      Thanks for your interest in my take, which is never gospel, by the way.   

      Narine,

      Just an ordinary face in the crowd.

      • Aye Claude, Gordon ask Mr Narine for his thoughts not you, yuh modda never tell yuh to "Mind yuh Business" especially when talking about the "Magic Drum" ah know yuh want to "Do Something for Pan" so remember "I Music" and share "More Love"

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