New York 2011 Steel Orchestra Panorama in REVIEW
New York, USA - The good, the bad, the ugly and things that leave me SMH & LMAO about 2011 New York Panorama. When Steel Talks reviews the 2011 New York panorama season in total.
The week leading up to the Panorama, New York was visited by an earthquake, and then a hurricane. So it was clear this panorama was going to be a rumble. Panorama remains the single most important community-based performing arts event that is Caribbean culture-influenced in America - challenged only by drum and bugle corps competitions and Brooklyn's J’Ouvert celebrations.
It was a long season with all the band launches and pre-panorama activities. The launches were excellent. There was a spirit of camaraderie and cooperation that must exist for the launches to be fruitful. This is not to say that everything was 'peachy cream' and everyone agreed with everyone. Let's just say folks saw the bigger picture, and behaved like adults with self-interest - long enough to get the job done.
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Your observation is so true, have we also forgotten when bands used to play on the move on the track. Very few bands can still do that. Actually that was one of the most important energies which was produced by the players and the supporters. Pan Trinbago, in attempt to portray a show to showcase to the world and also thinking of getting larger gate receipts, forgot the origin of this competition and the culture of people who created its development. Panorama in Trinidad evolved from the bowels of the poor just where the pan came from, supporters jumping and supporting their band, pushing pan , just taking part , however they could.
Do you remember the new era of Pan round the neck, when Tripolians had the most people on the track jumping?
But, that's the price of progress, is it really progress? or are we playing into the hands of larger countries who will beat us at their game.
Panorama I have said before somewhere at this forum has lost it’s musicality. Back in the Genesis of Panorama, (in Trinidad that is) the finals were held on Carnival Sunday night and suppose because of that tunes Panorama tunes had a natural “jump”. Steelbands were going into Jouvert morning after the finals, so you had to be able to jump up to a Panorama tune. Most of you reading this may not even know that once upon a time, at Prelims, bands played chipping off-stage after being judged. Those were the halcyon days before the D.J. took over the show. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when from about the mid-80’s the finals moved to Carnival Saturday. With that the jump-up-and-get on bad in Panorama ceased and has since been replaced by a decent sit-down-and-applaud show. The only jumping now takes place in the North Stand, where the patrons don’t even listen to Pan anymore. To make matters worse sadly, arrangers, probably because they are so much more musically educated than their peers thirty-odd years ago tend to want to play everything they know in one piece ,,, don’t leave back anything for next year’s Panorama. Add to that the influences of the revered Brados, Boogsie and Holman and now the bacchanal start. Is music in yuh rookoongkutuntung, whether you like it or not.
I have indulged in the above history lesson just to try to explain why Panorama music has become so difficult for me to listen to nowadays. After Panorama many bands (in Trinidad) don’t even bother to play their “big tune”, simply because that is when they realize how heavy and uninteresting it usually is. So you New Yorkers are not alone, I suppose, you are just following by example. If arrangers all over were really listening to the master arrangers mentioned before they would realize that less is always more where a good Panorama is concerned. Go back and listen if you can to Queen of the Bands, Jericho, Pan in Harmony, Du Du Yemi, Sailing, Woman on the Bass, Pan Explosion, Rebecca and In my House. Listen to those masterpieces, compare them with the present and draw your own conclusion.
To each its own, like everything else a change got to come. While the main stream played tunes made for pan by the calypsoians we have one man Boogsie who composed his own tune. He had a new vision for pan music, then men like Pelham, Smooth and the others caught on. In days of old Anthony Williams invented the Spider Web Pan because he wanted to add a little spice to the pan, Rudolph Charles invented Quatrophonics Pans, 12 Base and 9 Base Pans, Bertie Marshall invented the Amplified Pan. I was at Panorama 2010 and it was fantastic all bands played great except the last band. Years ago steelband men were considered low class but now they are in demand, each band have their supporters and they go to the pan yard to listern to the runs of the tune, by the time Semi finals comes around you know the whole tune so u can sing along and dance freely. Give the arrangers and steelband men more credit, they have come a long way as Boogsie said "Do Something For Pan". Only real pan entuastics will support the art form, this is what the arrangers want to bring to the table, this is how he or she feels in their hearts then we need to appreciate that talent. Keep Pan Alive we must let the whole world know this music is worth embracing.
Yes, I agree. I am not sure I agree with the reason. I think that there are many reasons, sometimes labeled as 'progress'. The primary reason is the competition which coerces the bands, the arrangers and the followers too to want to win so badly. The second may be the 'classically trained musician judges' who are more impressed with the form than the content arrangers quite rightly are arranging to impress the judges. The third is that the steelband has progressively lost its position as the leader of the street mas and the need for that big tune on the road has disappeared. You may remember that there was a time when steel band tune selection played a big part in determining the road march. So the panorama stage has become the steelbands' concert arena. The judges and the afficionados are now listening for other pleasures. Only the players continue to dance to their own music. Is it a good change or a bad change? I don't know.
Of course I know that Smooth and Trinidad All Stars continues to keep the dance and the jump in its Panaorama selections. I couldn't help that little plug.
I fully agree that Panorama music has become very complicated to listen to as opposed to the golden years of pan in the 70s in my view. We have lost that ability to listen and chip at the same time. Now because of the intricate arrangements we tend to listen more than jump. Panorama on Carnival Sunday night added more excitement than the Dimanche Show alone.
I suppose we have become more sophisticated and complex, which does not mean necessarily better and have therefore loss that spontaneity that is supposed to be Panorama and Carnival due to the many restrictions now in place and maybe needed due to our growth.
It's a sign of the times. Nothing remains unchanged.
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