Hopefully, Birdsong's performance of "We Kinda Music" will start to break the boredom of a competition gone stagnant...
Andy Narel's treatment of this classic pan/jazz piece is highly commendable and should inspire other arrangers to get out of what is still a 'brim-bram' approach to Panorama tunes.
True, given the Trini mentality, appetite and taste-buds, change will not come easily....
If Birdsong doesn't make it to the finals...somebody needs to "put ah hand."
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Wait a minute!!! Take a breath. I hold that many of the comments should not be construed as informative and respectful. One should take into consideration the radio feed, which definitely doesn't reach the judges' ears. I've been all over the Panorama; on the streets, the Drag, even the Greens. But I've spent practically all of my Panorama life on the stage or in front of it. And all commentary here, in my view, remains biased without accounting for reality, the POV of the judges and event spectators (read Grand Stand). Be advised that between that panoramic stage and the chalky sounds on radio there is a great gulf fixed.
Much appreciation though for a handful of coherent observations; a few, of course, modified by subjectivity. Granted that's WST's angle - establishing a marketplace for one's thoughts. Nevertheless, it says here that the true sound of pan belongs in a pan yard or the streets, especially on jouvert in the pan-pushing era when the drums and the pans jammed with the crowds. (Sure, I've heard rumpled music on the stage in the past, albeit emanating from displaced drums - It's why Rudolph Charles' Desperadoes, in particular, customarily spent 20-25 minutes organizing the placement of the instruments.
Exodus is the only band whose set-up is prepared and geared toward the adjudicators. The operative word is prepared, lest flack is flung my way otherwise. Keep the pot boiling and the pitch pine dry. Dalton Narine.
Trinidad All Stars the Semi-finals winner in action, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2ciap0rfgA
I think the judges got it wrong with Andy yesterday...
merrytones,
I believe the judges had it right, they had it since December waiting for him, lol they gave him a warning last year and he come back with the same thing, he think the people chupid?
Andy showed disgust for Trini music by not taking a song and doing it Trini style.
Yes…I hear you Cecil and while I do not agree anyway I will tell you that the real casualty in all this is the band Birdsong where like in too many other steelbands arrangers are simply bought and not created from the cadre of resident players…so hence …Andy, Liam, Andre and a host of other "imported" arrangers, local or foreign, have the steelbands and Panorama have the gonads…and clearly bands are helpless to do anything about it…even if they secretely dislike Andy's "Panorama style music" (whatever that means) hey have no choice but to go with the flow…Like deceased Lloyd Best used to say…"we in serious trouble here"...
What is all this nonsense about Narell and being punished. When he arranged for Skiffle in 1999 and 2000, they made the finals on both occasions. Where was the punishment then? Narell is a fine musician but that said, this is panorama. With all due respect, Mr. Narell cannot interpret calypso as we do and in typical fashion he sees it fit to want to tell us how we should play it and what it must sound like.
"Last Word"? No, but, hopefully, LAST WOOD. (Yuh taking more licks than we Good Friday Bobolee; the Effigy of Pan's Jesus Christ Superstar! The SON of PANMAN!) And I am dismissed as a noise-making RA-RA. I guess one foreigner's noise, is another native's music. Try embracing a culture, without trying to redefine it. Try being a humble guest, instead of try to sit at the head of the table. No "last words" here; and definitely no LAST SUPPER. You are FREE to return to your "Father's Kingdom"; no need to be crucified. But if you insist, the Panorama judges will be more than happy to oblige. Ra-Ra out.
claude the board won't let me reply "in line" to your last post, so this is gonna go to the last page - but i agree with much of what you just said, esp. re: Duvone and politics... like it or not (and i do NOT) - that IS part of it.
LOL sorry my friend.... hehe.
If Andy comes with the same kindah music next year I'm afraid he'll get the same judgement.
Honestly, Cecil: I did not expect Andy to come back this year (2014). I was shocked when I saw him back on the scene but then I put it into perspective and I understood what he was doing. Yet, I think he will be a fool to ever even go back to Trinidad.
But he got his own vision for the PAN and it PLENTY PLENTY BROADER THAN MINE.
IZZA TRINI!!! IZZA TRINI AT HEART!!!
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