Story Time with Mr. Sanch - The Bradley Swagger
What is Panorama Music? Is there a method to the melodious madness that makes us move every Carnival? In this "Story Time with Mr. Sanch" we feature the legendary Clive Bradley as we look back to Panorama 1988 to answer these questions.
Prelude - 2001
Clive Bradley and The Witco Desperadoes Steel Orchestra have developed an enviably synergistic relationship within the steelband fraternity of Trinidad and Tobago. Together they have won the coveted title of Panorama Champions on six occasions. Yet Bradley composed my all-time favourite arrangement for another steel orchestra - Solo Harmonites, in 1988.
It was the first and only time that he was commissioned to create Panorama music for the four-time winner from Caledonia, East Trinidad, whose members were well steeped in the Latin traditions of their erstwhile arranger Earl Rodney. Bradley selected Panama, a David Rudder calypso, simply because of the geographic location of the country bearing that name. He reasoned that it would be logical to use sustained Latin riffs in his arrangement as a tribute to Rodney.
The composition, in four keys, evolves with the usual Bradley wizardry superimposed on Latin-styled ‘oomphy’ bass lines and rhythms traditionally used by Rodney. Note how Bradley meanders melodically from passage to passage of his eclectic, erotic, esoteric exercise, climaxing with his clever use of the tenor pans to mimic timbales, those ubiquitous Latin percussion instruments.
If you listen carefully in between notes during the quiet passages you will discern frogs synchronously croaking their approval of Bradley’s majestic arrogance. The recording was done at 5:45 a.m. on the morning of January 17th, 1988 after an extensive eight-hour rehearsal session. Ironically, Solo Harmonites never got past the preliminary stage of the Panorama competition that year. Such is life.
Finale - 2015
Thirteen years thereafter, Sanch released the compilation CD0103, A Special Brew, which included the song. At the time, Bradley worked with Curepe Scherzando, a neighbourhood steel orchestra and one morning, I invited him to the shop to enlighten me on his creation. The ultimate aim was to ‘infiltrate’ the mind of this genius who had produced two stunning but totally dissimilar ‘classics’ in tandem, the other being Sailing, which earned Pandemonium second berth in the same fierce 1988 competition.
Bewildered but inquisitive and tenacious, the mercurial Bradley scratched his head perpetually as the piece unfolded. “Who is that, it sounds like me but I can’t remember; WHO THE… IS THAT?” I narrated the entire anecdote, whereupon Bradley outlined his elegant strategy for structuring the arrangement, which subsequently became part of the liner notes of the CD, as detailed in the Prelude above.
A dress rehearsal had been carded for ‘the Savannah greens’ at 3:00 p.m. on the fateful Sunday afternoon whereupon Bradley promptly began to edit the end with less than a full complement of players. By the time the band was called to perform, many were unaware of his changes. This resulted in a catastrophic debacle on stage, leaving Sanch with the only palpable recording of his sublime creation.
As far as I am concerned, Panama is Bradley’s unfinished symphony, his musical autobiography. It profiles the idiosyncratic, enigmatic character of a man who meandered audaciously through life, leaving in his wake a contour similar to that of the great Mississippi river. “I, Clive Bradley can interpret any piece of music by mimicking Earl Rodney, the arranger with whose style you, Solo Harmonites are accustomed, while simultaneously superimposing my subtle, sonic signature, The Bradley Swagger”.
© 2001, revised 2015 Simeon L. Sandiford
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