Steelpan Soloists
Light Up Montréal
 

Montreal, Quebec, Canada - The 2009 Summer steelpan music events continue to roll on with a bang. Recently When Steel Talks found itself in Montréal, Quebec, Canada to cover the annual Montreal International Steelpan Festival. Now in its 9th year - the two–day festival is the brainchild of steelpan activist, organizer and educator Salah Wilson. Mr. Wilson, a seasoned steelpan musician and educator is well known for his musical accomplishments and for the championing of musical literacy in the Quebec area. However for this endeavor Mr. Wilson felt it was important to create meaningful performance opportunities that had international significance and impact. Furthermore these performances will enhance the multi-cultural artistic attraction of the city of Montréal.  
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International Panorama 2009 - Montréal Style
 

Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Panorama in Montreal is like that of no other place in the world. As the main event of the two-day Montreal International Steelpan Festival, now in its ninth year, the competition brings a unique brand and style to a city already with an envious reputation for hosting some of the greatest music and arts festivals in the world. Indeed, the operative word here is “international” as the show’s producers have expanded the traditional panorama concept of local partaking to an international perspective and participation.  
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Special: When Steel Talks
Pan Radio Tribute to
Michael Jackson
The Superstar's Superstar
 

Global 
Michael Jackson was one of the finest artists of this age.  As a legit triple threat and more - he could, dance, sing , compose, produce and act.  To call him a superstar would be an understatement and an insult to his impact on the music of the world.  He was the superstar's superstar.  MJ was the best. 

R.I.P. Michael Jackson... thanks for the wonderful music!

Michael Jackson's music was loved, respected and interpreted by the steelpan music community.  His music will continue to inspire musicians all over the world.

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Pan community share their thoughts on Michael Jackson
 

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‘Pic of the Day’
Another Side of the late musician and master arranger Clive Bradley
 

Global - Among the many attributes of the late great master arranger Clive Bradley - was his ability to relate and inspire all people regardless of background and age. Clive Bradley had a special bond with young people. In this photo, Mr. Bradley helps a youngster experience the pan in the panyard.   
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They Played [Pan], They Sang
and They Graduated
Princes Town Methodist School’s
Class of 2009
 

Trinidad, W.I. - Thursday June 18, 2009 will long be remembered in the lives of seventeen of the twenty students of the graduating Standard Five Class of the Princes Town Methodist School in Southern Trinidad, WI. The occasion was the Graduation Service and Award Giving Ceremony. The theme was 'Keep The Dream Alive.' And sixteen members of the graduating class kept Pan alive, as they delivered a performance that featured pan and song for their parents, teachers and all in attendance. 
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Pan Elders Celebrates
its Tenth Anniversary
 

Trinidad - Pan Elders was conceptualized in 1999 during an evening lime at Gem’s Recreation Club –now the popular Red Step Bar- on Carib Street, San Fernando. Carib Street –dubbed the Gaza Strip by a well known southern pan personality- has arguably, the most steelband per sq. kilometer anywhere on the planet.

Amongst the band’s godfathers, emptying 80% proof receptacles, that fateful day were ex southern based band members such as Jones Andrews, Godfrey Camps, Anthony Farrell, Cyril Smith, Christopher Branker, Mervyn Cruickshank, Ronnie Williams and Gunns amongst others.   
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Steelpan Musicians Honor the Ancestors of the Middle Passage at Tribute in Coney Island 

New York - Utopia Pan Soul - The Next Generation celebrated the ancestors through their performance with the musical instrument that more so than any other, represents the true mettle of the African people: their genius, survival, defiance and promise. The steelpan instrument is a gift to the world by the descendants of the millions of Africans who were lost in the Middle Passage as part of that “coming to America” experience.

Utopia Pan Soul’s performance unfolded amid a surreal setting as huge tankers carrying miscellaneous cargo could be seen in the distance coming in from the Atlantic Ocean, tracking through an eerily similar route at that point, as used by slave ships not so long ago - carrying as human cargo in their hulls - the very ancestors of all the performers at Saturday’s tribute to the Ancestors. It is not commonly known that Coney Island was one of the major drop-off points (disembarkment) for many of the African slaves in this hemisphere.

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 An Embarrassment of Riches
Classic Work by Phase II will Haunt me to my Grave

Trinidad - It was absolutely the best Panorama performance I’ve ever heard. It was music in B sharpe. Last Sunday, I found that new note just inside Pan Trinbago’s “village,” the organisation’s brand old drag, the one that was introduced to us at the western front of the Savannah Party in a getting-to-know-you moment. Here, under metal-gray skies, in the vicinity of 2.30 p.m., Boogsie Sharpe and his Phase II Pan Groovers cut loose a symphonic arrangement of Music in we Blood for a grap of villagers that circled the band’s cosquelle drums like a halo. So, it was divine, then? Hello? Let me explatiate.
   
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Australia - ‘What part of Jamaica is Trinidad?’ This was the question which was repeatedly being asked wherever and whenever Alvin Rostant played his steelpan in Australia.

This drove him to set the record straight. In so doing he established his own “Australian Academy of Steel Drums” wherein he scripted a story for Primary Schools entitled “Banana Joe,” and another for High Schools called “Calypso Drums.” He was subsequently contracted by the Queensland Arts Council in-schools touring programme which saw him taking the programme on the road to close to one thousand schools. Rostant, a former San Fernando Technical Institute soccer standout in Trinidad in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, was being interviewed ‘on air’ from Australia by Hollis Clifton - Pan Diaspora - Visionary and Kenny Phillips, CEO of WACK Radio 90.1FM in San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago.   
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Maryland, USA - As part of DC CARNIVAL, DC Caribbean Carnival, Inc. [DCCC] invites one and all to join them in preserving the art form proudly referred to as PAN as they celebrate DC Carnival’s 7th Anniversary of Pan Jam at the Cross Roads Entertainment Complex parking lot in Bladensburg, Maryland on Saturday June 20, 2009 from 2:00 pm until 9:00 pm. The event is co-sponsored by Caribbean Cargo-DC.

This year’s Pan Jam will feature Pan Masters Steel Orchestra from North Brentwood, Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra from Hyattsville, DC Pan Jammers, Steel Orchestra from Washington, DC and more.
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United Kingdom - On a bright and warm summer’s evening on Saturday May 30th the premises of the UKCCA in Luton was filled with the sweet strains of steelband music emitted from the seven steelbands dotted around their grounds running their last practice sessions before entering the spacious auditorium to perform in front of a capacity audience. 
 
Joel ‘Tubbs’ Hamilton –Mills, the event’s MC reminded the audience of the concept of the event i.e. initiated by the British Association of Steelbands to encourage young people to compose, arrange and play musical pieces on the steelpan and how it has progressed from its humble beginnings in the Tabernacle, Powis Square, London from 1999 to date.   
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United Kingdom - Caribbean Steel International was originally formed in 2004 with three members. After obtaining invaluable experience from working with some of the top steel bands in the UK, Trinidad and Japan, they decided it would be a great idea to form a small group to do gigs owing to the demand for 3 or 4 piece steel bands. After ensuring that their small steel band was well established on the gigging circuit CSI founding members decided to start a community group that would involve their local communities in the steel pan art form.
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Global - Exactly one year ago the steelpan music community lost one its finest musicians. Frank “Crawl” Findley of Desperadoes in Trinidad and D'Radoes in New York was simply poetry in motion. When Steel Talks remembers and salutes Crawl - the great bassman now in heaven's stage-side.

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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Pan Trinbago, Inc. commiserates with its President, Mr. Patrick Arnold, on the passing of his mother Marie Arnold.

Marie Arnold of Scarborough, Tobago, quietly left this life at the age of 103 at approximately 9:00 pm on Tuesday, June 2, 2009.
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New York  -As daylight dimmed, on Saturday May 30, the half-moon showered a bright silver glow over the Premier Baptist Church (PBC) at the corner of Tilden and Utica Avenues in Brooklyn, where the Rev. Robert Watler pastors. Inside, parishioners waited patiently past the 7 PM start time for the opening of a fund raising concert featuring Crossfire Steel Orchestra. Sensing the tension of the delay, Khuent Rose, the musical director of Premier Baptist Church and the arranger for Crossfire took to his double second. Accompanied by drums and bass and lead guitar, Khuent delivered a reggae-flavored version of “Glory To His Name”. With the space warmed and opened to praises, Assistant Pastor Gideon Akers assumed his master of ceremonies duties declaring, “The Holy Ghost Power is in the house tonight, what we can’t do with words , we will do with music.”
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New York  - It was the power of Praise, right alongside the Power of Pan at the Premier Baptist Church (PBC) in Brooklyn last Saturday. Music director and arranger Khuent Rose on steelpans joined with a couple other musicians to give those already comfortably seated in plush red “pews” just a taste of what was to come, setting the tone, even as proceedings were almost an hour behind the 7:00 p.m. scheduled start time.

A two-tiered stage was set with glistening pans and other conventional instruments, awaiting the moment to spring to life in musical synchronicity; the pan players from Crossfire Steel Orchestra (led by Martin “Dougie” Douglas) were also present - anxious and ready to sound off with works arranged by Rose. Douglas himself was crisply attired in a white shirt with black pants, the former emblazoned with black print in full support of the steelpan art form. Earlier on in the evening, last-minute details were being seen to, with the steel orchestra having a brief sound check, and Khuent Rose in his capacity of music director overseeing particulars, ensuring that all was in place and would go according to plan.
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New York  - It appears that the future of Steelpan music at Lincoln Center may be nothing more than “Dead Man Walking.” In what has to be one of the most glaring acts of total disregard and one of the ugliest insults the instrument has suffered in its 50-plus year history - Abstract Entertainment, Inc. (AEI) along with its partners BET and Lincoln Center pull off a scallywag move in broad daylight that is both traitorous and deceitful.

Back in the sixties and fifties it was common practice for album covers and promotional material to leave the pictures of Black recording artists off. It was a racist and shameful practice that was part of an era in the music business that has been put behind us.  Now, fast forward to 2009. On Friday morning an irate, well-known and respected panman wrote When Steel Talks about an Ad he received promoting the upcoming “PanJazz” to be held at Lincoln Center in New York. This pan person who is very level-headed and not prone to emotional and un-intellectual outbursts called what he saw “malicious.” We at When Steel Talks most certainly agree.
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