OF MUSIC LIBRARY AND IMPECCABLE LIFESTYLE

[Allan Gibson]

One day in my yard in Rose Hill, Laventille, I was practising the tune Mambo Jambo on a tenor pan. A voice screamed

"Allan I don't want any panbeating in this yard!!!". The man was The Honorable (sic) Donald Granado, PNM's Minister of

Education ---what a paradox!!!.

 

A few days after I was practising with our newly-formed band led by Winthrop Thomas. At one point, the band stopped

playing abruptly and the players were laughing. I turned around and saw my grandmother had placed a dilapidated

suitcase on the ground and as she walked she said "yuh wanna be ah panbeater-----not in my house." That was the end of my pan beating.

 

It is quite a blessing that there were few "grammas and granados" and that others did not go to the few, if any, music libraries that were nearby.

 

The drummer in every band controls the tempo and provide the rythm. I have never seen one reading musical

scores while performing.

 

Frank Sinatra did a lot for musicians, yet they spoke about him punching photographers. A very famous singer was

arrested regularly for possession of marijuana. Billy Eckstine kicked 'arse'.....when they tried to make him enter from

the back of a concert hall.

 

Panmen perform pieces from memory - no scores......In a Monastery Garden, Capriccio Italien Opus 45, Marche Slave, etc., the Mighty Sparrow sang ballads with a calyspo tempo.

 

I give credit to anyone with an impeccable lifestyle, but we are "beings" -----some perfect, some not.

 

So how about we help to keep pan away from the doldrums from which it emerged!!!

 

Allan Gibson

[JUDY M. ROSS]

allan gibson, the first thing about writing an article is researching your topic, secondly,gathering your materials, then,there is the first draft, second draft proof reading then to the printers.Obviously, you did neither. Mr Donald Granado was not a member of the PNM at the time you stated, never was he the Minister of Education. The residence of Laventille respected Mr. Granado who encouraged the young men to play pan shame on you allan gibson for the false information on trying to belittle a man who was one of PNM's finest.May his soul rest in peace.

[aNTHONY hOYTE]

I am responding to an article written by Allan Gibson saying while living in Rosehill,he was practising his tenor and a voice shouted out'' Allan I don't  want any pan playing in my yard'' well although I am aware that panmen had a very hard way to go in the past and was considered as an outcast it is not fair to  call people's name when your facts are not right and try to bring people down with lies, first you mentioned it was no other than a government minister. the honorable Donald Granadoand and that couldn't be possible cause when Mr. Granado lived in Rosehill neither himself or the P.N.M was the governing body of Trinidad he did not become a minister until he moved out of Rosehill and went to live in Laventille on the Eastern Main Road ( Success Village Laventille,and he was not the minister of education that minister was Mr. John Donaldson. Mr. Granado was minister of Labour and although I personally did not like the way he turned his back on the people who put him in office, if you knew the man he was not that type of person to discourage pan playing he encouraged a lot of guys to take oil drums from his yard, one name comes to mind Errol ''Hammer Foot '' whom will come and cut the oil drums right in the yard which was very large unlike Rosehill which I don't know what yard you're speaking about cause in Rosehill there was no yard the place was too ramcrammed the houses were too close to even have a yard so please get your facts right cause I am his nephew and at that time I lived with him I do remember there was an Allan  living by Miss. Bratwaith and I do hope that  it is not you, if not you should be ashamed of yourself with your misinformation,  that's not right and not fair. and check yourself don't climb on a deadman's back for panmen whom he assisted in many ways and liked in Laventille he even bought a tenor pan for me he must be turning over in his grave. shame on you.Algernon Hoyte.

[Allan Gibson]

Mr.Lopez, I had just started with Wintrop when he formed Joyland, but after my grandmother's  stunning

performance and a Minister who "did not say anything bad about pan" I had to quit  or live in the street.

So much for that...

[BEDE LOPEZ]

allan, did you play with joyland/ wintrop or five fingers/wintrop?

[russell lewis]

Mr Gibson, I wish that you will state the facts correctly. Firstly, I knew Mr.Granado very well, and he would have never made a statement like the one you claimed he made to you, on your pan beating. He was pro steelband. Secondly, when Mr.Granado lived Rose Hill, Laventille, he was not yet in the Government. He became a part of the Government after the 1956 election. Thirdly, he was not the Minister of Education, he was the Minister of Labor. So please chceck yourself.

[Tony Blackman]

Yuh grandmother rest down a "GRIP" not a suitcase....Great memories of the non acceptance of the steelpan as a way forward for the youth in the 1940's to the 60's...isn't that proof that steelpan took too long to be included in the social standing of the black communities, hence the reason why it is still emerging from the doldrums as you call it. When you have a culture minister bashing rather than pushing Pan up the food chain, what do you expect. Meanwhile first world countries are running away with one of the greatest musical inventions of all time