the rythmn of Trinidad - late night with the pan band

Each night, starting around 10pm the sounds of multiple rythmns and complex melodies played on the steel pan rolls up the hill from St. Augustine, lasting sometimes until dawn. Last night we moved from voyeurestic enjoyment from within the confines of our compound, to being in the center of a practice session at the "pan yard" of world champions, Exodus. These are our home town musicians. The pan yard is a dedicated space in the center of town, along the main commercial route (the Eastern Main Road), an open air concert hall complete with concrete bleachers, food vendors and suprisingly, the fanciest public bathrooms around - all under the surrealistic glow of stadium lights lighting up the humid night. A banner backs the practice stage, "Exodus, World Champions 2005, Madison Square Garden, NYC" speaking to the world wide reach of the Trinidadian community. The practice session - in anticipation of the upcoming Carnival in late February - drew a fairly large, diverse crowd of onlookers: women, men and kids. Like any gathering of Trinis, there were food and beer vendors doing a brisk business in "doubles" and Stag beer (A man's beer according to their advertising).

The music is amazingly complex - that is the overwhelming impression. The band consists of what must be close to 100 drums (made from old 50 gallon oil drums, reflecting Trinidads primary industry). The drums are "tuned" to represent different instruments in pitch, tone and melody. Like any orchestra, these are divided into sections. The physical arrangement of the band is influenced by the band director's strategic decisions about the "presentation" of band - which plays into the scoring at the Carnival competitions. The band members are women, men, older and younger. It is a party on the stage, with the musicians working out their respective pieces amongst themselves, all the while laughing, eating and drinking. Then, the band director will bang on the rim of a nearby drum, creating a strikingly discordant note which quickly brings the group to attention. A few lead-in notes follow on a single pan, and then the entire orchestra explodes as one into an amazingly tight, layered wall of sound. The pieces themselves, to the non-musician, seem to follow classic symphonic structures - there are clearly movements within each piece, where one section dominates and patterns repeat themselves interpreted by each section.

I was up at 5:30am to take some visiting friends to the airport, and the band was still playing, the music providing a start-up groove to the lightening Trinidadian dawn.