London

The lead pans take flight

Anise’s job starts in February, when he heads back to his native Trinidad for Trinidad & Tobago World Panorama. This is the steelpan equivalent of Paris Fashion Week, where the traditionally best players air the new season’s steelpan anthems for the first time and it generally sets the agenda for what other steel bands will play throughout the year. The arrangement is all important in steelpan – in 2004, five of the seven Panorama finalists played the same tune (De Fosto’s ‘War 2004’), arranged in five totally different ways. So Anise’s personal style must be very important, right? “I wouldn’t put myself in no bag with no personal style. I just deal with music. I have a theme – which is what we call the actual song or score – and then I work with that and improvise as I go along. So you’re arranging, but it’s a form of improvisation and composition at the same time.” Feature continues

Anise took over as arranger with Ebony in 1984 and has been in charge for all but one on their Panorama-winning performances. That was in 2002, when Ebony were also entered in the finals of the World Festival in Trinidad shortly after Carnival, so Anise was occupied arranging a different theme for that competition. They finished third but are hoping to win outright next time they play there. Anise say that what has kept him loyal to Ebony for all these years is simple – they’re really, really good.‘They have some of the finest bunch of players I’ve worked with. I arrange for bands in Trinidad for years, y’know what I mean, I ain’t no amateur. I worked with some good players, but some of the best players I’ve worked with in a steel band setting is this band here.’ He grins warily at the tape recorder. ‘I hope that don’t go to their head though!’

As well as the pans, a normal drum it is used to provide extra depth - and a kind of metronome

Most people know that the tenor pan, the shallow, polygonal lead drum most commonly associated with steelpan, is a complex instrument capable of a full range of 12 notes. What’s often overlooked is how complex the sound of a band in harmony is. There are three distinct sections of a steel band, bass pans, middle pans (generally comprising guitar pans and cello pans, named for obvious reasons) and the tenor pans, which play the most complex melodies. There is, technically, no piece of music which can’t be transposed to the pans, providing the band is good enough. ‘It’s actually a steel orchestra,’ says 23-year-old big band member Richard Cutain. ‘Pans are very versatile. We’ve gone to Trinidad and played classical tunes, for instance. You can play anything.’

This versatility, combined with the scope for interpretation and improvisation is what fuels the friendly rivalry between steelbands which makes Panorama exciting as a contest. Bands will even sneak over to each other’s rehearsals to check out the competition. As fellow pan man Carl Walton puts it, ‘Panorama is the big event here, definitely. One you win that, you’ve got bragging rights. So all the bands have rivalries because they’re getting better as each year goes on. Because we’re one of the most popular ones and we’ve won it the most, obviously people always wanna knock us off the top spot. And each year bands get better and better, so we’ve gotta step up our game even more.’