Pan Elders grab Skiffle arranger

ONE of New York’s most respected pan arrangers/composers/performers, Kendall Williams, is set to replace Duvone Stewart as the arranger for medium band champions Pan Elders.

In an interview from New York on Tuesday, Williams, one of the “three amigos” who has been arranging for CAL Skiffle Steel Orchestra for the past four years, confirmed that he had accepted the invitation from bandleader Hollister Smith to replace Stewart, who parted ways with the band after leading them to consecutive wins.

Born in Brooklyn to Trinidadian parents, both musicians who influenced his career path, the versatile Williams said he was grateful to have been considered and accepted as the candidate to propel the band forward after such a successful run with the previous arranger.

He assumed he was shortlisted and selected because of the band’s confidence in his musical ability.

Although he once aspired to become an architect, Williams got hooked on the pan and now holds a masters of music theory and composition from New York University. He is now working on a doctorate in composition at Princeton University.

He has served as the Panorama arranger for Brooklyn’s Crossfire and CASYM steel orchestras. Since 2016, Williams has also been co-arranging alongside Marc Brooks and Odie Franklin for Skiffle, which is based on Coffee Street, San Fernando, a stone’s throw from the Carib Street medium band.

He said this new arrangement would in no way change his relationship with Skiffle pointing to Stewart’s ability to arrange successfully for Renegades, Pan Elders and the Defence Force in the large, medium and small bands category for Panorama 2019.

It is a sentiment echoed by Joshua Regrello, one of the co-leaders of Skiffle, who said, “I don’t think this is going to have any impact on his arrangement with Skiffle.

“I am just happy for for him, for this opportunity he has been given, and I wish him and Pan Elders all the best. It is a good experience for him.”

The reserved Williams told Newsday, “Duvone and I know each other very well. We are able to call and talk to each other,” he said, and while arranging for Skiffle over the years, he would often go to the Pan Elders panyard, “which is up the hill from Skiffle, and check him out.”

He does not look at his new assignment as "having to fill Duvone’s shoes. He is Duvone and he will continue to build his legacy and work on all the great things he is doing for pan and Panorama. He has done what he needed to do with the group, and now it's sort of my turn to do what I need do with them. I am not necessarily trying to fill or live up to anything he did, or what Boogsie did, or Bradley did."

He is not revealing the direction in which he will take the band, but admitted, “My mind is already working on things and figuring things out. I do like to try different things.”

He is experimenting with different genres which influence his arrangement.

He said he is looking for a long-term arrangement with Pan Elders, “as the best possible way to grow with the band, because sometimes it extends further than Panorama. Birdsong, for instance – they run a music academy, so I am looking for a long-term situation. Will it be that? I think we will have to wait and see.”

Calls and messages to Smith and Stewart were not returned.