Steel and Brass: Remembering Kitchener and Jit Samaroo

In a move to bring pan into the Kafe, soca icon and businessman Carl Jacobs has come up with a series of events titled Steel Plus.

Jacobs said the intention is to make the national instrument a mainstay at Kafe Blue on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.

The series will feature top musicians performing with pannists and other entertainers. It begins September 27 at 8 pm with the first in the series, Steel and Brass, featuring Panorama-winning arranger Duvone Stewart along with saxophonist Jamie Ghany. They will be backed by Wayne Guerra (keys), Dean Williams (guitar), Russell Durity (bass), Richard Joseph (drums) and Kenneth Clarke (percussion).

The series is also aiming to show off the skills of musicians who are not very popular, but are just as good as those who make the headlines, a media release said.

Steel and Brass will celebrate the music of Aldwyn “Lord Kitchener” Roberts and the late Jit Sukha Samaroo.

Samaroo had won nine Panorama titles, and remains the only Panorama arranger to achieve a hat-trick of titles at the annual pan competition. He did so with bp Renegades in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

He had a knack for creating magic with songs by Kitchener with exceptions in 1989, when he won with Baron’s Somebody, and De Fosto’s Four Lara Four and Pan in a Rage in 1995 and 1996, respectively.

The musical master from Surrey Village, Lopinot, also won the Pan in the 21st Century competition, and had two second places with Renegades. He also thrilled audiences at the National Steelpan Music Festival with his family band Samaroo Jets. Samaroo created several masterpieces in gospel, Latin, jazz, folk, chutney and Indian songs, as a composer. Several of his original compositions were recorded on a compact disc titled Songs from the Silver Screen. Samaroo died in January 2016.

Kitchener began creating music in the early 1940s, and has recorded over 35 albums and singles. Known as The Grand Master of Calypso, Kitchener's songs were ideal for pan and the Panorama competition which his songs won on 20 occasions, while they won the Road March title on 11 occasions. He also won Calypso Monarch in 1975 with Tribute to Winston Spree and Fever.

Kitch died in February 2000. He refused a national award which was lower than the then Trinity Cross, while Samaroo received two National Award – the Humming Bird (Silver) 1987, and Chaconia (Silver) 1995. Both men died in the midst of a Carnival season.