Healing Trinidad and Tobago with sweet music

The organisers of the Steel Plus series will move to make the fourth edition, Steel & Strings, the start of a healing process for Trinidad and Tobago.

In a media release, a spokesman for the group said, “We intend to use our local music to soothe this nation. We are in a spiral that is heading into an abyss. It is time different people try different things. We are going to do it with music.”

Steel & Strings, the release said, is the ideal place to start as it celebrates the music of Garfield Blackman (Lord Shorty) aka Ras Shorty I, and Michael Boothman.

The event comes off March 27 at Kafe Blue, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, and will feature Derrianne Dyett on pan and Dean Williams on guitar.

Dyett is considered a “fresh and important young artiste to the pan pantheon,” having completed her master’s degree at university in Holland, and continues to develop her craft in arranging, improvisation, performance, and education here at home, the release said.

Having attained both his bachelor of fine arts and master of arts at UTT, Williams is an educator developing young students in music at the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of TT (COSTAATT). He has been playing guitar for several years in various bands in TT.

Among the special guest performers will be Ras Shorty I’s son, Sheldon Blackman of the Family Circle, who will reproduce his father’s music.

The audience will be treated to more strings as guitarists Arthur Marcial and Michael Boothman will also share the stage. Interestingly, these men have put music from TT on Billboard charts years ago.

“While we continue to try to get soca music on the elusive chart once again, no one has ever asked them what was the process used to get there, and so we constantly try to re-invent the wheel,” the release said.

An added feature to the show, which organisers said will be the start of the healing process, will see AS P and musical director Wayne Guerra paying tribute to his long-standing friend and colleague of 30 years, the late Sgt Larry Phillip of the Police Band. Phillip was one of five people gunned down in Harpe Place, Port of Spain, on March 16.

The guest artistes will be backed by Guerra on keys, Russell Durity on bass, Kenneth Clarke on percussion, Richard Joseph on drums, and Williams on guitar.

Patrons will be treated to a complimentary drink from a Bailey’s Bar upon entry to the concert.