This column was one of the first among regular commentaries to identify that Government slackness was embracing criminality, and to make dire predictions about where this would lead. The assertion was met with dismay on the cocktail circuit. A well regarded commentator suggested to me that our governments were ‘mooks’ …
Read More »Daly Bread: Music in Districts’ glorious potential, lengthening Carnival calendar and why Pan Trinbago is not missed
“Stay in tong!” I shouted those words on Sunday last, in appreciation of the scintillating performance of Coffee Street, San Fernando band, Skiffle, in Adam Smith Square, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, at the second event put on by the Music in the Districts programme. This event confirmed that other pan …
Read More »Daly Bread: The true meaning and effect of “culture;” Eric Williams’ legacy squandered
What a weekend last week: Carib Dance made a brilliant and authentic statement of the legacy of Beryl Mc Burnie in celebration of seventy years of the Little Carib Theatre and Starlift steel orchestra got the memo that changeovers from band to band must not stall. Ten minutes between bands …
Read More »Daly Bread: Bitter-sweet royal wedding Saturday; Kingdom Choir versus PanTrinbago comess
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, aged 19, was the cellist at the royal wedding Saturday before last. Just about the time he was playing Schubert’s Ave Maria, in a setting of style and civility, two things happened. The first was my train of thought that we had artistes of high calibre, who could …
Read More »Dear Editor: Subero must come into 21st Century and change his attitude to panmen and pan
“Bro Keith, the Rastaman have ah saying, ‘Idetate to utter.’ Know it? It means ‘Think before you speak.’ Are you trying to take us back 60 years? Your position is the same as in the colonial days when pan was seen as a noisy instrument produced by rogues and vagabonds with no ambition …
Read More »Daly Bread: ‘Sweet type of love!’; groovy bards and Panorama shuffle offers hope amidst calypso gloom
What a great result from the Panorama semi-finals last Sunday. The two groovy “young boy” songs Year for Love and Hello—subject only to a tie for fourth place with Lightning Flash—ran first, second, third and fourth as played by Renegades, Despers, Phase II and Skiffle respectively. These songs create a …
Read More »Heigh-ho, De Silva, away! Best sees NCC boss chairmanning still, despite quit promise
Five months, four weeks, three days, two hours, one minute, one second, two ticks and one tock. As I begin to write, that’s how long it has been since the last note sounded on Carnival 2017. And at the NCC, Kenny De Silva is still chairmanning. Now let me say …
Read More »Are reports of Carnival’s demise exaggerated? Stakeholders await govt post-mortem
Forty days and 40 nights. And counting… NCC has had its say. Communications is largely silent. Tourism has been silenced. Community Development, Culture and the Arts has had nothing to say. But the volume of kangkatang in this year’s Carnival, it seems to me, makes a proper post-mortem imperative. And …
Read More »Daly: T&T Carnival is becoming the Greatest Pappyshow on Earth
The record breaking success of Full Extreme is thoroughly deserved. I will add to the boiling pot of opinions of why it struck such a deep chord. For me it is a restatement of the saying that laugh and cry live in the same yard. I am otherwise reluctant to …
Read More »Panmen’s Plight: Gov’t treatment of steelpan mirrors broader disrespect for local potential
“They don’t want the people who made the sacrifice to control the commanding heights of our industry. They claim we can’t handle money. We don’t know how to do business. They say we don’t possess administrative skills. “But when we look at all the other businesses, especially those fortunate to …
Read More »Pan in danger: Why birdsong and steelpan deserve same protection as Chaguaramas water park
“The Chaguaramas development where the Five Islands Water and Fun Park and the Chaguaramas Safari Adventure were in the process of some infrastructural development in an area, where according to law, it should not be. “But, based on the amount of money spent, there was no way, they claimed that …
Read More »Blue tinsel: Daly remembers Jit Samaroo and Renegades’ magic
A few of the Caribbean’s finest entertainers like Alison Hinds, Superblue, Marcia Miranda and Mairoon Ali, along with Canboulay, East Indian and sailor dancers have performed at my home. They have done so on the little home made stage next to the mango tree that Farook and Steve would build when …
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