Why no pan at jazz festivals?

Diaz is annoyed at the manner in which the national instrument is being treated by promoters of these “so-called jazz festivals” in our country.

A disturbed Diaz spoke about his plight in a recent interview, “I am hearing about two upcoming jazz festivals and I am seeing people are being brought from all over the world to perform and I am not hearing the name of one pannist on the cast.

“I know these functions are in a private capacity but the general consensus is pan people are being left out. I have a problem with that, other Caribbean countries are glad to include pan on their programme.” He went on, “We have musicians (pannist) that can match anyone in the world, Robbie Greenidge, Boogsie Sharpe, Earl Brooks, Liam Teague, Ken Philmore, Rudy “Two Left” Smith, Ray Holman and the list goes on. And, even if they don’t want these top of the line there are other young players like Clive Telemaque, Dane Gulston, Jimi Phillips, I could go on and on.”

Stating his case for the pannists, Diaz pointed out that there are capable jazz pannist who should be given due recognition.

“In the pan world there are players with jazz recordings men like Ron Reid, Anise Hadeed. These shows are an insult to pan people and I am calling on all people involved in pan to boycott these shows,” Diaz said.

A visibly upset Diaz said, “I am in charge of over 80 steel orchestras in the Northern Region and I must look out for the players of these bands.

“They need to work just as anybody else. All due respect to the musicians who are hired to come here to perform, I have no problem with their presence here in Trinidad but the powers that be must take a look at pan people we are musicians too. We have soloist, ensembles and orchestras,” he said.

“And we need to share in the finances that are shared out at these shows, the media make money, the foreign artistes make money we need to share in the royalties. We see this as an insult, young pannist all over the world, Japan, Europe China and the US are filling concert halls, and it is time for us to demand a fair share as musicians.”

Diaz took the issue to his radio programme on I95.5 FM last weekend and was pleased with the response he got from callers. He intends to stage a one-man protest if nothing is done about the current situation regarding performers at the upcoming festivals.