Trinidad's Pan Virtuso

When mortality slips its first hint and the world suddenly seems a different place, the ego reajusts and finds its balance. You can't force the word out of Len Boogsie Sharpe's mouth. But there is obvious maturity in his thirty something preserve.
The talented musician and steelband soloist and arranger has found firm ground. Now that Boogsie has discovered himself in a Zen sort of way, his music is fleshier and broader in its appeal. The emotions are honest and unapologetic, the melodies are much more articulate. Now that he lives in the U.S. , arteries of creativity heretofore untouched have opened up. He actually sounds happy talking about his work. And, best of all, the work doesn't contradict his immigrant life.

The music is not the only thing new on his current album. For the first time he is using an arranger, Frankie MacIntosh, instead of doing it himself. MacIntosh brings a range of experience to Boogsie's compositions and finds fresh expression for his melodies. His orchestrations are also more full-bodied than what Boogsie has achieved on previous albums. "I like the textures he adds to the music," says Boogsie. Writing lyrics on the album are two other popular Trinidad musicians and singers, Gregory Victory and O.C. Blackman. This is more collaboration than he has ever attempted.

It's all part of the new Boogsie. His first few months in New York were spent resting and healing the sad results of excessses of a successful Musician's life. He became more sharply focused and alert. But when New York's own excesses tore his psyche, he went West for a purer kind of stimulation. That California sunshine did wonders.

Boogsie is still a demonically dexterous player. His nimble wrists rotate his playing sticks almost 360 degrees, moving over the notes in a flash of rubber on steel. His mastery of the pans is complete. He can play them upside down, and sometimes harmonizes his melodies with a third, and sometimes even fourth playing stick. A few years ago he won a "pan shootout" so convincingly that the arguments about the best pan soloist ceased.

As a composer, he is equally adept. His music has long eclipsed that of other steelband arrangers and composers. the jazz community in Trinidad uses his material extensively. His music blends an urban vigor with familiar Caribbean rhythms. He achieves a crossover sound that is at once brash, aggressive and engaging. there is a richness and energy that has made him the leading Trinidad musician.

Boogsie was not formally trained as a musician. His mother says he creeped up to the pans before he was a toddler. When he began playing his first set of instruments as a pre-adolescent, he had to stand atop another pan to reach. But he had a quick and absorbing mind for the music he learned in the panyards of Port of Spain. He would return to the pan yards at night for a "second rehersal." Boogsie was barely a young teen when he learned to play all the instruments that form a steel orchestra. He experimented with the instrument freely, and became an indefatigable soloist, rummaging through the instruments in search of his own distinctive style.

[Pans] Boogsie used to be very reticent during interviews. His responses were always brief and grudgingly given. Now, he has acquired confidence from his exposure in North America, and he is more willing to talk about his music. Especially if you toss specifics at him. He says jazz has become a permanent part of his musical dictionary. But it comes out in his compositions in a fusion that's identifiably Trinidadian. "we jam a little different from others," says Boogsie. "we use everything we hear and put it back out in our own way."

It 's easy to see what he means listening to the music he composes for Panorama, the annual steelband competition held during carnival in Trinidad. Over the last decade, he seemed comfortably efficient at wrapping his music in any genre he chose. When he wants to jam, he reaches for calypso lines. When he wants to dazzle he just as easily introduces jazz and pop riffs. It's clear in many of his compositions that he is simply having fun. In those compositions written for the steelband he often playfully tinkers with the texture of the steel, using dissonance for punctuation and effect.

His name is now synonymous with Phase II Pan Grove, one of the most exciting steelbands in Trinidad. Through Boogsie, Phase II extended the boundaries of steelband music. It plays pop music with a cocky edge, and it integrates jazz into calypso and soca. The band also draws many of the truly creative musicians in the country. Boogsie will continue arranging for the band for the next few years, but he says he is also training a small group of young arrangers to take over "when they're ready."

After carnival he will return to the college circuit where he has been playing often. He spends most of his time in Los Angeles arranging and playing with a small steelband called "Showboats." He also played with the band for two weeks in Japan, where he discovered that steelband music is much appreciated.

His heart, however, is stuck to an unfinished album be began last summer and had to put on hold when money ran out. He plans to finish the album this year and take it to a major label. Boogsie promises that the album will be his tour de force. It will be aimed at a crossover market, blending jazz, soca, reggae and a little latin music.

One expects that it will reflect his maturity. There is care and deliberation in his approach to this unfinished work. Boogsie hopes the music will announce a new voice, sketch a new outlook. He says he's still learning, and he's no longer afraid of a critical public response. But he's seriously planning to knock everyone's socks off.