A father shows his love with a tenor pan

When my oldest son Natty was at McMurrich Public School, he was lucky enough to be in Lindy Burgess’s steel band. They’d play at school barbeques, concerts, and sometimes in city-wide competitions. One of my fondest memories of that time was hearing the sounds of No Woman, No Cry, out in the McMurrich playground, played by a very diverse ensemble of young pan players. That early experience launched Natty’s passion for carnival music, and I doubt he’s missed a Caribana since he was in his teens (he is 32 now). 

We always joked that when he was still in his mother’s belly, she and I were dancing to soca on University Avenue as the bands wound their way down to the lake.  And he was more or less was born dancing.  

This last summer, after a very hard year for our family, he was on a trip to Europe doing research for his next film. I wanted to surprise him with a homecoming gift. A wonderful pan player named Rashaana, who I met at the Esther Dalton Foundation (EFD) fundraiser last winter, told me about Tommy Critchlow, one of Canada’s, if not the world’s foremost pan makers and players. I went out to his studio in Scarborough with Nadien Godkewitsch, EDF board member, and we were amazed by the gleaming pans in the studio, and by the unfinished steel drums in his metal-working workshop.  You can really see how a steel drum is cut, shaped, tempered, and tuned when you see them in various stages of building. 

I got Natty a tenor pan and borrowed a stand from Tommy.  Each drum has a story, and Tommy himself is a master storyteller.  He was a boy in Trinidad when he fell in love with the instrument and began hanging out at a panyard near his home.  Now he tours the world teaching the history and music of pan, and building top-quality instruments in his basement workshop.  Natty’s pan was waiting for him when he got back from Europe. He’s been playing it ever since. The bright, irresistible sounds of a tenor pan can be heard in his house on Davenport Road. The music lifts the heart – and feet – of the listener and the soul of the player.

Dan Yashinsky is a well-known Canadian storyteller, author, and community organizer.