SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Steel & Strings is an en­ter­tain­ment pro­duc­tion launched last year with a clear man­date: to keep sea­soned mu­si­cians of di­verse gen­res vis­i­ble, ac­tive and val­ued, while de­liv­er­ing high-qual­i­ty ex­pe­ri­ences for mu­sic lovers.

The event’s pre­sen­ters, Pan In D’ Kafé (PIDK), say too of­ten vet­er­an mu­si­cians are cel­e­brat­ed in their youth but side­lined as they age—de­spite re­main­ing dis­ci­plined, re­li­able and per­for­mance-ready. Steel & Strings, they note, is de­signed to chal­lenge that trend and reaf­firm the worth of ex­pe­ri­ence.

On Thurs­day, PIDK stages its sec­ond edi­tion—Steel & Strings: Kaiso Jazz—at Kafe Blue, fea­tur­ing gui­tarist Dean Williams, pan­nist Den­nis Smith and guest gui­tarist Clif­ford Charles.

Williams is known for a deeply in­tu­itive re­la­tion­ship with his in­stru­ment, where tech­nique and ex­pres­sion op­er­ate in seam­less align­ment. His mu­si­cal jour­ney be­gan at age four on a toy pi­ano be­fore tran­si­tion­ing to gui­tar. Over the years, he has per­formed with bands in­clud­ing Zoom, Ry­dem D’Vizion, Xtat­ic, Suberg and At­lantic.

Born in­to a mu­si­cal fam­i­ly—his fa­ther and un­cle were mem­bers of Hat­ters Steel Or­ches­tra—Williams grew up im­mersed in sound. En­cour­aged by his ed­u­ca­tor par­ents, who recog­nised the de­vel­op­men­tal val­ue of mu­sic, he was fre­quent­ly gift­ed in­stru­ments, which he says he pre­ferred to con­ven­tion­al toys. An alum­nus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, where he earned both a Mas­ter of Arts and Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts, Williams now serves as a part-time mu­sic teacher at Bird­song Mu­sic Acad­e­my and sev­er­al pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions, and as an ad­junct lec­tur­er at COSTAATT. He is al­so work­ing on mul­ti­ple al­bum projects and a forth­com­ing book.

Smith, a mu­si­cian, arranger, com­pos­er and pro­duc­er, is wide­ly re­gard­ed for his en­gag­ing stage pres­ence. He be­gan play­ing the steel­pan at age 10 and went on to per­form in nu­mer­ous Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions. Over the years, he has shared the stage with Theron Shaw, Er­rol Ince, Dr Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Elan Par­le and Clive Zan­da. He cred­its pan­nist Jion Phillips with in­tro­duc­ing him to the soul­ful stylings of George Ben­son.

In 2018, Smith com­posed Pan Break, per­formed by Crazy, and led St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege to vic­to­ry in the Schools Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. He is al­so a Pan Ra­ma­jay so­lo cham­pi­on and the founder of Den­nis Smith En­ter­tain­ment, through which he pro­vides cus­tomised mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. Cur­rent­ly, he op­er­ates a dig­i­tal record­ing stu­dio, per­forms lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and is a res­i­dent mem­ber of the Take 5 Band.

Guest gui­tarist Clif­ford Charles brings more than three decades of ex­pe­ri­ence as a smooth jazz mu­si­cian and com­pos­er. A for­mer mem­ber of the TTPS Band, he has per­formed at lead­ing Caribbean fes­ti­vals and shared stages with Ar­turo Tap­pin, Lau­ryn Hill and Randy Craw­ford.

Charles blends con­tem­po­rary jazz with Caribbean rhythms, draw­ing in­flu­ence from pi­o­neers such as Char­lie Chris­t­ian, Wes Mont­gomery and Fitzroy Cole­man. He holds a BA in Mu­sic (Hons) from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, and leads his own en­sem­ble, the Clif­ford Charles Band.

Ad­mis­sion is $200. Tick­ets are avail­able by call­ing 764-1360 or at the venue, 1D Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.