Pan 4 Life - When Steel Talks

The Man, The Music and The Legend - Clive Bradley

-Through the eyes of those who knew him-

Pelham Goddard, Ray Holman, Jit Samaroo, Ella Andall, Dave "Peck" Edwards, Pat Bishop, Dr. Dawn Batson, Garvin Blake, Collins Jackman, Arddin Herbert, Andy Narel and others share their thoughts and memories on master arranger Clive Bradley.

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Clive Bradley's Final Passage and Journey but His Music Played On.

Clive Bradley's Final Passage and Journey but His Music Played On...

Trinidad - On Friday December 2, just later over an hour before the scheduled 10:00 AM celebration of his life, Clive Bradley lay in state at the Desperadoes pan theater in Laventille, before he left 'The Hill' for the last time. The backdrop of the blue sea in the distance, made brilliant by the morning sun, framed the scene for this equally brilliant individual, as villagers and others came to pay their final respects.

The police outriders assigned to escort the cortege stood by until the time came to leave. The hearse bearing Clive Bradley on his final journey down the hill departed, preceded and flanked by the official police escort, for a drive that would take just around fifteen minutes to arrive at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Independence Square in Port-of-Spain

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Clive Bradley - Memories

Clive Bradley Memories

by - Dr. Dawn K. Batson

Florida - Since news of Clive Bradley’s death Sparrow’s calypso “Memories” has been looping continuously through my brain. In the pan world we often pay great homage to competition and competition winners sometimes neglecting and underrating truly beautiful music because it was not in the winner’s row. Bradley however, inside and outside of competition, was able to capture the beauty of the instruments of the steel orchestra and the essence of its players.

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Clive Bradley -- The Man and his Music

Clive Bradley The Man and his Music

by - Robbie Joseph

United Kingdom - The following is a lasting memory I have of the greatness of Clyde and his captivating music. This episode of my life is often relived when his music is played. In 1998, Clive Bradley musically directed Nutones Steel Orchestra to capture the coveted title of National Panorama Champs with his captivating arrangement of David Rudder’s ‘High Mas’. In 1999, he returned ‘up de hill’ to his old haunt, Desperadoes. Initially there were mixed feelings of using Bradley’s musical talents instead of Robbie Greenidge’s but he soon changed that with his musicality. WITCO Desperadoes won the 1999 North Zonal Finals amassing a convincing 460 points with their nearest rival, Phase 11 Pan Groove, trailing by 17 points. Phase 11 continued to trail Despers in the National semi-finals but narrowed their lead to 15 points.

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Clive Bradley - A Musical Wizardry

Clive Bradley A Musical Wizardry

by - Collins Jackman - When Steel Talks - Special

New York - Most people would argue–and there is much certitude to it–that Clive Bradley was a master steelband arranger, a top class musician, and an illuminating teacher. But while he was all of these, he was a person of much complexity and this aspect of Clive Bradley’s personality was brilliantly articulated in his music. What made his musical sensibilities interesting and complex was his ability to take very simple melodies or motifs and superimpose on them a symphonic opus that would always leave many standing in awe. Bradley was the kind of artist who could see the beauty in something that would generally be considered by others to be, low-brow, tawdry and insignificant. He was, in many ways, a humanist, resurrecting from the olden days, musical riffs, motifs and presenting them to his contemporary audiences with a modern twist that made these antiquated concepts and styles simple, relevant, appealing and hip. His music and his approach to it was the epitome of the idea that “there’s complexity in simplicity”.

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Did You Ever Know Clive Bradley?

by - T. John

New York - Did you ever know Clive Bradley? Did you ever meet Clive Bradley? Did you ever talk to Clive Bradley? Did you ever dance, sing or listen to the music of Clive Bradley?

As I write this I think to myself what a bummer. How dare Mr. Bradley make me write this. How dare he not live to one hundred and two? How dare Mr. Bradley be so selfish and die and rob us of more years of his musical genius, his wit, charm, brilliance, genius and compassion for the people who loved him so much.

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'Brads' May Have Had The Last Laugh... again

'Brads' May Have Had The Last Laugh... again

Laventille, Trinidad - It was after three AM on Saturday December 2, as the last of us straggled out of Desperadoes panyard in Laventille, high up on the hill, with the lights of Port-of-Spain and environs ablaze down below. That particular lighted scene is normal every night on the hill. But on this occasion, it was another set of lights which commanded attention, and demanded and received respectful acknowledgement. These were candles, continuing to flicker fiercely in the evening breeze for hours before, daring anyone to consider even for a moment, that they were any less brilliant than their commercial counterparts down below. After all, were they not a representation of the brilliance of the man whom all those present acknowledged that 'there was only one!" - the legendary arranger, and musician, Master Clive Bradley?

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It's Another Day

Trinidad - It's Saturday morning again, and very much like last Saturday exactly one week ago, it's another surreal atmosphere. I'd worked through the night, and as dawn broke, we got the call that Clive Bradley had just passed away at hospital. The rest of that day was spent in a kind of denial, that this really wasn't happening, that having worked through the night, I had fallen asleep, and was having a bad dream.

But, like this morning, it was very much a reality. It is no dream. And like last week, I am feeling disoriented. Why? After the wake on Thursday night at Desperadoes panyard in Laventille, followed on Friday morning by the 10 o'clock service at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception celebrating Bradley's life, supposedly the finality was to be his burial at the cemetery in Diego Martin, Trinidad, where his mother also rests. But there is at this point, no closure. Because there is still this dreamlike state surrounding me, where I still say 'this didn't happen.'

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