FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Steel Drum Lesson

Question:
What steel drum music do other JB fans out there like/recommend? Got sources? I have seen Andy Narell in concert a couple of times and have several of his CDs. I like him just fine but he uses the steel drum as a jazz instrument mainly and often in an ensemble of lots of other instruments. I do have on CD that he produced by the Our Boys Steel Orchestra called Pan Progress which is closer to what I'm looking for. Jimmy mentions big bands of steel drums down in the islands. I'm looking for a more native sound -- and a variety of titles (not the same popular titles on every CD) -- and what I'm really NOT looking for is a bunch of popular American tunes done on the steel drum. So what say you? Anybody got and good steel pan stuff out there?

Answer:
Back when I was in college at Duquesne U Pittsburgh (circa 1970), we had a 36 piece Steel Band play at our Student Union Bldg. They did a mix of Bach, Mozart and some local tunes. The name of the band was the Trinidad-Tripoli Steel Drum Band. I have one of their LPs but I don't know if they are still around or if their music has made the transition to CDs. If somebody finds out, let me know. My LP has gotten very scratchy over time. Check out alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.world-music for the Trinidad Steel Band. The posting is brand new and a little weird in format, but if you use Agent and do a join/save on all 128 files, you end up with 16 very sweet pieces of steel drum music. This is not your Yellow Bird stuff.