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A TRUE jazz pioneer is the Port of Spain-born (in 1943) Rudy “Two left” Smith who in the mid-’60s, when he arrived in Europe like thousands of other immigrant ships from the Caribbean, brought the vibrancy of his culture with him. Smith’s surprising and unique contribution was to make the steel pan a true and innovative jazz instrument.
The steel drum, which Trinidadian percussive love created from oil barrels discarded across the island by US-owned multinationals like Texaco, has its origins in west African musical artistry and the virtuosi of the kora, sansa (thumb piano) and balafon.
The beauty and excitation of its sounds would visit my ears every night in Tobago in the ’60s as I marked my students’ English essays. The steel band tent of Our Boys Steel Orchestra was 50 yards along from the flat I rented, and I would never tire of hearing the balladic and rhythmic artistry of the panbeaters’ notes.
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