The Church Steelpan Project focuses on the steelband scenes of the Caribbean, with a special emphasis on Antigua, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and their diaspora in the United States.

For those uninitiated, the steelpan family of instruments is a relatively modern addition to the cannon of globally recognized musical instruments. The steelpan is a tuned idiophone created out of 55-gallon oil barrels that originated on the Caribbean twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1930s. Ensembles of steelpans called “steelbands” are conceived of in families and feature a number of instrument variations ranging from high-pitch single steelpans to low-pitched multi-drum sets of steelpans. Steelbands, like the string section of a western classical orchestra, are typically broken into four to six sections that collectively cover soprano, alto, tenor, and bass tonal ranges. The music and organization of steelbands is an eclectic mix of Western European harmony, West African drumming, calypso songs, Indian Classical music styles such as Tassa, Kalinda stick fighting music, and bamboo stomping ensembles known in Trinidad and Tobago as “Tamboo Bamboo,” which historically provided parade music for Afro-Trinidadians during Carnival.

A family of instruments with many names the steelpan is sometimes called the “steel drum” outside of Caribbean and in Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua, and the greater Caribbean diaspora the favored term for the instrument is “steelpan,” or more commonly “pan.” Due in part to British colonial laws from the 1880s that banned the playing of drums and the like, Trinidadians transferred their Tamboo Bamboo rhythms to making music on paint cans, biscuit tins, and other types of metal containers forming what are known as “iron bands.” Several of the world’s oldest steelbands got their start as iron bands, such as Antigua’s Hell’s Gate steel orchestra. Material experimentation continued during the 1930s before several intrepid craftsman finally settled on using oil drums for construction sometime in the mid- to late 1930s.

Beginning in the early to mid-twentieth century, the imperial presence of the United States cast a long shadow throughout the Caribbean and the country’s liaisons in Trinidad and Tobago began in earnest during the Roosevelt administration’s “Destroyers for Bases Agreement” program in 1940 that aimed to strengthen American allyship with Britain at the outset of WWII. The US government traded old naval destroyer ships to Britain in exchange for swaths of land in various British colonies and territories (including Trinidad). The US military built the Chaguaramas military base on the northwestern tip of the island in 1942 and used the new post to guard and monitor the important Panama Canal shipping zone in the Caribbean as well as the Atlantic seaboard. Discarded oil drums, prime material for making steelpans, were abundant around the base and immediately became a favored source of material for steelpan construction.

Steelband development was dramatically curtailed in Trinidad during the throws of WWII, and it was not until VE 1945 that steelbands once again ramped up their activities on the island. Oil refineries in Curacao offered steady and consistent work for laborers from across the Caribbean and many Antiguans travelled there regularly for work. By 1946, Caribbean laborers either working in Trinidad or passing through the island in route to oil refineries in Curacao, or by means of transport routes used by laborers throughout the Caribbean, steelband activity was ubiquitous across Trinidad.

Word of the newly created steelpan musical instrument in Trinidad spread fast across the Caribbean archipelago as the steady exchange and migration of laborers throughout the region increased, a process begun during the colonial period, but which was accelerated by the building of the Panama Canal (1903-1914) and later support efforts before, during, and after WII. Antigua and Barbuda, for example, has a rich history of harboring a steelband movement dating back to 1946. However, from the later 1940s onward there is essentially a simultaneous expansion and development of the instrument in various scenes across the Caribbean and countries such as Antigua and Barbuda and Guyana lay claim to various developments in the steelpan’s early history. The instrument’s genesis story notwithstanding, steelpans have been an integral element of Caribbean life since the 1940s and the movement is now, for all intent and purpose, a mature artistic development.

Whether in Trinidad or Antigua, steelbands had many supporters and detractors in the early years of their existence. The Trinidadian steelband climate of the 1940s and early 1950s, for example, was driven in part by rivalry and turf warfare waged by the so-called “bad johns” found in Port of Spain’s tight-knit neighborhoods, and techniques for building steelpans were closely guarded secrets. Similarly, Antigua’s early steelbands (for example) emerged from vacant lots, trash dumps, and economically distressed areas of Point, Villa, Gray’s Farm, some of the St. John’s most economically depressed areas. Unemployed lower-class Trinidadians and Antiguans spent years toiling in panyards, creating and refining the instrument, and it is this class of craftsman that is responsible for the lion’s share of innovations in steelpan construction, building, and tuning. Despite the efforts and dedication of poor and working-class peoples, steelpan and steelbands achieved an entirely new level of social and cultural importance in the early 1950s as the growing Caribbean middle-class adopted the art form and became increasingly involved in all areas of the steelband movement. This is especially true of islands, such as Antigua, in which the tourism industry boosted the country’s economic fortunes, and Trinidad where oil and natural gas exports buoyed the post-war bourgeoning middle class.

The acceptance of steelbands as a social and musical movement benefited greatly in Trinidad and the greater Caribbean basin from the work and efforts of dance impresario Beryl McBurnie and the Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra. McBurnie founded the Little Carib Theatre in Port of Spain, and it was she who first arranged for steelbands (the Invaders Steel Orchestra and the Merry Makers Steel Orchestra) to perform in the context of legitimate theater. These early steelband performances at the Little Carib Theater were an important gateway for the steelband to reach the power brokers of Trinidad and Tobago’s middle class, cultural elites, and politicians as it was here that the “common folk rubbed shoulders with the elite” and the steelband was in full bloom as a cultural expression and serious art form.

The Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra (hereafter TASPO) was another key agent in the development of steelpans and steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago that a wide-reaching impact across the Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora in London. TASPO was an all-star steelband comprised of the best pannists from steelbands across Trinidad and Tobago assembled for the purpose of performing for the Festival of Britain in 1951. TASPO was the first Trinidadian steelband to perform in Europe and contributed greatly to the musical development of steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago via its leader Barbadian Lieutenant Joseph Griffith who demanded that the TASPO members standardize many of the steelpan sets used by the various band members. TASPO would have lasting musical implications for the future of the steelband movement and its members, a who’s who of steelband pioneers, including Ellie Mannette, Anthony Williams, Andrew de la Bastide, and Winston “Spree” Simon to name a few.

As developing Caribbean countries such as Trinidad, Antigua, and Jamaica moved into the 1950s, there was a marked effort by the middle class to embrace local arts, and participation in steelbands by college boys (middle-class, educated young men) became a means for earning street credibility and hipness. With the formation of these steelbands comprised of middle-class individuals, many of which still exist today, including Invaders, Silver Stars, and Dixieland, the entire steelband movement gained a degree of social credibility that would eventually lead to many of the early steelbands becoming viable cultural institutions. It was also during this time period that the Calypso Craze swept the United States and the tourism industry adapted the steelpan and all things Caribbean as a powerful marketing tool to inspire and sell Caribbean travel and tourism.

Today, Steelpans and steelbands are common in schools, communities, colleges and universities curriculums across North America as part of larger diversity initiatives undertaken in public education and there are now over 700 K-12 school, college, and universities steelbands. In the Caribbean, however, the steelpan and steelbands have become outlets for cultural expression and celebration. This extends to the many faith communities found across the archipelago as you are just as likely to find a steelpan as you are an organ in a Caribbean church.