Specialty #8000 (10”)   

　　　Trinidad is regarded by many as the musical center of the Caribbean islands.  From Trinidad in about 1937 came the first “steel band” and from there also came Geoffrey Holder’s Steel Drum Trio, to make what may be the first major recoding of its kind ever done in an American studio, under the direction of skilled sound engineers. 

　　　In the music of the steel drums is found one of the most fascinating examples of a major development occurring in the musical forms of a contemporary cultural group.  Metal oil drums or barrels, common castaways on this oil-producing island, are cut to various sizes and tuned to give an incredibly wide range of percussive tones.  After some two centuries of successive outlawing and reappearance of diverse drum styles, this new phenomenon has, in a few years time, gained prestige and attention seldom accorded to a “native” music. 

　　　The peoples of Trinidad, British West Indies, a rich mixture of African, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Hindu descent, enjoy an exceedingly varied musical circles.  Much of the so-called Latin American music and dances, as well as Calypso, have come to the United States via the West Indies, where they were synthesized and nurtured from old African and European traditions.  These are but a small sample of the many Caribbean musical modes, and most of the current music of the area has scarcely, if at all, been presented to North American audiences. 

　　　As indicated, steel drums are relatively an innovation.  The story of their development, as furnished in large part by Geoffrey Holder, goes something like this: 

Drum music was part of the tradition brought over by slaves, imported from the west coast of Africa early in the 18th century to work on the sugar and cocoa plantations.  In 1797, Trinidad became a British colony and slavery was abolished in 1834.  With the growing post-emancipation acceptance of Christianity, all forms of traditional religious and social ceremonies gradually came to be frowned upon, except among the poorer classes.  By 1850, the government was taking steps to suppress some of the bolder celebrations and drum beating, motivated in part by a fear of possible Negro revolts – for the ceremonies and drumming served to unify and intensify the group spirit of the people. 

　　　By 1884, drum, beating was effectively stamped out through strong police measures.  But the desire to make music in their own way survived and substitute was devised in which bamboo sticks, tubes and poles were struck together or on the ground.  The new sound was called tamboo-bamboo (bamboo drums), from a corruption of the French tambour (drum).  Tamboo-bamboo bands grew into highly skilled groups and competition among them advanced to a point where their instruments were employed as sometimes lethal weapons.  The authorities again found reason to attempt to suppress drumming. 

　　　Then, in 1937, at Carnival time, when music-making is at its peak, there appeared in the streets of Port-of-Spain a group calling itself “The Alexander Ragtime Band.”  They played only metal “instruments” (brake drums, dust bin covers, wheel rims, steel rods), creating a high-pitched crescendo which wavered in intensity only with the diminishing physical stamina or the whims of the players.  The new instruments were durable and easily obtained, but what is of more importance is that in spite of the novelty, the rhythm of the popular Carnival dances was preserved.

　　　It was not long before steel drum making developed into a kind of folk technology.  Today, the artisan drum-makers of Trinidad turn out several varieties of steel drums, formed from the tops of oil drums, cut off at appropriate depths and hammered and tuned under heat.  The most versatile of steel drums – the pin-pong – may produce twenty-eight different notes according to the surface position struck, and is tuned fairly accurately in half steps.  In order of descending range, other members of the steel drum family are the alto or second pan, guitar pan, quarto, tune-boom, boom, and bass-kettle.  Recordings of primitive African xylophone and drum music suggest a relationship between the instrumental styles of a long lost homeland and these artistically salvaged throw-aways of industrial civilization. 

　　　True to tradition, the colorfully costumed steel bands were soon separated into feuding groups.  People grown resentful and bitter from poor economic and social conditions rallied about their favored bands and hesitating to fight the well-protected upper classes, fought among themselves.  Again the authorities considered suppressing drumming, but were put off by committees formed by admirers of the bands and the bandsmen themselves.  By 1949, the steel bands were accepted, and sometimes even supported as important parts of community life, and as skilled professionals. 

While the original steel bands were drawn from the lower classes, today they are found among every racial, economic and cultural level, not only in Trinidad, but in many other Caribbean islands as well. 

　　　Geoffrey Holder leads a celebrated and versatile troupe of Trinidadian dancers and singers which includes the steel drummers featured here.  They have appeared at dance festivals, in concert, on television, and on Broadway in the Truman Capote-Harold Arlen musical, “House of Flowers.”  (Holder and the troupe can be heard in a group of authentic Caribbean songs on Riverside RLP-4004: GEOFFREY HOLDER and his Trinidad Hummingbirds.)  Holder has achieved recognition primarily as a dancer, but also as choreographer, singer, composer, painter and photographer.  His well-designed but seemingly causal timba drumming, stick rhythms and whistling, as on the exciting rhumba, Arima Tonight, are illustrative of the way I which steel drum music may incorporate additional patterns.  No less intriguing are the brief, passing suggestions of ragtime in Mike’s Mambo, one of the trio’s several original numbers, and the entirely unique, intense treatment of Perez Prado’s Mombo Jambo. 

　　　In part whimsy and in part representative of typical steel band practice is the inclusion of Tennessee Waltz. It is a most interesting lesson in musicology to note the altered meter and tonality with which another musical culture may interpret a standard part of our own. 

　　　The interest of Holder and his troupe in the music presented here and on Riverside RLP 4004 is one compounded of pleasure in interpreting familiar rhythms, melodies and words; pride in these examples of their native culture; and the conviction that this music can effectively and compellingly present the sound of the Caribbean to audiences throughout the world. 

A High Fidelity Recording

Produced by Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews

Notes by Robert L. Thompson

Cover by Gene Gogerty

RIVERSIDE RECORDS are released by BILL GRAUER PRODUCTIONS

418 West 49th Street New York 19, N. Y.