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Andy Narell

Andy Narell has spent more than a quarter century exploring the subtleties and complexities of steel pan and grafting them to the jazz idiom. He's one of only a small handful of steel pan players in the world who are playing jazz, and perhaps the only one among that coterie to commit an entire career—live and in the studio—to creating new music for the pan in that context.

In recent years, Narell has also explored the potential of the steel pan on an orchestral level. He enlisted the services of Calypsociation, a thirty-piece steel pan orchestra based in Paris, to record The Passage, his 2004 recording on the Heads Up label. That exploration continues with the release of Tatoom: Music for Steel Orchestra in February 2007. In addition to Narell playing all 22 pans in meticulously layered and carefully mixed orchestral arrangements, Tatoom also features three brilliant soloists: guitarist and labelmate Mike Stern, tenor saxophonist David Sanchez and percussionist Luis Conte. With drummers Mark Walker and Jean Philippe Fanfant driving the rhythm section Narell’s steelband sound has an unmistakable jazz groove.


Tatoom was recorded in various locales around the world, including Paris, New York, Boston, LA, the SF Bay Area, West Virginia, and Mississippi.

“This whole record was recorded one instrument at a time,” says Narell. “It was quite different from The Passage, where I recorded thirty pan players live. I started with the drums, the congas, the percussion and the iron, and then I put all the pans on one at a time. Then finally the soloists.”

This attention detail and commitment to creative perfection—no matter the scale—is nothing new for Narell, who has been almost singlehandedly ushering steel pan music into the mainstream since the 1980s. After a string of critically praised and commercially successful albums on Windham Hill Jazz throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Narell joined the Heads Up label with the release of Behind the Bridge in 1998, followed by Fire in the Engine Room in 2000. But in the midst of hammering out his career—recording in the States; playing festivals and other gigs around the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean; composing for the Panorama steel band festival in Trinidad; laying down tracks on albums, film and commercials—he was unaware of a grassroots movement taking shape in South Africa that would have a dramatic impact on his musical and cultural perspective.


The end of apartheid in 1994—which included a lifting of economic restrictions and a transition to majority rule in South Africa—allowed residents of the major cities and outlying townships easier access to recorded music from around the world. A network of “listening clubs” sprouted throughout the region as low-income South Africans pooled their monies to buy CDs of their favorite artists. By the late ‘90s, Narell had ascended to folk-hero status in a fan club he knew nothing about.

Narell collided with his own destiny in the fall of 1999 during a visit to South Africa for the Arts Alive festival, where nearly 80,000 people turned out for his performance (he’d only expected to fill a few 200- or 300-seat clubs during his visit). The response to his music was so powerful and inspiring that he returned to South Africa the following spring for an extensive concert tour that reunited him with the band he’d played with during his initial visit. Live in South Africa, released in 2001, chronicles his two-night stand at the Blues Room in Johannesburg at the tail end of the tour.

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Album Review

EHA: Paris Rio New York

Read "Paris  Rio  New York" reviewed by Jim Worsley


French guitarist's Philippe Coignet's new ensemble recording is like that of a well-rooted tree with many powerful branches reaching out uniquely, but collectively connecting back to its inner core. EHA (pronounced as a long A-ha) is comprised of a five-part nucleus with several worldly guest stars. In addition to Coignet, the quintet features fellow Frenchman Damien Schmitt on drums, bassist Michel Alibo from Martinique, pianist Leandro Aconcha from Switzerland, and Brazilian saxophonist Cacau de Queiroz. Eleven distinctly original ...

3
Multiple Reviews

The Narell Brothers: Steelpan Music Merchants

Read "The Narell Brothers: Steelpan Music Merchants" reviewed by Nigel Campbell


Steelpan musician, Andy Narell and his older brother Jeff Narell represent a game change in the status quo of island music and the instruments born in the Caribbean. Originally created as an musical accompaniment to celebrate Trinidad Carnival, the steelpan has evolved over the years to become a modern acoustic instrument family that supplies a range of unique timbres and tonals colours for all the world's music, including jazz and calypso. Andy Narell, with over 18 albums as leader or ...

6
Profile

An American in Paradise: The sense of Belonging of Andy Narell

Read "An American in Paradise: The sense of Belonging of Andy Narell" reviewed by Nigel Campbell


American pannist (steel pan soloist) and composer Andy Narell is an iconoclast who fearlessly challenges the narrow definitions of acceptable pan music. He is global, and his usefulness as an ambassador for Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument is tainted by suspicion long held by panmen (steel pan players) and the steel pan fraternity in general here. It may be an attitude of his own making. Long held beliefs are hard to dispel with logic. Pan pioneer Rudolf “Fish Eye" Ollivierre ...

383
Album Review

Andy Narell and Relator: University of Calypso

Read "University of Calypso" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


It almost seems required in many cases, that jazz artists incorporate other styles into their music, whether it is blues, R&B, pop, classical or Latin. Half a century ago, jazz and calypso were fused together for the first time, and now Andy Narell and modern-day calypso legend Relator revisit that relationship with University of Calypso. Narell is perhaps the world's foremost steel pan artist, making a career of working this instrument into the realm of jazz. His studio ...

419
Album Review

Andy Narell: Tatoom: Music for Steel Orchestra

Read "Tatoom: Music for Steel Orchestra" reviewed by Jeff Winbush


There are times when you have to admire an artistic effort for its sheer audacity if nothing else. Andy Narell's Tatoom is one such statement. Commercial considerations aside, Narell is doing nothing less than to continue growing and developing as a musician. In the process of pushing himself he's pushing the listener as well, which may limit the appeal of the album. Let's face it: jazz isn't always about giving the people what they want. The best jazz gives the ...

214
Album Review

Andy Narell: Tatoom: Music for Steel Orchestra

Read "Tatoom: Music for Steel Orchestra" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


The steel pan, sometimes referred to as the steel drum or oil drum, is almost synonymous with Latin music. However, one artist has taken the instrument into another realm. For almost thirty years, Andy Narell has been a world force, not only playing jazz with the pans but also writing jazz for this instrument. Over the course of his career, he has been a bandleader, partnered with vibraphonist Dave Samuels for the Caribbean Jazz Project, toured and ...

126
Album Review

Andy Narell: The Passage

Read "The Passage" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner


Spotlighting the internationality of jazz by offering a wide range of music from all over the world—including such diverse releases as the recent Africa Straight Ahead ; Word of Mouth, a Jaco Pastorius tribute album; and The Caribbean Jazz Project —the only common denominator at Telarc’s Heads Up imprint is outstanding recording quality and the unexpected. Their latest release, The Passage, proves no exception. Capturing the compositional and instrumental skill of steel pan artist Andy Narell, The ...

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151

Radio

The Jazz Week Ahead at SIRIUS: Toots Thielemans & Friends LIVE, Andy Narell, Eric Reed & More

The Jazz Week Ahead at SIRIUS:  Toots Thielemans & Friends LIVE, Andy Narell, Eric Reed & More

Source: All About Jazz

Toots & Friends: Live from Studio A (April 7) [Pure Jazz/72] Four jazz giants stop by the SIRIUS studios for a Brazilian jam session: Toots Thielemans, Oscar Castro-Neves, Kenny Werner, and Airto. Don't miss this exclusive performance airing at 5 p.m. ET, repeated Saturday, April 10 at 9 a.m. ET.

For the Record: Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller (April 7) [Planet Jazz/70] The fourth release by Weather Report continued ...

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Recording

Andy Narell's 'The Passage' Features Music for Steel Orchestra & Special Guests

Andy Narell's 'The Passage' Features Music for Steel Orchestra & Special Guests

Source: All About Jazz

On March 23, steel pan virtuoso Andy Narell will release The Passage, a showcase for the 30-piece steelband Calypsociation and three of the greatest soloists in jazz -- Michael Brecker, Paquito D'Rivera and Hugh Masekela.

The story began in 2001 when Narell travelled to Paris and discovered Calypsociation. He recalls, “I could hear after two minutes that I wanted to work with this band." The fit between Narell and Calypsociation was so tight that the band commissioned him to direct, ...

Mike Schwebke
multi-instrumentalist

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Parabbean Tales

Blue Canoe Records
2022

buy

EHA Paris Rio New...

Kwazil/Plaza Mayor Company Serg 250
2020

buy

University of Calypso

Heads Up International
2009

buy

Tatoom: Music for...

Heads Up International
2007

buy

Tatoom

CBS/Sony
2006

buy

Parabbean Tales

From: Parabbean Tales
By Andy Narell

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