The sound of steel drums conjures images of an ocean, a beach and a tropical drink in hand. What surrounds this particular steel-drum band, however, are tubas, music stands and the grand piano that ...

The steel drum, also called the steel pan or just pan, is surely one of the most unusual and versatile musical instruments in the world. The clangy sound of a steel band performing during carnival in ...

At his Detroit studio, Caribbean Mardi Gras Productions, Ralph Taylor has cleared away the giant Carnival costumes he designs and dusted off a dozen sets of steel drums he’d had in storage for years.

A visit to Panyard Inc., one of the Kenmore neighborhood's burgeoning music businesses, is as much a lesson in the history of steel pan drums as a look inside the Akron company. Owner Ron Kerns is a ...

Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the heart of Port of Spain, capital of the island ...

Christmas music never had this much rhythm. The Blenman Steel Sounds orchestra played steel pan renditions of holiday music at Kings County Hospital Center on Dec. 21. Crowds of guests, staff, and ...

Despers USA practices on a big parking lot off Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y. Band members start wandering in around 6 or 7 p.m. and slowly take their places behind racks of steel drums. Like a ...

In the middle of December in Ohio, the Caribbean-infused melodies filling the music room at Franklinton Preparatory Academy seemed misplaced. But for students enrolled in a steel-drum band class at ...

Most parents know that the best way to get people to do something is to tell them not to do it. Folks who lead countries should know that as well. So when the rulers in his native Guyana banned the ...