Andy Narell embedded himself in Trinidad’s music and culture long ago. He took to the pan and the music made for it when he was seven. By ten, he was in the musicians union and performing 100 times a year in a steel band.His father Murray met Ellie Mannette in Trinidad circa 1963, where he had gone to find out more about the origins of pan. Murray bought a pan in Invaders yard that was tuned by Corbeau Jack (Emanuel Riley).
Narell’s early passion for pan was almost a spiritual embrace. Now, as an elder in its fraternity, he can articulate the concept of the pan jumbie that local adherents of the instrument grasp instinctively.
Narell and his brother had started a band with what he calls “some funky pans” from Antigua. The pan from Corbeau Jack was the first one he saw from Trinidad. “As soon as my Dad brought it back, I learned the Invader’s pattern and started playing it in the band,” says Narell.
The pan was the anchor for his music, starting with his first albums: Hidden Treasure, Stickman, Light In Your Eyes, , Slow Motion, The Hammer, Little Secrets and Down the Road. But in 1998, we heard Behind the Bridge giving the pan more playing time. On that CD he honored David Rudder with a solo arrangement and an exquisitely tender instrumental of Nuff Respect.
In the mid 1980s, Narell began his intermittent pilgrimage to Trinidad. He played in Panorama and got a taste of the pan jumbie. He started using a lot more pans on his records, even composing a piece for steel orchestra on Little Secrets.
When he came back with Down the Road in 1992, half of it was music for steel orchestra. Three years later, he recorded The Long Time Band and filled that with a lot of overdubbed pans as well.
That same year he recorded his first work with the Caribbean Jazz Project, a collaboration initiated after a New York Central Park concert. His experiment with Caribbean jazz and a valuable pairing with the great Cuban musician Paquito Rivera was followed in 1997 with another album, Island Stories.
In 2000, Fire in the Engine Room almost seemed to come straight out of Trinidad, as Andy put more percussion behind his double seconds than before. That integration with conventional instruments is also richer, showing his technical adeptness in recording pan.
His playing is strident and confident on this CD. In one tune, The Long Way Back, the sound of the pan reveals much about his relationship with it. His playing on that cut is intense and engaging. On Appreciation, one doesn’t have to know the lyrics to understand the sentiment expressed so lovingly. The clever stroke is that he begins the tune with his vintage pan.
After he met the other musicians in Martinique and Guadeloupe, he made two respectable CDs with Sakesho, the first titled simply Sakesho, in 2002, and We Want Yu To Say, in 2005, on which appeared Benin singer Angelique Kidjo, a singer of wide range and a hauntingly beautiful voice.
That CD first brought us Izo’s Mood in a version that nurtures the tune’s lyrical qualities. There, the pan talks intelligently with the piano in a call and response jazz arrangement he dropped in a later recording of the same tune.
Narell found himself in Paris performing in concerts, so he began to explore the city’s rich jazz scene. But the pan jumbie showed up again. In 2001, he ended up in the arms of Calypsociation, a lively band led by Mathieu Borgne and Laurent Lalsingue, both ardent promoters of Trinidad’s culture in that European city. They asked Narell to write and arrange their music for the 2002 European Steelband Festival in Sete. That’s when he wrote The Passage and updated Sea of Stories with a new third movement.
Narell’s playing in four and arranging for two Panoramas gave him experience we see blossoming beautifully on his first CD with Calypsociation, The Passage.
It was a triumph for Narell, showing both his arranging and compositional skills. It also paved the way for Tatoom, perhaps one of the best steel band recordings. With Luis Conte on congas and percussion, and Mark Walker and Jean Philippe Fanfant on drums, Narell played all the pans. “I have not heard steelband music sound so clear on a recording in my life,” says Vincent Yip Young, one of the founders of Solo Harmonites who is once again playing pan after an illness. “Tatoom it is also a great collection of Andy’s compositions,” Yip Young observes.
While many of his fans were still enjoying the wonderful music on that CD, Narell was busy working out his next move. That he dived into calypso with one of its superb innovators, Lord Relator, should be no surprise. Having explored the pan in most of its dimensions, it is easy to understand why he is delving into the music it finds most natural. Of course, fans like myself are just grateful for the keen insights in the University of Calypso.
Narell says the album’s name comes from a Relator remark about having been to the “University of Kitch” and being proud to be one of its best students. Narell is also aware of Kitchener’s flirtation with jazz in the 1950s when the bard recorded with jazz musicians in London.
Narell and Relator found jazz and calypso a common ground for collaboration. He had performed with Relator at Jazz at Lincoln Center and at other shows. Relator was open to working with the jazz musicians Narell assembled although the final output would be mostly calypso.
Narell clearly enjoys Relator’s artistry. It is evident in how easily the music integrates and in the comfort the musicians have with each other. “Relator sings his way through the stories like a master storyteller,” Narell said in an interview earlier this year.
Of course, everyone knows this isn’t his first work with calypso. Narell has collaborated with Andre Tanker, Black Stalin, and with David Rudder, who has been featured often in his work.
What we find in University of Calypso, is his cumulative experience of Trinidad’s culture and Relator’s natural talent as a musician and calypsonian. This easily translates into a masterful recording of calypso standards and its jazz influences that is likely to become a collector’s item. And to have Paquito d’Rivera as a sideman? How cool is that!
This album comes close to that moment in jazz when a band is cooking, and all the musicians find the perfect groove in their solos. It blends calypso and jazz with a deftness similar to Rupert Clemendore’s Le Jazz Primitif of fifty years ago and Reid, Wright and Be Happy of more recent vintage.
Re-doing Kitchener must have been challenging, even for a calypsonian with Relator’s skill and range. But he captures the nuances of the grandmaster. He delivers Hold on to your Man with ease, and his deadpan handling of the minor drama in Love in the Cemetery gives life to Kitchener’s content.
Beyond the entertaining ribaldry of My Brother Your Sister, Paquito Rivera’s offers a wise solo and his clarinet finds an essential role in the call and response arrangement of this classic. But it is Relator’s ability to capture Kitchener’s grasp of tempo, rhythm and phrasing that monumentalizes the output on this CD.
Clearly, this is a major talent at work here. Who else would even contemplate taking on not only Kitchener, but Lord Melody, Roaring Lion and Spider? And handle all with equal aplomb!
Even in his advancing years Relator still brings youthful energy to the University of Calypso, especially in his own memorable pieces. Amazingly, Gavaskar sounds as fresh today as Food Prices is still timely. The lyrics show clever command of language and a broad intelligence that marks all his compositions.
Meanwhile, Narell stalks the ripe calypso melodies that Relator delivers. The pan is present when it’s needed, and cleverly absent in appropriate places. Smartly, it gets its own deserved space on two tunes – Pan in Harmony and Sugar for Pan – that let loose his delicate touch as an instrumentalist.
Narell’s choice of these melodies for pan shows his intimate grasp of what is important in the pan world. His solos on both are expansive in their exploration of calypso phrasing, showing knowledge and love of the genre. “ The songs we chose to perform are timeless and universal,” says Narell, “and we sincerely hope that the public feels that way too.”
It’s great music, from two world musicians – and a wonderful band – who have given us something precious to cherish.