When she was growing up in Antigua, Pat Daniel was not allowed to join the steel band. Rehearsals were at night; participating was frowned on, especially for girls. When she came to New Haven, Daniel became one of the first members of the St. Luke’s Steel Band.
The group, which was founded by Debby Teason, makes appearances all over town, and runs a steel pan summer camp, is marking its 15th anniversary.
The main event will be a concert this Sunday, March 22, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, at the corner of Humphrey and Orange Street, beginning at 6 p.m.
Allan Appel Photo
In the run-up to the concert Daniel (pictured) and 20 or so other musicians, under the leadership of Kenneth Joseph, were rehearsing at their once-a-week, two-hour session Saturday morning at space adjacent to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on 117 Whalley Ave.
The subdued, subtle, and smooth Motown medley filling up the rehearsal space — along with calypso tunes, Brazilian samba, some R&B, and even a little funk — are all to be part of the anniversary concert’s program, Joseph said.
He came to New Haven five years ago from his native Trinidad by way of Northern Illinois University, the only university in the country where you can obtain a masters degree in steel pan performance, Joseph said.
That’s precisely what Joseph did. When he was graduating, Teason reached out to Joseph’s teacher, and the rest is steel pan history in New Haven.
While there’s steel pan action in other New England cities, Joseph said the scene in New Haven is particularly vibrant. The band received its initial launch at the church a decade a half ago in part because historically St. Luke’s Episcopal has had a lot of congregants from the Caribbean, Joseph said.
The modern instruments, that is, the oil drums, emerged in the 1930s after other forms of drumming and percussion had been banned. Echoing dictators’ concerns about social media today, colonial powers were worried about the potential of the drumming to send politically destabilizing messages, Joseph said.
When steel pan emerged in the mid-20th Century, it was a very masculine activity and was considered “a really bad thing,” Joseph explained. Someone who played pans was considered a “bad john,” or a “badjin,” in the local dialect.
Today the St. Luke’s Steel Band plays at six church services throughout the year and does three or four performances a month. The steel band is itself divided into five groups of learners, all of which Joseph leads: a beginning kid group for those seven to 14; an intermediate group for kids 11 to 17; an adult beginners’ group, whose members range in age from 38 to 65; and an advanced group with an age range of 11 to 87 (!).
The concert will be performed by the advanced group, whose members, like Daniel and Hamden High School sophomore Kyra Bellamy (pictured with Joseph), participate for a wide range of reasons. The love of the sound is basic. But Daniel, who plays the bass pans and whom Joseph described as “the mother of the band,” said that the activity is “a reminder of home.”
For Bellamy, who has gone to St. Luke’s as a church member all her life, membership in the band seemed predestined. “I grew up watching them play. I wanted to be part of it,” she said.
Bellamy also plays the flute in the Hamden High band. When she tells her friends she also plays pans, she gets a kick out of their response, which is usually, she said, “‘What is that’?”
“I like it because it’s different,” she said.
Joseph speculated that another reason for the instrument’s unusual popularity in New England — in addition to St. Luke’s, Joseph said there are steel bands at Co-Op High, Highville Charter School, the Foote School, and Choate-Rosemary Hall in Wallingford — is the feeling of accomplishment you can get relatively quickly.
“You can pick up the sticks on day one and be successful,” he said.
However, as with any other instrument, to be very good you must practice every day, he added.
Joseph said that he continues to be amazed how much the group is able to cram into its Saturday morning practice session. Though Pat Daniel added, “I don’t think we practice enough.”
During the rehearsal, the musicians finished “Stop in the Name of Love.”
“It was a good repeating, but it must be convincing,” Joseph said to the group.
Undoubtedly it will be at the anniversary concert.
For tickets, go to the band’s website or call Pat Daniel at 203 – 415-9405.
