Word: steelbands
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...coast of Venezuela. But Trinidadians may well be the world's most musical people. Out of prosaic newspaper headlines they created calypso songs, and out of such unmusical items as oil drums and automobile brake drums they created the world's newest musical combo, the steelband (pronounced steelbon in Trinidad). Both were invented with sure instinct for novelty and self-expression by Trinidad's Negro population...
Before the note of the chime had faded, the sound of a steelband grew in the distance. It was a sweet thrumming that, as it grew closer, began to resemble a giant mandolin playing a pretty tune. It was accompanied by an insistent clanging, like a syncopated firebell. Within a few minutes no fewer than 139 steelbands burst onto Port-of-Spain's streets, gathering prancing followers as they went. The marchers strode, sensuously, with bent knees and swinging hips, sometimes six or eight clasped together in a veering line, sometimes a single marcher so excited by the music...
...Springer or "Totee" Lewis-decided to outline the parts of the tin top which had different pitches. He dented a line across, dividing the pan into segments, and found he had two different notes. The establishment of a U.S. base brought the latest refinement: oil drums. And so the steelband was born...
King Calypso. The best band of the mid-40s was The Invaders, who are credited with introducing bouncing massed "riffs" in harmony, and thus paralleling the transition of U.S. jazz from Dixieland counterpoint to the massed effects of swing. Today the steelband has swept the Caribbean islands-there is a severe short age of oil drums and automobile brake drums. The music is also penetrating the U.S. through recordings and tours by stray bands. Last week Record-Maker Emory Cook carried his microphones and tape recorders right into the parade to capture steelbands...
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