Steel drum band will ring in the Nain Rouge

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.

He and fellow Trinidadian Lyndon Sorzano are reviving their steel drum band the Caribbean Pans of Joy just in time for the Marche du Nain Rouge, Detroit’s unique end-of-winter celebration coming to Midtown next month. A group of 10-15 experienced and beginner steel drum players gather at the studio twice a week to rehearse.

Taylor, 73, owns the steel drums or “pans” and manages the band that had a good run playing festivals and events from 1997 to about 2003, when Sorzano peeled off to start his own band. Sorzano provides the expertise to teach anyone willing to learn the intricacies of the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, the island nation off the coast of Venezuela.

Taylor’s usual activity in his east side studio is designing and constructing parade costumes so large they need to be set on wheels, like wearable floats. (Watch my 2014 video of his creations.) Studio inhabitants include giant insects, mammoth sea creatures and garb so elaborate it could only be meant for off-world royalty. Taylor produced the Hip Hop Mardi Gras at the biannual Dlectricity Design Festival in 2014, and helped produce last year’s Marche du Nain Rouge.

The feathered headdresses and sequined butterfly wings float above the heads of the rehearsing musicians, making the scene a fitting combination of eye-popping visuals and exuberant vibrations that complement one another in traditional Caribbean celebrations.

Partnership of art and music

Lyndon Sorzano, 43, says the sound of steel drums was everywhere when he was growing up in Trinidad and Tobago. He played in a school band that won a trip to play a music festival in Inverness, Scotland, an experience he says still “feels like yesterday.” For a boy from a small island, meeting kids from all over the world was a real eye-opener. He eventually lived in Scotland, England, France and Japan, touring with his steel drums.

Returning from Japan in 1997, Sorzano went to New Jersey, where most of his family now lives, and joined a steel drum band called Pan Jersey. They were invited to play at the Detroit Festival of the Arts, and that’s where Sorzano met Ralph Taylor.

Regina Lawson, 66, of Detroit, loves everything about

Regina Lawson, 66, of Detroit, loves everything about the Caribbean, especially the music. “It makes me feel like I’m in the islands, especially on a cold day,” she says. Lawson played in Sorzano and Taylor’s original steel drum band, the Caribbean Pans of Joy. (Photo: Donna Terek / The Detroit News)

Taylor invited him to his studio and began a campaign to bring Sorzano to Detroit to teach steel pan. “He kept calling me and calling me,” Sorzano laughed. “He said, ‘I have a group that wants to play.’ You have to come to Detroit.”

Sorzano finally relented and in 1997 they started the Caribbean Pans of Joy. The band played festivals and events for about six years until Sorzano started his own combo Uprizin Band, where steel drum was an accent to more traditional instruments and vocals. The band performs Friday nights at Kola, a Nigerian restaurant on Northwestern Highway in Farmington Hills.

Sorzano and his wife Terryann settled in Warren and he continued teaching the steel drum. He helped start a steel drum program at Oakland University and has been teaching the instrument at Rudolph Steiner School of Ann Arbor for the past 15 years

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  • Continue to work that you are doing.  It is not an easy task.  Keep the Trinidad and Tobago culture alive in your little niche!!  I wish you all the success!

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