Andy Narell - The Passage (USA, 2004)

Andy Narell - The Passage (USA, 2004)

Anyone who thinks the steel drums are limited to calypso and other native West Indian 

styles has obviously 

never heard Andy Narell or his collaborators on this disc, the French band 

Calypsociation. Narell's compositions take the music headlong into jazz, and the richness 

of the steel pan sound ripples and sways throughout. For added flavor and texture, guests

 Michael Brecker, Paquito D'Rivera, and Hugh Masekela bring their horns, but they're the 

icing on a swinging cake (full praise to the percussionists who make the whole ensemble

 swing). The music is deliciously complex without ever sounding it. It works just as well

 on slower pieces like "Song for Mia," where the drums create a latticework of melody

 that remains gorgeously balanced. Granted, at times it veers perilously close to smooth

 jazz, but then it always steers faultlessly as far as melody is concerned. The extended

 pieces, like the title cut and "Coffee Street," sail through moods, and "Dee Mwa Wee" 

offers slightly darker hues in its lovely minor key, with Masekela's flügelhorn bubbling 

gently over the top. You have to hand it to Narell; his imagination and skill have made

 the steel pans into a mainstream instrument.

1. The Passage 

2. Song for Mia 

3. The Long Way Back 

4. Sea of Stories 

5. Mabouya 

6. Dee Mwa Wee 

7.Coffee Street

Andy Narell - The Passage (USA, 2004)