Andy Narell

The following is a brief bio of Andy Narell. For more, check out his website.

 With his first solo album in 1979 Andy Narell took the steelpan out of the steelband and brought it into the jazz band, and with every recording and concert since, he has explored the possibilities and expanded the role of the pan in contemporary music.

Narell has made 15 albums as leader, one as co-leader with Relator (University of Calypso), two as co-leader of the Caribbean Jazz Project (with Paquito D’Rivera and Dave Samuels), and two as co-leader of Sakésho (with Mario Canonge, Michel Alibo, and Jean Philippe Fanfant).

Along the way he has worked with such artists as  Bela Fleck, Tito Puente, Spyro Gyra, Nancy Wilson, Aretha Franklin and the Kronos String Quartet. He has performed on movie scores by James Horner, Maurice Jarre, Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, Michel Colombier, Thomas Newman, and Carmine Coppola, and his compositions are featured in the film ‘PAN – Our Music Odyssey,’ plus television shows and commercials.

 As a bandleader and soloist he has played hundreds of concerts and jazz festivals throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. In 1999 Andy became the first foreigner to compose for Trinidad’s Panorama steel band competition, guiding the 100 player Skiffle Bunch Steel Orchestra to the finals of both the 1999 and 2000 Panoramas.

 He has been an artist in residence at  many United States colleges and universities. "My other ongoing teaching assignments are at Calypsociation in Paris, and Laborie Steel Pan in Laborie, Saint Lucia. I make the rounds of universities and high schools in the USA every year."