The Steel Band Movement

The Steel band movement examines the Dramatic transformation of pan from a carnival street music into a national art and symbol in Trinidad and Tobago. By focusing on pan as a cultural process, Stephen Stuempfle demonstrates how the Struggles and achievements of the steel-Band movement parallel the problems and Successes of building a nation.  Stuemptie explores the history of the steel band from its emergence around  1940 as an assemblage of diverse metal containers to today's immense orchestra of high-precision instruments with bell-like tones.

Drawing on interviews with different generations of pan musicians (Including the earliest), a wide array of Archival material, and held observations, the author traces the growth of the movement in the context of the grass-roots uprisings of the 1930s and 1940s, the American presence in Trinidad in World War II, the nationalist movement of the Post-war period, the aftermath of independence from Britain in 1962. the Black Power protests and the oil boom of the 1970s, and the recession of recent years.