Andy Narell (born March 18, 1954 in New York City, US) is a jazz musician and composer specialized in the steelpan.^[1]

Biography

Narell was born in New York City. He took up the steelpan at a very young age in Queens, New York, because his father, social worker Murray Narell, had started a program of steelpan playing for at-risk youth at the Jewish philanthropic Education Alliance in Lower East Side Manhattan, using two sets of pans made by Antigua-native Rupert Sterling, the two sets shared by 20 youth bands. From 1962, Andy, his brother Jeff, and three others boys played on a third set of Sterling-made pans in the basement of the Narell house in the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens, calling themselves the Steel Bandits. The Steel Bandits was a novelty steelpan group that played concerts and appeared on television shows including I've Got a Secret in 1963.^[2][3] The band played many venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, and at the National Music Festival of Trinidad. Murray Narell invited Ellie Mannette in 1964 to expand steelpan activities in New York City and finally convinced him to come in 1967. Mannette taught the Narell boys more technique, and they played on improved pans tuned by Mannette.^[4]

Andy Narell moved to California in the 1970s. He studied music at the University of California, Berkeley, and played piano with the University of California Jazz Ensembles under the direction of Dr. David W. Tucker. He graduated in 1973.^[5]

He has performed with the Caribbean Jazz Project, Montreux, Sakésho, Calypsociation, and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He additionally composed and arranged music for Trinidad's national steelband competition Panorama.^[1] Narell also performed in South Africa in 1999 in front of a crowd of 80,000 people.^[1]

He has two children, Isaac Narell and Mia Narell, and currently resides in Paris.

Discography

• The Passage (Heads Up, 2004.)
• Tatoom (Heads Up, 2007)
• University of Calypso w/Relator (Heads Up, 2009)

Solo/with various

• Hidden Treasure (Inner City, 1979)
• Stickman (Windham Hill Records, 1981)
• Light in Your Eyes (Windham Hill Records, 1983)
• Slow Motion (Windham Hill Records, 1985)
• The Hammer (Windham Hill Records, 1987); title song composed and sung by David Rudder^[6]
• Little Secrets (Windham Hill Records, 1989)
• Down the Road (Windham Hill Records, 1992)
• The Long Time Band (Windham Hill Records, 1995)
• Behind the Bridge (Heads Up, 1998)
• Fire in the Engine Room (Heads Up, 2000)
• Live in South Africa (Heads Up, 2001)
• Live at Montreux (Windham Hill, 1984)
• Chiaroscuro (Windham Hill, 1985)
• Sign Language (Windham Hill, 1987)

With Caribbean Jazz Project

• The Caribbean Jazz Project (Heads Up, 1995)
• Island Stories (Heads Up, 1997)

With Sakésho

• Sakésho (Heads Up, 2002)
• We Want You to Say... (Heads Up, 2005)

Collections

• Sampler '96 (Windham Hill Records, 1996)
• A Winter's Solstice III (Windham Hill Records, 1990)
• The Bach Variations (Windham Hill Records, 1994)
• A Winter's Solstice IV (Windham Hill Records, 1993)
• The Firm (Soundtrack, 1993)

Guest appearances

• Brazil Duets (Mike Marshall)
• Outbound (Béla Fleck and the Flecktones)
• Live at the Quick (Béla Fleck and the Flecktones)
• The Seventh One (Toto)
• The Sun Don't Lie (Marcus Miller)
• Lunatic Taxi (Sixun)
• Good to Go-Go (Spyro Gyra)
• Happy Just to Be Like I Am (Taj Mahal)
• Del Sol (Dave Samuels)

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Andy Narell at All About Jazz". Archived from the original on 15 March 2010. Retrieved 6 April 2010. 
2. ^ https://www.facebook.com/andy.narell/posts/10154787429034233
3. ^ http://whensteeltalks.ning.com/video/andy-narell-and-the-steel-bandits
4. ^ Smith, Angela (June 7, 2012). Steel Drums and Steelbands: A History. Scarecrow Press. pp. 104–05. ISBN 9780810883420. 
5. ^ Yanow, Scott. "Andy Narell Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 6 April 2010. 
6. ^ Scott Yanow, "The Hammer", AllMusic review.

External links

• Official site