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.

The result of hitting steel to create sweet dulcet tones are a part of the Caribbean’s musical DNA. It’s the steel drum (aka “steel pan”) with its warm sounds now firmly associated with the warm ...

A couple years after Joel Smales heard Ithaca College's Steel Band, he bought a steel pan of his own to play along with Binghamton High School's Jazz Ensemble. "Everybody loved it," said Smales, a ...

The steel drum, also called the steel pan or just pan, is surely one of the most unusual and versatile musical instruments in the world. The clangy sound of a steel band performing during carnival in ...

Drummers perform during Carnival in Trinidad. Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the ...

Christmas music never had this much rhythm. The Blenman Steel Sounds orchestra played steel pan renditions of holiday music at Kings County Hospital Center on Dec. 21. Crowds of guests, staff, and ...

Drummers perform during Carnival in Trinidad. Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the ...