Ray Funk and An­drew Mar­tin

For many decades and count­ing, Rudy "Two Left" Smith has qui­et­ly been one of the great steel­pan am­bas­sadors to the world. His in­flu­ence is felt far and wide, es­pe­cial­ly in the jazz world. Smith's un­sung ac­com­plish­ments were recog­nised when he was in­duct­ed in­to the Sun­shine

Awards Hall of Fame in New York on

Oc­to­ber 3.

This most re­cent cel­e­bra­tion of Smith's ca­reer comes on the heels of a ca­reer-span­ning al­bum What Pan Did for Me re­leased this past sum­mer.

Rudy "Two Left" Smith was born in Wood­brook at 27 Methuen Street and grew up in Cobo Town at 21 Charles Street in the same yard as famed ca­lyp­son­ian Lord Pre­tender (aka Aldric Far­rell). In the late 1940s and 1950s, Smith played with sev­er­al lo­cal steel­bands in­clud­ing the Mel­lo-Harps Steel­band and then Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band–a break­away steel­band from the famed Red Army Steel­band.

He al­so spent time play­ing and jam­ming with oth­er steel­bands the likes of City Kids Steel­band and Nightin­gales Steel­band. At the ten­der age of 13, Smith was called out to per­form as a soloist with Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band and he late went on to per­form with the band on tours to Suri­nam, Mar­tinique and Venezuela. He ap­peared with Mer­ry­mak­ers at the Lit­tle Carib where the band was a fa­vorite with Beryl McBurnie.

From an ear­ly age, Smith was de­ter­mined be­sides play­ing steel­pan to learn as much as he could about steel­pan con­struc­tion and tun­ing. His tun­ing abil­i­ties and in­volve­ment with a group called the Beat­niks (with fu­ture quar­to leg­end Robert Munro) led to Smith blend­ing steel­pans for Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra sev­er­al times while he was a teenag­er.

Smith was well on his way to be­com­ing a home­town steel­pan pi­o­neer; how­ev­er, every­thing changed in De­cem­ber of 1962 when a stage side of Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band em­barked on a Eu­ro­pean tour. The bud­get was tight and the band need­ed play­ers like Rudy "Two Left" Smith who could play any steel­pan and tune and build.

The op­por­tu­ni­ty was too good to pass up and the night be­fore the band left for Eu­rope, they had a farewell par­ty in the pa­n­yard. In hon­or of the oc­ca­sion Lord Pre­tender wrote a kaiso telling Smith "Don't come back to Trinidad un­til you make good." Smith took Lord Pre­tender's words to heart and it was a decade be­fore he re­turned back to vis­it Trinidad. And this on­ly af­ter he had, in fact, made good!

Smith has now lived in Eu­rope for over 50 years ago and his amaz­ing ca­reer in steel­pan is sto­ried. He has since played steel­pan in a vast num­ber of dif­fer­ent con­texts and lived all over the con­ti­nent. For the last few decades, how­ev­er, Smith has lived pri­mar­i­ly in Scan­di­navia with Swe­den and now Den­mark serv­ing as his home base. Smith is al­most sin­gle hand­ed­ly re­spon­si­ble for build­ing and tun­ing most of the steel­pans in Scan­di­navia and as such stim­u­lat­ing and fos­ter­ing the re­gion­al steel­band scene in this area.

Though now based in Scan­di­navia, Smith's ear­ly ca­reer in Eu­rope was much more tran­sient. Up­on ar­riv­ing in Eu­rope in 1962, Smith and the Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band were ini­tial­ly based in Ger­many and toured all over the con­ti­nent, spend­ing a month in Tunisia, Casablan­ca, and the South of Spain. The band played stan­dard steel­band reper­toire typ­i­cal of the time pe­ri­od. Af­ter part of Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band re­turned to Trinidad, the mem­bers re­main­ing in Eu­rope evolved in­to a new band with stan­dard in­stru­men­ta­tion, which led Smith to de­vel­op a pas­sion for jazz.

The band re­named it­self the Mod­ern Sound Quar­tet and was based in the south of Spain at Tor­re­moli­nos. The band mem­bers were An­cel Joseph on six bass, Dan­ny "Buntin'" Grant on dou­ble sec­onds, George "Shockess" Al­lyn on drums, and Rudy "Two Left" Smith on tenor and dou­ble tenor. Over the years, Smith played in a va­ri­ety of bands and these oth­er bands fo­cused on jazz to the point that now he pri­mar­i­ly plays with a jazz quar­tet based in Copen­hagen or as a steel­pan soloist brought in to play with oth­er jazz groups. Smith's eclec­tic ca­reer has seen him tour Africa with a Scan­di­na­vian based Afro­Funk band, per­form duets with an An­dean harp play­er, per­form with jazz big band jazz; in­deed, in near­ly every imag­in­able jazz con­fig­u­ra­tion.

Smith re­turned to Trinidad in 1979 and or­ga­nized a ver­sion of the Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band to tour Swe­den which, un­sur­pris­ing­ly, re­sult­ed in the cre­ation of yet a lo­cal Swedish steel­band. The band in ques­tion, Hot Pans, are still ac­tive to­day and have come down to Trinidad, even ap­pear­ing in per­for­mance on the road for Car­ni­val. Start­ing in 1988, Smith be­gan per­form­ing with var­i­ous groups at Pan Jazz con­certs in Trinidad and start­ed com­ing down to Trinidad to arrange for Panora­ma.

Smith's ar­rang­ing prowess has since been heard with both Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra and Bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra, and one can fur­ther hear his arrange­ments played by the Man­grove Steel Or­ches­tra in Lon­don and Hot Pans Steel­band in Swe­den, among oth­er bands. In many ways, one could ar­gue that Smith has done it all with steel­pan on al­most every con­ti­nent.

In Ju­ly, Smith and his Quin­tet were fea­tured at the Bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra Schol­ar­ship Ben­e­fit con­cert at Queen's Hall, which is on­ly prop­er con­sid­er­ing the many years that he arranged for Bird­song. Re­porter David Cuffy called Smith's band the high­light of the pro­gram and Kris­ter Malm, eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist and ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er of Smith's new al­bum, com­ment­ed that the con­cert was a show­case for Smith and his life's work.

Rudy Smith has mar­ried the most im­por­tant Afro-Caribbean in­ven­tion in the field of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, the steel­pan, to the most im­por­tant Afro-Amer­i­can mu­si­cal tra­di­tion, jazz. More than that, he has de­vel­oped a so­lo style of the steel­pan which has not been heard be­fore. His tech­nique is daz­zling. But its not?a ques­tion of emp­ty vir­tu­os­i­ty. Rudy Smith's play­ing is marked by the same as­ton­ish­ing in­ven­tive­ness that has cre­at­ed the steel­pan.

Gil Fi­garo, founder of the Sun­shine Awards not­ed: "Rudy Smith as a per­form­ing artist com­bined with his skills and crafts­man­ship and his com­mit­ment to qual­i­ty and ex­cel­lence con­nects him to the Sun­shine Awards or­ga­ni­za­tion and its mis­sion."

Smith's most re­cent al­bum What Pan Did for Me (re­leased on the Swedish Caprice im­print) is com­plete with a 44-page book­let de­tail­ing the sto­ry of Smith's com­plex ca­reer. Kris­ter Malm who in­ter­viewed Smith for the al­bum book­let let him tell the sto­ry in his own words.

The mov­ing nar­ra­tive gives the ups and downs of a life in steel­pan in­clud­ing once in­stance in which Smith and his band were ar­rest­ed for tak­ing his in­stru­ments back from a gig be­cause of an un­scrupu­lous pro­mot­er. The book­let is al­so full of pho­tos from var­i­ous points through­out his ca­reer.

The mu­sic on the What Pan Did for Me shows the wide range of what a steel­pan in the hands of a mas­ter can do. The play­ing is a breath­tak­ing, mov­ing from what steel­pan sound­ed like in the mid-1950s, to the great Panora­ma sound of to­day, and in be­tween a wide range of jazz record­ings. The ear­li­est record­ings in­clud­ed in the al­bum are two rare Mer­ry­mak­ers Steel­band cuts (one of which is the Duke Elling­ton clas­sic Take the A Train) from 1955 with Smith fea­tured as a soloist.

The last cut on the al­bum is Smith's 2000 arrange­ment of the great jazz bassist (and Wood­brook's own) David "Hap­py" Williams' Hap­py's Sto­ry. In be­tween, there is a wide va­ri­ety of most­ly jazz cuts, sev­er­al with Smith's quar­tet and many of these are orig­i­nals by Smith and his pi­anist Ole Matthiesen that range from bal­lads to up­beat work­outs.

There are col­lab­o­ra­tions with fla­men­co-styled Swedish gui­tarist Coste Ape­trea, clas­sic Afro-Funk sound of the Mod­ern Sound Quin­tet with con­ga drum­mer Kofi Ayivor from Os­i­bisa, a piece based on a JS Bach piece with the Copen­hagen Steel Band, and an arrange­ment of Lord Kitch­en­er's Pan in A Mi­nor fea­tur­ing Robert Munro and Friends and the Hot Pans Steel­band. Any­one want­i­ng to hear where steel­pan reach and what steel­pan can do has but to get this fine al­bum.

�2 Ray Funk is a re­tired Alaskan judge who is pas­sion­ate­ly de­vot­ed to ca­lyp­so, pan and mas. Dr An­drew Mar­tin is an eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, per­cus­sion­ist, pan­nist, and Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic at In­ver Hills Col­lege in St Paul, Min­neso­ta.