An­drew Mar­tin

If you were in New York City this Au­gust and were lucky enough to see Paquito D'Rivera at the leg­endary Blue Note jazz club, you would have caught the young pan mas­ter Vic­tor Provost. The jazz pan­nist played with the smok­ing hot Panamer­i­cana En­sem­ble fea­tur­ing a di­verse reper­toire of Columbian, Venezue­lan, and Pe­ru­vian in­spired mu­sic.The week-long book­ing with Paquito D'Rivera in New York was the lat­est col­lab­o­ra­tion with the well-known Cuban sax­o­phon­ist for Provost who trav­elled ear­li­er in the sum­mer to Chile to per­form for a jazz fes­ti­val as part of the Caribbean Jazz Project. His pic­ture was in the New York Times ear­li­er this sum­mer as part of Trinida­di­an trum­peter Eti­enne Charles' band. In ad­di­tion to his work with D'Rivera, Provost per­formed with a num­ber of fine bands in many of the lead­ing clubs in New York and Man­hat­tan.In June, he played at Dizzy's Club Co­ca Co­la at Lin­coln Cen­ter with Dion Par­son & 21st Cen­tu­ry Band and per­formed with two bands that he works close­ly with in Wash­ing­ton, DC: Sine Qua Non and Afro Bop Al­liance. He al­so per­formed at the El­lie Man­nette Fes­ti­val of Steel in Mor­gan­town, West Vir­ginia. In­deed Provost's ca­reer is on the rise, and he seems to be get­ting more and more ex­po­sure by the day.

Born and raised on the is­land of Saint John, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Provost be­gan tak­ing pi­ano lessons as a child and dis­played ear­ly promise as a mu­si­cian. How­ev­er, by the age of 12, he found his true pas­sion and joined Steel Un­lim­it­ed II Youth Steel Or­ches­tra un­der the lead­er­ship of Trinida­di­an pan pi­o­neer Rudy Wells.In Trinidad, Wells is per­haps best re­mem­bered as a writer of test pieces for mu­sic fes­ti­vals and the 1973 win­ning Panora­ma arrange­ment of Lord Kitch­en­er's Rain­o­ra­ma for Trinidad All Stars. In ad­di­tion, he was the Panora­ma arranger for All Stars for sev­er­al more years and con­tributed a num­ber of arrange­ments for the stage side. But as Denise Her­nan­dez of the Trinidad All Stars notes, Wells was much more for Provost and many oth­ers, "He has done fan­tas­tic mu­sic and train­ing of youths with the pan." Provost may be his best stu­dent and has enor­mous re­spect for Wells as a pri­ma­ry in­flu­ence on his ca­reer.Wells is one of the great, un­sung he­roes of pan. He didn't have a huge per­for­mance ca­reer but was an in­cred­i­ble play­er. When he went to Berklee (School of Mu­sic) ...You couldn't go to Berklee and play pan. So he went to Berklee and stud­ied vibes, stud­ied the vi­bra­phone. That's even more amaz­ing to me, that he ba­si­cal­ly went to col­lege as an adult and picked up an in­stru­ment that he'd nev­er played be­fore and worked hard at it to the point where he was able to grad­u­ate from the pro­gram on that in­stru­ment.

In 1970, Wells start­ed a steel­band pro­gramme on Saint John called Steel Un­lim­it­ed as part of the Saint John School of the Arts. In lat­er years a sec­ond band, Steel Un­lim­it­ed II, was added to the pro­gramme.Provost first heard Steel Un­lim­it­ed II as a youth and in­stant­ly fell in love with pan. De­spite be­ing com­prised to­tal­ly of youth play­ers, the band trav­elled the world, in­clud­ing the East Coast in the sum­mer of 1992, places Provost found in­cred­i­ble.The first time we went out was for about a week and a half, two weeks... We did Dis­ney World and New York, then the fol­low­ing year we did Den­mark and Ger­many and that was a month, I be­lieve it was 30 days. And it was a ridicu­lous num­ber of per­for­mances. It was some­thing like 25 per­for­mances in 30 days.

This was heady stuff for a teenag­er and all be­cause of pan. The fol­low­ing year it was France and Switzer­land, and it was that ex­pe­ri­ence that changed Provost's fu­ture."Trav­el­ling with that group is ba­si­cal­ly what so­lid­i­fied my de­sire to be a mu­si­cian, like a work­ing mu­si­cian be­cause I love the trav­el­ling and I love the play­ing and I love meet­ing the peo­ple. And I like ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the cul­tures. And I couldn't think of a bet­ter way to do that than do­ing through mu­sic."Provost con­tin­ued his stud­ies with Wells in­to the mid-1990s. Dur­ing that era, Provost came with Wells to Trinidad in the sum­mers as part of a Pan Trin­ba­go ini­tia­tive where Wells re­turned to Trinidad and taught a mas­ter class in har­mo­ny and ar­rang­ing at the All Stars pan yard was his first chance to see pa­n­yards and the Trinidad scene and Provost soaked up the ex­pe­ri­ence.

In 1998, Provost was the first fea­tured steel pan soloist at the world-renowned Um­bria Jazz Fes­ti­val in Pe­ru­gia, Italy. Be­sides play­ing with pick­up groups for tourists in Saint John, how­ev­er, his ca­reer was put on the back burn­er in the ear­ly 2000s. Look­ing to­wards his fu­ture, Provost left the Caribbean for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh with a plan to ma­jor in com­put­er sci­ence. The pan jumbie caught up with him in Pitts­burgh, how­ev­er, and Provost hooked up with jazz mu­si­cians from Vir­gin Is­lands and start­ed play­ing reg­u­lar­ly in the area.He even­tu­al­ly left Pitts­burgh and end­ed up in the Vir­ginia Beach, Vir­ginia area where Provost start­ed di­rect­ing a pan pro­gramme. His so­lo ca­reer start­ed tak­ing off and he con­tin­ued to fo­cus more and more on jazz im­pro­vi­sa­tion, spend­ing a year in close cor­re­spon­dence study­ing with the great jazz in­struc­tor Char­lie Ba­na­cos.At home in Wash­ing­ton, DC, where he has lived since 2009, Provost splits his time be­tween teach­ing pan, work­ing on his mas­ters de­gree at George Ma­son Uni­ver­si­ty, and reg­u­lar per­for­mances with the bands Sine Qua Non, Afro Bop Al­liance, his own small group, and oth­er lo­cal groups.Provosts' reg­u­lar bands are as dif­fer­ent and eclec­tic as the pan­nist him­self. Sine Qua Non is a quin­tet led by bassist and com­pos­er Michael L Bowie that large­ly fea­tures his com­po­si­tions. They were just in­volved in a mul­ti-me­dia the­atri­cal show ear­li­er this fall. Afro Bop Al­liance is a larg­er Gram­my award-win­ning Latin jazz en­sem­ble. Provost is right at home in the Wash­ing­ton, DC jazz scene and was named Per­cus­sion­ist and Jazz Artist of the year in 2012.

In re­cent years, Provost has record­ed with an ever-grow­ing num­ber of jazz artists and re­cent­ly re­leased his de­but al­bum Her Favourite Shade of Yel­low in 2011. The ti­tle is a ref­er­ence to his wife's colour of choice and the al­bum is a bop-ori­ent­ed clas­sic that re­al­ly stands out among jazz pan re­leas­es. Provost record­ed the al­bum with a small group and fea­tures a num­ber of orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions and some jazz stan­dards by Miles Davis, Her­bie Han­cock and John Coltrane, as well as shim­mer­ing el­e­gant ver­sion of Lord Kitch­en­er's Rain-O-Ra­ma and Bob Mar­ley'sRe­demp­tion Song. His ded­i­ca­tion to pan has drawn praise from many such as Liam Teague, who fea­tured Provost with the North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty steel­band for the Fall 2010 con­cert in DeKalb, Illi­nois: "I have the great­est re­spect in the world for his artistry! What an amaz­ing mu­si­cian! I con­tin­ue to be amazed by his im­pro­vi­sa­tion and play­ing, in gen­er­al. He is a won­der­ful am­bas­sador for the steel­pan and is def­i­nite­ly tak­ing the in­stru­ment in­to new mu­si­cal ter­ri­to­ry. I con­tin­ue to be in­spired by his pro­found and bril­liant mu­si­cal state­ments."

Eti­enne Charles is equal­ly ef­fu­sive about the jazz pan­nist: "Vic­tor Provost is equal­ly root­ed in be­bop and ca­lyp­so tra­di­tions. He stands at the fore­front of the new gen­er­a­tion of steel­pan im­pro­vis­ers."Be­sides per­form­ing, Provost loves teach­ing pan and cur­rent­ly runs a steel­band at George Ma­son Uni­ver­si­ty and teach­es younger stu­dents at CAFE every Sat­ur­day. The Cul­tur­al Acad­e­my for Ex­cel­lence (CAFE) start­ed in 1996 as an af­ter-school and week­end pro­gram to help at risk youth stay in school and achieve with a pro­gram that fea­tures steel­band and mu­sic in­struc­tion.New projects are pop­ping up al­most week­ly for this young jazz-play­ing pan am­bas­sador. With a num­ber of record­ing ses­sions, gigs, and teach­ing on the hori­zon, the fu­ture looks bright and in­cred­i­bly busy for Vic­tor Provost.

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