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‘Steel pan had a stigma and was considered an instrument from the ghetto’
Chris Searle interviews master of the jazz steel pan LEON FOSTER-THOMAS on the release of his album Calasanitus (Krossover Jazz Records)
[Rupert Burley]
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MUSICAL snobbery has often consigned the beauty and melodism of steel pan as a lower form of musical instrument, and pan jazz virtuoso Leon Foster-Thomas, born in San Fernando, Trinidad, the centre of the oil workers’ trade union, has faced such racist and class bigotry all his musical life.
“Steel pan had a stigma and was considered an instrument from the ghetto. People associated with pan weren’t considered model citizens and women weren’t allowed to play pan.
“I’ve never really thought about it, but if I had to put it into words, I consider steel pan a symbol of my roots, my deep, deep African roots.”
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