Andy Narell

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. 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.

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.

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. Narell also performed in South Africa in 1999 in front of a crowd of 80,000 people.

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

Discography

Solo/with various

With Caribbean Jazz Project

With Sakésho

Collections

Guest appearances