Amoco Renegades Steel Orchestra

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Amoco Renegades Steel Orchestra · Amoco Renegades is a steel orchestra from Trinidad, led by the arranger Jit Samaroo. A steel orchestra consists of dozens of players on steelpans, instruments made from oil drums on which the player strikes melodies, chords and bass parts with sticks. The steelpan arose in Trinidad in the twentieth century and belongs to the island's calypso and carnival.

Music and breakthrough

The orchestra came to the attention of a wide public in 1990. On 14 July of that year Jean-Michel Jarre gave a free concert in the Paris business district of La Défense, for an audience of some 2.5 million people. Amoco Renegades played there on steel drums under the direction of Jit Samaroo. The concert coincided with the record Waiting for Cousteau, on which Jarre worked the steelpan and calypso rhythms into his electronic music, and the orchestra played on Calypso.

Influence

The collaboration shows how an instrument from Caribbean folk music ended up in an electronic pop production. Jarre's synthesizers gained a warm, rhythmic and acoustic sound as a result.

Listening