Caribbean – Steel Pan Player Jamma

Jamma - Steel Pan Player

Welcome to MIGHTY JAMMA'S world of pan!!!

Jamma started playing music at a very early age, jamming on pots and pans etc. When he was 9 years old he moved on to playing the bass guitar and at the age of 11 he moved on to playing the steel pan and since then he has never looked back. The pan is such a wonderful sounding instrument, which gave him a burning desire to play it to levels of excellences.

This certainly payed off with the winnings of three (1987 1998, 1999) National Steel Band Soloist Championship of Great Britain. After this Jamma took up more of a commercial look at the music. He was producing and performing at many corporate events such as weddings, parties, on cruise ships etc, but still looking for a bigger musical outlet for his talents.

The 1990's saw the birth of the Jamma Caribbean Jazz Band. Using the steelpan as a lead instrument, mixed with the sounds of double bass, piano and saxaphones giving a new flavour to UK's Jazz festivals. Jamma would regularly perform at clubs like Ronnie Scotts, The Jazz Cafe, The Cork Jazz festival, performing with some of the greats such as Courtney Pine, Richard Bailey, Wayne Batchelor, to name a few, that brought my performances to another level.

Pan In Flight, Jamma and Friends Albums are great demonstrations of some of my compositions played by great international musicians. Performing in many different countries like Trinidad, Japan, many places in Europe and the UK really helped to bring the great wonderful sounds of the pan to wider audience. Other songs like Bumcy Party, Dancing, have proved to be real party hits. Bumcy party DVD is currently shown on Sky TV, Actv channel. Other albums like Cool Evenings, Relaxing Nights 1 & 2 + Reggae Pan Chirstmas in fact all the albums have satisfied many people all over the world.

The Birmingham School of pan (BSP) came about due to the demand by youngsters in the community wanting to play the instrurment. Jamani, my son who was 7 at the time, had been learning to play and has been performing on the pan for some time. Jamani is an excellent player, he is loved by everyone who sees him perform, watch this space for more on Jamani the young Pan wizard. When he would be out playing or practicing in the garden at home all his friends would come round and want to play.

Next step was to hire a studio, get instruments and start teaching. This proved to be very successful with the youngsters performing on TV, Radio Stations including the BBC Web site, News papers, the BSP has also performed for Sir Viv Richards, Brian Lara, performed at the Notting Hill Carnival, The Birmingham Carnival, The NEC, Symphony Hall and many more venues.