Ron Reid

Ron Reid is a steel drummer, bassist and Associate Professor of Contemporary Writing and Production at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches arranging, music history, ensemble and steelpan performance. He began his professional career in 1978 as a bassist for the late Lord Kitchener’s Calypso Revue in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and has recorded and performed with a cavalcade of major calypso and soca artists including the Mighty Shadow, Sparrow, Superior, Relator, David Rudder, Ella Andall and Andre Tanker.

Ron has recorded with Boston-based groups Myanna and Sonabo, and gifted saxophonist Grace Kelly, among many others. He has also performed with jazz artists Randy Weston, Carmen Lundy, Luciana Souza, Dave Samuels’ Caribbean Jazz Project, Lenora Zenzalia Helm, Andy Narell, Othello Molineaux, Vincent Herring and Antonio Hart, and continues to freelance as a bassist. Ron is featured as a leader on two critically acclaimed steel pan jazz recordings: Calypsoldier and Reid, Wright and be Happy with bassist David ‘Happy’ Williams and the Orville Wright. Ron’s Sunsteel group, which plays an eclectic fusion of Trinidad folk, jazz and afro-cuban melodies, has been featured at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington, D.C. His new CD ‘Precious Metals’—a world-afro-jazz fusion of steel pans, brass and exotic percussion recorded on the Mud Hut Records label—will be released in the spring of 2016.

Ron conducted the Woodtrin Steel Orchestra at the International Youth Music Festival in Aberdeen, Scotland, and the Phase II Pan Groove at Trinidad’s Pan is Beautiful Biannual Festival. He has also arranged for several legendary steelbands, including the Invaders and Birdsong.

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