Michael Reckord, Gleaner Writer

The Kingston Parish Church is the most recent convert to the growing number of Jamaican churches with steel bands. The Musical Apostles was formed in September, and last Sunday was ceremonially dedicated to the church by the new rector, Bishop Don Taylor. He declared that having the band is "a joy".

The band was the brainchild of Rev Jim Parks, until recently the assistant priest at Kingston Parish Church. The 14-member band is composed of five boys and nine girls from Kingston Parish Church and Christ Church Vineyard Town, and officially belongs to both churches.

'Most qualified' steel panist

Its leader, Gay Magnus, is "probably the most qualified" steel panist in Jamaica, according to her assistant, Dwight McBean, an organist at the Kingston Parish Church. He told The Sunday Gleaner that the band desperately needs more pans.

"We have only enough pans for five positions, the minimum number of positions in a steel band, so teaching the 14 members is tedious," he said. "Everything has to be taught three times, so that all 14 can learn. The church actually owns only five pans; the others are borrowed."

He said the church will be having a fund-raising concert on December 28 to raise funds for additional pans, the smallest of which, the tenor pan, costs about US$800. Part of the proceeds will also assist the ongoing restoration process of the church's 99-year-old pipe organ, which was built after its predecessor was destroyed in the 1907 earthquake.

The fund-raising concert in the church hall will feature numerous well-known artistes, including singers Veila Espeut, Carole Reid and Andrew Lawrence, singer-trumpeter Dwight Richards and actress Grace McGhie, as well as the Musical Apostles.

The oldest male member of the Musical Apostles is Joel Brown, a percussion student at the Edna Manley College's School of Music, who wants a career in music. He teaches the other members how to play the trap drum set and is a Roman Catholic.

Loves all types of music

Albert McDonald, 13, goes to Greater Portmore High School and wants to be a pilot. He loves music "of all types", he says, but adds, "I don't fancy dancehall. It's too violent - all about guns and killing."

David Natty, 12, the youngest member, goes to Wolmer's Boys' School and initially wanted to be a musician (for a while he played drums, the clarinet and sang on a choir), but now he wants to be a scientist. Both he and Albert attend Kingston Parish Church.

Karan Mellish-Fisher, who plays six bass (the large, whole drums), is the Sunday School superintendent at Christ Church and an employee of the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League. She has loved music from childhood and studied piano up to Grade 6.

Lauren Mais, 20, the tenor panist, played the violin for 10 years while a member of Dr Olive Lewin's Jamaica Orchestra for Youth and now plays with the Jamaica Young People's Symphony. She attends Christ Church and the University of the West Indies (UWI), where she is a medical sciences student. She plans to be a doctor.

Bandleader Gay Magnus developed a love for music early in life as a piano student. While at UWI, she joined the Panoridim Steel Orchestra on the Mona campus and after graduating remained an active member. She has held several leadership positions, including band captain, musical director and musical arranger. She continues in the last-named position.

Degrees in music

Magnus is also the recipient of a bachelor's degree in musical arts, earned while at UWI's St Augustine campus in Trinidad, and a master's degree in music (specialising in steelpan music) from Northern Illinois University, USA.

She was the steelpan instructor at Northern Caribbean University and is the coordinator of the music elective programme at the University of Technology, the musical director of the steel band there and musical director of the Stella Maris Church Steel Band. She has performed on several recordings and participated in steel band competitions and concerts abroad. She has started writing and is publishing, in sections, a manual on steelpan music.

McBean began taking piano lessons at eight, but at 13 started playing the organ while at The Church of the Ascension, Mona. He continued with that instrument while at the Jamaica School of Music. In 1983, while studying organ and piano tuning and maintenance in England, he received a scholarship from the church in Mona and was able to continue private studies in organ playing.

He received two associate diplomas in organ performance while in England, from the Royal College Of Music and the London College of Music. In 2002, the Jamaican Government awarded McBean the Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service for his contribution as an organist. He both plays and tunes pianos and organs throughout the Caribbean.

Plays with Stella Maris

He started playing the steelpan with Bethel Baptist Steel Band in the early '90s and now plays with Stella Maris Steel Band.

"I'm your new rector," Bishop Taylor told the congregation at the 7:30 a.m. service at the Kingston Parish Church on Sunday. Jokingly, he added, "for better or for worse".

It was clear, though, from the reception he received at his first service as rector - in the church where he worshipped as a young man - that his congregants were delighted to see him. He is in the process of retiring as Anglican Bishop of New York.

In opening remarks before formally delivering his sermon, Bishop Taylor said having the new steel band is "a joy". After it plays at the December 28 fund-raising concert, Bishop Taylor may not hear the band again until he returns to Jamaica in June.

He explained that his final service in his New York church will be at the end of May. He returns to New York early in January but hopes, he said, to be back at Kingston Parish Church for Easter services.

The bishop disclosed that Jamaicans in New York are upset with him for leaving. (He has retired from the New York church but, McBean told The Sunday Gleaner, the retirement age is five years later in Jamaica for Anglican priests).

From one Jamaican to another

Bishop Taylor continued: "I told them I was just moving from one part of Jamaica (in NY) to another. Someone told me that in New York I have more Jamaican Anglicans to minister to than Bishop Reid has in Jamaica, so I might as well stay." His reply, the bishop said, was to invite his New York congregation to visit him in Jamaica.

Appealing for the support of his congregation, Bishop Taylor said "No priest or bishop can do everything. I'll need your help."

When he revealed that he had arrived in Jamaica the night before to find that his four bags with clothes had not travelled on the Air Jamaica plane with him, it appeared that the first bit of help he'd need would be from the airline.