In Steelpan Ambassadors: The US Navy Steel Band, 1957–1999, Andrew R. Martin presents a detailed account chronicling the US Navy Steel Band's development from the band's inception through the budget cuts that permanently dissolved the ensemble in 1999. Using eyewitness accounts, correspondence from multiple band members, and detailed information about the band's founder, Admiral Daniel Gallery, Martin examines the Navy's overt cultural appropriation of the instrument and musical genre and stresses the band's importance as a goodwill ambassador and recruiting tool for the US Navy.

As Martin states in his Introduction, the US Navy Steel Band had very little impact on the development of steel bands in Trinidad, but was integral in the dissemination of steel band throughout the United States. Admiral Gallery's obsession and overt influence with the Steel Band and his position of power within the US Navy, was fueled in part by the Calypso “craze” of the 1950s and 1960s. Admiral Gallery's enterprising determination to make the US Navy Steel Band more popular than rock ’n’ roll repeatedly took the band off their original base in San Juan, Puerto Rico to tour the Caribbean and continental United States, eventually appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and NBC's The Today Show. Although the US Navy Band was not as commercially successful as the admiral hoped, Martin's text connects Admiral Gallery's entrepreneurship directly to developments in writing and arranging for steel band along with important innovations in pan building and design. US Navy Steel Band musicians Charles Roeper and Franz Grissom were integral in creating arrangements for the ensemble using western musical notation allowing the classically trained band members to learn new repertoire quickly. The Admiral's commissioning work with leading pan pioneers Ellie Mannette and Cliff Alexis ultimately provided these innovators with the income and materials to advance the art form. Considering the recent passing of Ellie Mannette (2018) and Cliff Alexis (2019), Martin's text is particularly timely in honoring these individuals.

The first three chapters are devoted to Admiral Gallery and his steel band obsession. Particularly interesting, is Martin's investigation of the correspondence between Admiral Gallery and Pete Seeger. Through the analysis and discussion of written correspondence between Gallery and Seeger, Martin offers a personal and humorous look at the unlikely relationship between the admiral and the folklorist-turned-consultant for the US Navy. Martin cites the admiral's influence in a discussion on the band's recordings from the 1960s through 1990s. Incorporating the changes in studio recording technology, Martin demonstrates how the US Navy Steel Band studio albums refined recording techniques and set the standard to record future bands with consistently superior audio quality. Chapter 5 details the band's South American ‘goodwill’ tour of 1960 as a public relations tool and part of President Eisenhower's People-to-People initiative. Despite Admiral Gallery's retirement in July 1960, he remained integral organizing the logistics of the three-week tour spanning eleven countries on the continent. The demanding tour schedule and anticommunist undertones of the tour provide an ethnographic glimpse into the life of a Cold War–era US military service musician.

Upon return from the South American tour and the departure of Admiral Gallery, Martin recounts, the band moved from Puerto Rico to the Algiers naval base in New Orleans in 1973. This move ultimately substantially saved the Navy in travel costs, allowing the band to tour the continental United States regularly, but the move also provided a perfect match for the Mardi Gras culture of New Orleans. Martin chronicles the band's “adolescent years—1978 to 1995” (25) in New Orleans, documenting a dramatic increase in touring, particularly during the more than four hundred concerts the group played in 1976 as part of the US Bicentennial celebration. During this time, the band enlisted its first female band members (originally as vocalists), serving through the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES) program. Martin also argues the heightened visibility of the band in its “adolescence” contributed to the development of steel band programs in academia, particularly with founding the steel program at Northern Illinois University.

Martin closes the story of the US Navy Steel Band with an investigation into the budget cuts that ultimately terminated the band in 1999. Prior to its elimination, the band was used to demonstrate the racial diversity of the US Navy by including African American and Latino band members. Martin includes a brief interview with Greg Fritz, the last member to join the band in 1999. Greg Fritz was a pannist prior to his entry into the Navy and the first person to specifically audition for the US Navy Steel Band. Prior to Fritz, the members assigned to the band were generally instrumentalists from other US Navy ensembles. Upon assignment to the US Navy Steel Band, these musicians would leave their primary instruments to learn pan, a requirement first implemented by Admiral Gallery. Many would be stationed within the band for a two-year period and then return to their primary instrument in another ensemble. With the current proliferation of steel band programs in both secondary education and collegiate ensembles in the United States, one wonders what could have become of the ensemble as the potential for more pannists auditioning for the band could have increased.

The strength of Martin's work lies in the detailed history of Admiral Gallery's personal enthusiasm with the development of the band. Martin's uncensored portrayal of Gallery's personality, passion, and the admiral's sense of cultural superiority are demonstrated throughout the text. Martin does not withhold the accounts of the casual racism of the time, underlining that the US Navy Steel Band imagined itself as a force for goodwill and relationship building. Indeed, the accounts of the 1960 South American tour were positive, both in building rapport with Latin America, but also using the opportunity to check for communist sympathizers within the Cold War. Particularly valuable are the connections Martin creates between the development of musicianship in the band and the construction and technology of the instrument. Martin's discussion of how the band's sound develops through refined ensemble writing and arranging, advances in instrument construction, and recording technology, serve as a model for the evolution of the steel band art form across these decades.

The most striking weakness in the text is the editing. Redundant passages can be found between chapters, with explanations or details that have been recycled. Moreover, several misspellings are found throughout, most noticeably in the country names listed on the band's West African tour: “Cote D'vore and Sierra Leon” (194). These shortcomings should be noted by University Press of Mississippi.

Although Martin does comment that the US Navy Steel Band is not influential on the development of pan in Trinidad, the text lacks the Trinidadian perspective. With his thorough portrayal and acknowledgement of the band's cultural appropriations, Martin's text raises significant questions for future research. Was there a mutual feeling of “goodwill” despite the obvious appropriation? Were there lasting impressions of the band in Trinidad and Tobago? How is the US Navy Steel Band perceived in Trinidad today?

Overall, Steelpan Ambassadors: The US Navy Steel Band, 1957–1999 is a welcome addition to research available on the development of steel band. As current scholarship by Stephen Stuempfle and Shannon Dudley have centered on the steel band in Trinidad, Martin's work offers important insight on the development and proliferation of the steel band across the United States.Footnote ¹