Ron Reid is a multi-instrumental artist with an overwhelming passion for creating music, especially music that celebrates his rich Caribbean heritage. This Trinidadian-born bassist, steel drummer, composer, and educator has been a standard-bearer for improvisational Caribbean music for the past 30 years. Currently an Associate Professor of Contemporary Writing and Production at Berklee College of Music in Boston, he teaches several arranging classes as well as Steelpan and Afropop ensembles.
Ron began his career as a bassist in the late Lord Kitchener’s Calypso Revue Tent in 1978 and has recorded and performed with an honor roll of calypso and soca artists, including the Mighty Sparrow, Shadow, Lord Relator, Ella Andall and David Rudder.
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Ron was the musical director for the Trinidad Theatre Workshop’s productions of Derek Walcott’s Joker of Seville and Dream on Monkey Mountain, as well as a performer for the production premiere of Steel at Boston’s Hasty Pudding Theatre. He has also composed music for several television programs in Trinidad and Tobago, including:
- Who the Cap Fits
- Morral
- Caribbean Eye
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- The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon
- The Gayelle TV Theme
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His steelpan infused sextet Sunsteel performs an eclectic mix of Trinidadian folk, Afro-Caribbean, and jazz compositions and includes some of Boston’s finest musicians. Ron shares his pan-playing talents with David Williams’ J’ouvert and Calabash of Toronto, Canada. As a steel drummer has recorded with artists as diverse as Myanna, Grace Kelly, and Bill Harley. As a jazz bassist, Ron has also performed with Randy Weston, Carmen Lundy, Lenora Helm, and Antonio Hart.
