Victor Provost

Victor Provost belongs to a select circle of musicians who have worked steadily to overturn widespread assumptions about steelpans, also known as steel drums, within jazz. Along with his work as a pannist, he operates as a composer, educator, and recording artist. Equipped with strong credentials in jazz and Caribbean music, this sideman has traveled and recorded alongside such figures as Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masekela, Nicholas Payton, Ron Blake, Wycliffe Gordon, and numerous others. His own recordings have earned both critical praise and awards.

Although he now makes his home in Washington, D.C., Provost grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Formal training started at age ten at the St. John School of the Arts. With Rudy Wells as his mentor, he acquired proficiency on the pans and joined the youth steel pan orchestra Steel Unlimited II. Over the course of his studies he encountered and performed soul, blues, calypso, reggae, soca, and jazz, yet jazz exerted the strongest pull. Before finishing school he was already appearing at music festivals with several ensembles. In 1999 he became the first steel pan player invited to the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy.

He toured with the Real Silk Band and held a full-time post in Dion Parson & the 21st Century Band, whose lineup included Ron Blake; he also belongs to Paquito D’Rivera’s Grammy-winning AfroBop Alliance. His first album as a leader, Her Favorite Shade of Yellow, appeared on several jazz publications’ lists of the Top Five year-end jazz albums for 2011. Leading his own quintet, he performed on international festival and club circuits while continuing an active schedule as a sideman and educator.

Provost holds an adjunct professorship in music at George Mason University and presents residencies and master classes throughout the United States and the Caribbean at such schools as the Berklee College of Music, University of Akron, Miami University, NYU, and Northern Illinois University. As Arts Ambassador to the U.S. Virgin Islands he received Special Congressional Recognition in 2014 and returns regularly to perform and teach through Parson’s community-based arts initiative, the United Jazz Foundation. Washington, D.C.’s City Paper has named him “Percussionist of the Year” for six straight years. He joined the Sunnyside roster in early 2017 and released his label debut, Bright Eyes, which reached number five on the jazz charts.