Earl Brooks Jr.

Earl Brooks Jr. was introduced to the Steel Pan in 1992 at age three. He then went on to playing his first gig being featured in the opening ceremony of the ‘Brian Lara Promenade’ in downtown Port of Spain, Trinidad W.I.  By age five, Earl was already performing at several functions and competitions including Pan Ramajay and numerous performances at the President’s residence.  In his early childhood, Earl was a member of The Music Makers, under the direction of Mrs. Merle Albino-de Coteau and in 1995 at age six, played in his first Panorama with Hatters Steel Orchestra.  It is amazing to note that he’s now the co-arranger for the band he played for in his first Panorama.  Earl has performed and accompanied well-established musicians such as his father Earl Brooks Sr., Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Eddie Cole, Arturo Tappin, Mungal Patasar, Cheryl Pepsii Riley, Frankie McIntosh to name a few.

In March of 2003, Earl became a stage side member of Exodus Steel Orchestra and was blessed to make numerous tours overseas with the band.  In 2005 for six weeks, they toured Japan performing 35 concerts in 30 different cities, then in 2006 they spent three weeks touring Europe.  Earl was the reigning champion in the improvisation category of the Biennial Trinidad & Tobago Music Festival in 2008 and 2009, before becoming a resident of the United States later that year after returning home from a three-week tour of France with a group of five musicians including his father.

In 2009 Earl was chosen to arrange for St. Augustine Senior Secondary Comprehensive School competing in the School Panorama. The piece was entitled River Lime and earned them second place in the competition.  In 2016 he also arranged for Exocubs Youth Steel Orchestra doing a wonderful rendition of Ricardo Dru’s Vagabond.  Earl was also a part of the promotional and marketing team for the Percussive Harmonic Instrument (PHI) that was designed and developed at the Steel Pan Development Centre, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus.

Earl has been featured on a few projects throughout the years such as “Steel Love,” produced and recorded by Yoichi Watanabe, and four tracks on Pelham Goddard’s album entitled “Agra Jazz.”  His first recording was at the age of eight, playing on his father’s CD entitled “Twin Towers.”  Most recently, Earl was a part of the debut album of the Merry Rockers group called “Embrace It” and a featured soloist on Etienne Charles’ “Black Echo V Steel.”  Earl just recently came from a two-week stint in Senegal, West Africa.

In Summer 2010, Earl enrolled into Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and in 2014 he was the headline artist alongside Arturo Tappin at Barbados’ Pan Fusion held at the residence of the Prime Minister.  Since then he’s been doing gigs within the United States with bands and people like Cheryl Pepsii Riley, Josh and the Jamtones, The Merry Rockers, as well as solo performances at places like Blue Note Jazz, Nublu Classic Brooklyn Bowl and Groove NYC.

In Jan 2018 Earl became an instructor at “Brooklyn Center for The Arts” in Brooklyn, New York using his own curriculum and assisting to develop theirs.  Earl is currently working on publishing his first album to be released in Fall 2020 ,and hopes to one day become a world-renowned entrepreneur, philanthropist, and educator in the music business, and go on to become ‘Dr. Brooks’ in the future.