JOSHUA JENKINS QUARTET

featuring STEEL DRUMS

With explosive energy and rhythms that you can’t help but dance to, this unique quartet places steel drums in the center of mesmerizing fusion of Latin and African music traditions.

Deeply rooted in the American jazz tradition, but never ceasing to innovate and experiment, pianist Joshua Jenkins leans on influences from Brazil, Cuba, West Africa and the French Caribbean, among others. The group will perform original compositions, as well as unique arrangements of jazz standards and Congolese soukous songs.

This special show heavily features the steel pan (also known as steel drum), the backbone sound of the iconic Caribbean music from Trinidad and Tobago. Modern steel drums are made from large industrial metal barrels. Some musicians use four pansticks, holding two in each hand. This grew out of Trinidad and Tobago’s early 20th-century Carnival percussion groups known as tamboo bamboo. The 55-gallon oil drum was used to make steelpans from around 1947. The Trinidad All-Steel Pan Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), formed to attend the Festival of Britain in 1951, was the first steelband whose instruments were all made from oil drums.

Chosen as one of six artists to participate in Strathmore’s Artist in Residence program in 2022-2023, Joshua has been an active and innovative part of DC’s jazz scene since 2019. With explosive energy and a penchant for performing the music of Latin America and the African diaspora, Joshua has been playing the piano since he was seven years old, and began performing in public at the age of twelve. A proud alum of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., he holds a Bachelor’s of Music from Temple University, where he studied classical Piano Performance and Spanish. Alongside fellow Ellington students, he performed on stage at the Kennedy Center and Strathmore Music Center with artists such as Ledisi, Patti LaBelle, and Sting.

Joshua was the Jazz Ensemble Director of CAAPA (the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts) from 2018 to 2020. He has a keen interest in Afro-Cuban drumming, and has visited Cuba several times to conduct research and take lessons. As a graduate of the Strathmore Artist in Residence (AIR) program, he continues to have a strong relationship with that institution and its stunning array of talent. Most recently, in both May 2025 and February 2026, Joshua headlined performances at the historic Blues Alley jazz club in Washington, D.C.

Beginning in 2023, Joshua has been the keyboardist for Downtown Tumbao, a Latin jazz ensemble that mixes contemporary Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, and other Pan-American sounds to create a unique fusion.