The steel pan is more than a vacation sound to Joy Lapps — it’s about the joy of self-expression

Joy Lapps, a Toronto native of Antiguan and Barbadian descent, is one of the few women to specialize in an instrument that up until fairly recently was largely restricted to men: the steel pan, also known as a steel drum.

It’s front and centre on Joy Lapps’ first full-length album of original material called “Girl in the Yard.” It’s also one of the reasons she lists one of her professions on her web page as “creative womanist.”

“For me, it’s about — in whatever work that I do — seeing how I can centre women’s voices,” said Lapps, who will appear with her seven-piece Joy Lapps Project at the Toronto Jazz Festival on June 30 (the festival began Friday).

“In the earliest steel band days, women were not allowed to play. They were not allowed to even date a pan man,” Lapps said. “Parents didn’t want their daughters associated with people who played in steel bands.

“So for me to be able to be a woman who is composing, consulting and teaching any instrument where the tool is a steel pan is such a big deal. Because, even now, there aren’t many pan players who are operating in the space that I’m operating in.”

It’s certainly a fascinating instrument — one that is central to Afro-Caribbean and calypso music — and Lapps plays several variations of it, depending on the situation.

An Afro-Caribbean church is where she first caught the bug.

“They offered lessons,” Lapps recalled over the phone a few weeks ago. “And my godmother came running with her chequebook to pay for my first four lessons.

“So when other kids, after church, were running around or playing, I wanted to go to the steel-pan room and get more practice in because I just loved it. And that’s how it’s been for me.”

Her second and third albums — “Praise on Pan: How Great Thou Art” and “Make a Joyful Noise” — paid homage to her spiritual roots, and Lapps finally featured her own Latin and Afro-Caribbean-fused compositions on her five-song 2014 EP “Morning Sunrise.”

That evolving self-expression seems to have fully arrived on the uplifting “Girl in the Yard.” It’s a largely instrumental album with some wordless singing, which Lapps said really emphasizes melody.

“Sometimes there are songs I’ve written where there are actually words included, but I don’t put a vocal part in the song, so you’re just hearing the melody and only I know what it’s about, while the listener never will.

“I’m also thinking about how my Dad was a DJ growing up, so I listened to a lot of music. I’m always thinking of a singable, catchy chorus or melody that somebody can latch onto.”

However, she’s not sure she agrees with her interviewer’s assessment that all steel-band music generates a happy, joyful sound.

“That’s a really common thing that people say, but there are some songs on ‘Girl in the Yard’ that are a little bit more intense in nature,” Lapps countered. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re sad, but I wouldn’t characterize them as happy.

“I do definitely feel that because the steel pan is coming from Trinidad and Tobago and predominantly in the Caribbean … a lot of people associate that steel-pan sound with the beach, sunshine, vacation and freedom, even though I think I’m connecting it more to carnival art and the expression of that: the joy that comes out of that opportunity to really express oneself.”

Also bringing a thrill to the Joy Lapps Project camp was the appearance of one of her mentors, Andy Narell. The steel-pan legend guests on “Josie’s Smile” and Lapps, who describes herself as a “perpetual student,” studied with the master thanks to an Ontario Arts Council grant after falling in love with one of his albums when she performed at a festival in Antigua.

“Andy is a really kind, approachable person and really has a heart for sharing the music that he’s made, the people he’s done music with. He’s always giving,” she said.

“But I think the thing I took from him that was most impactful was how he worked with his wife. As a young Black artist, I wanted to be able to understand how he made that work, because as much as I really want to have a fruitful career as an artist, I also want a very fruitful personal life.”

For the record, Lapps’ husband is Larnell Lewis, drummer for popular U.S. jazz fusion band Snarky Puppy. And the duo will combine their talents hosting a late-night Afro-Caribbean jam at the Pilot (22 Cumberland St.) at 10 p.m. on June 30, following Lapps’ own jazz fest set at the OLG Grove Stage (91 Charles St. W.) at 6:45 p.m.

A recent recipient of a $10,000 Toronto Arts Foundation award, Lapps is also an educator who holds an International Bachelor of Business Administration honours degree from the Schulich School of Business at York University and a master of arts in history, development and composition for steel pan in the Jazz Ensemble at York.

She’s currently working with the York Region District School Board, the Toronto District School Board, and also with Humber College and the University of Toronto in Scarborough, as well as numerous corporations, to show the power of uniting community through steel-band music.

“What I like about the steel band and the steel pan is that we can get in there and play, achieve, build a song and have it sound like something really quickly, which is really effective in a team-building situation.

“It’s a community of people that are showing up for each other,” she said.

The Toronto Jazz Festival, which runs through July 2, offers more than 1,500 musicians over 10 days.

Jully Black kicked things off at the TD Main Stage on Friday and is among the many headliners offering free concerts throughout the fest, now in its 36th year. See torontojazz.com for information.

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