Pyrate Navy - Doesn't say what the musicians were doing but they were present on early 18th century European merchant vessels operating in the West Indies:

“Thus narrowly efcaped, they failed for Newfoundland, and arrived upon the Banks the latter end of June 1720. They entered the Harbour of Trepaffi with their black Colours flying, Drums beating, and Trumpets founding. There were two and twenty Veffels in the Harbour, which the Men all quitted upon the Sight of the Pyrate, and fled afhore.”

“The four firft of thefe Prifoners, it was evident to the Court, ferved as Mufick on Board the Pyrate, were forced lately from the feveral Merchant Ships they belonged to; and that they had, during this Confinement, an uneafy Life of it, having fometimes their Fiddles, and often their Heads broke, only for excufing themfelves, or faying they were tired, when any Fellow took it in his Head to demand a tune.”

“James White, whofe Bufinefs was Mufick, and was on the Poop of the Pyrate Ship in Time of A?tion with the Swallow,...”
[Johnson, Capt. C., A General History of the Pyrates, 2nd ed, (London, 1724, pp.296, 302)]