Jazz in the islands — Issue #8 (Digital)

WHAT’S INSIDE

Welcome All

Like many things in the world at March 2020 when the global pandemic was declared, Jazz in the Islands isolated and pivoted. But unlike many other ventures, this magazine is linked to Caribbean jazz festival life and the musicians within. These last three years were devastating to many creators. In 2023, we’re back! Festival life resurrected in Barbados, French Guiana, Martinique, Cuba and Haiti. And into 2023, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Dominica are set to relaunch their jazz festivals. Resilience is a Caribbean hallmark and we are here to document it all.

Nigel A. Campbell Editor nigel@jazz.tt

Departments

2 First Look

Searching for Caribbean jazz beginnings in the UK

30 Caribbean jazz festivals return

33 Three Island Songbirds

38 Album Reviews

Reginald Cyntje, Ronald Boo Hinkson, Jeremy Hector, Josean Jacobo & Tumbao, Ijó, Grégory Privat, Jany McPherson, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Nubya Garcia, Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Aymée Nuviola, Jesse Ryan, Michael Boothman, Anthony Joseph, Tigana Thomas, Theon Cross, John Arnold, Charlie Halloran, Arnaud Dolmen, Elan Trotman, Joy Lapps, Leon Foster Thomas, Jonathan Michel, Godwin Louis, MizikOpéyi, Raise. Scan or click the QR codes below the album to connect to the online digital marketplace.

21 Andy Narell: Steelpan jazz innovator and iconoclast

An American in Paradise, revisited. Steelpan jazz musician pushes the envelope on the sound and music of the steelpan and steelband, and its global spread.

5 Jazz Artists on the Greens Souvenir Programme. 25 March 2023, Trinidad. The premier Caribbean Jazz event in Trinidad and Tobago is here once again. Welcome to the return to jazz! Read the programme in this issue.

This

A. Campbell Art

Design NiCam Graphics Editorial and Advertising Assistant Amanda Carr Contributors Tony Bell, Harold Homer II.

25 Tony Chasseur is Kréyol Djaz Martiniquan chanteur and producer making Créole jazz hip in the world

4 Adan Hagley: Insomnia

young jazz lion’s debut album, Insomnia, is reviewed for influences.

30 PAPJazz Haïti: COVID-19 Survivor

The outlier in the pandemic jazz season of 2021. Live, hybrid, alive, homegrown.

FIRST LOOK

A little of this and that, things to do.

Searching for Caribbean jazz beginnings in the UK

In recent years there has been a new wave of jazz musicians in London who are largely the children of Caribbean immigrants. This movement, sometimes referred to as the “London jazz renaissance” or the “new London jazz scene,” has been credited with bringing new energy and creativity to the genre, and has gained international attention for its innovative approach to jazz.

The musicians in this movement often draw on their Caribbean heritage and other cultural influences, blending jazz with elements of funk, hip-hop, electronic music, and other genres. They have been praised for their virtuosity and their willingness to push the boundaries of jazz, incorporating unconventional rhythms, harmonies, and structures into their music. Some of the key figures in this movement include saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia, Theon Cross, Soweto Kinch, Moses Boyd and others.

In a UK that saw jazz as an American phenomenon prior to WWII, the interventions of pre-war Caribbean pioneers like Guyanaese bandleader Ken

‘Snakehips’ Johnson, Jamaican trumpeter Leslie Thompson, Barbadian trumpeter Dave Wilkins, and the Trinidadians, clarinettist Carl Barriteau and saxophonist, Dave ‘Baba’ Williams, on jazz beginnings in the UK are significant to the modern sound of jazz.

London-based record label Honest Jon’s Records has been compiling the music from multi-cultural UK in a series called London Is the Place For Me that charts the music of the West Indian and African immigrants from the postWindrush era coming forward. Calypso, ska and a jazz that has its moorings outside of the blues are explored. Critical to the sound of UK jazz now, as noted before, were Caribbean musicians who brought their influences to the music.

Joe Harriott, alto saxophonist from Jamaica, who became a pioneer of free jazz, was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair. Harriott developed a style that fused Charlie Parker with the mento and calypso music he grew

up with so much so that even in his later experiments, those roots were always audible. He along with his fellow Caribbean bandmates, Shake Keane from St. Vincent and Colridge Goode from Jamaica solidified this “abstract” or “free-form” music to create a subgenre that rivaled the contemporary begnnings of Ornette Coleman’s free jazz experiments in the US.

Trinidadians Russ Henderson and Wilfred Woodley on piano, Fitzroy Coleman on guitar, Rupert Nurse as arranger, along with Jamaican Ernest Ranglin on guitar, who all recorded in the 1950s on labels like Melodisc in the UK, added the “heat” — calypso and ska elements — that shaped the destiny of the modern jazz musicans making a statement globally, at present. (One must also read of the influence of Trinidadian Lord Woodbine on four lads from Liverpool who would rule the music world forever!) Those early jazz recordings and their distribution served as a catalyst for the development of the UK music industry and cemented the Caribbean contributions to its growth.

REVISITED AND REVIEWED

Adan Hagley: Insomnia (2019)

A review of the debut album of a young lion in jazz in Trinidad

VSNaipaul implied that “we are a country of mimic men,” [Trinidad and Tobago] but our geographic location in the world, our social history makes the pull of myriad sonic and rhythmic influences inevitable.

Adan Hagley on his debut album project, Insomnia, has made those connections from his wide listening palette. He cites Michel Camillo and Snarky Puppy, but one hears Ray Holman’s melodic template, Élan Parlē’s early harmonic experiments and the late Raf Robertson’s bold fusion ideas as sonic references that have all contributed to an impressive recording career launch in this music space. The local is not eschewed for the foreign as a model for jazz fusion access and success, and this is a good thing in our context as a region adding to the burgeoning jazz canon.

Adan Hagley returned to Trinidad in 2013 with an undergraduate degree from the important Berklee College of Music, and it shows in his use of an elevated music language and vocabulary that is necessary for serious jazz

conversations among soloists and the harmonic ideas that generate that musical interplay.

Hagley on keyboards along with his tight rhythm section of Dareem Chandler on drums, Rodney Alexander on bass, Miguel Charles on guitar and Sheena Richardson on percussion, create a space for effective soloing mainly by Daniel Ryan on saxophones and Mikhail Salcedo on tenor pan, but the give and take, the call and response of the members of this band make for an album experience that does not disappoint, even for ears that have heard the evolution of kaisojazz towards wider Caribbean rhythms and pulses over the years.

The music on Insomnia, mainly originals, is more than calypso jazz in the 21st century, it is an amalgam of the wider Latin jazz influences and a funk aesthetic that is modern and accessible. The opening track, “Snarkyish” follows the pattern of the big band funk jazz arrangement of its namesake, Grammy winners Snarky Puppy. Ryan’s blistering tenor sax solo clears the way for Salcedo’s and later Hagley’s accelerating solos.

The Latin jazz-themed title track has Chandler and Ryan layering their instruments that reminds one of Steely Dan’s “Aja” — with Steve Gadd and Wayne Shorter in similar respective roles — in its effective crescendo towards the sublime without the chaos of mingling timbres. “Shadow Dance” is very reminiscent of the calypso jazz that was the basis for a local renaissance of the genre a couple decades ago with its impulse to make one dance and its sonic heartbeat reflective of a soca rhythm. A hint of Andy Narell’s melodic ideas with pan can also be heard here.

WELCOME TO THE RETURN OF JAZZ!

After 3 years away from you, our loyal patrons and new “discoverers”, due to the pandemic, we welcome you back to Jazz! In 2020, we were set to celebrate our 18th Edition with the introduction of French Antillean jazz stars to add a new flavour to the local Caribbean jazz experience. Alas, when the Prime Minister made the announcement, first of the restriction of entry for people from France, and then a complete lockdown of our border, it was a double whammy.

That setback, however, allowed us to plan the continuing exercise of finding and nurturing new talent, curating experiences borne on the shoulders of music artist/entrepreneurs, and sadly, to say some goodbyes. In January 2022, Clive Zanda, “the father of kaisojazz,” died. We say “rest in peace and thank you for gracing our stage and guiding us to our new music.” How do we count legacy? It is not by quantity, but by quality.

As 2022 faded, and 2023 dawned, the world was put on notice that there would be a new beginning for creativity, and a new opportunity to release pent up energies. Festival seasons began, and we saw the return of jazz in Barbados, Haiti, Cuba, in Trinidad and Tobago. Production One Ltd., after the limited Taste of Carnival in 2022, began the new Meet The Artist Live Concert Series, not so much to reacquaint audiences with fan favourites, but to measure the continuous commercial appeal of our local talent, and to record these experiences to make a case for a new way of “festivaling” in the Caribbean jazz space.

In the landscape of jazz festivals in Trinidad and

Tobago, Jazz Artists on the Greens™ continues to make Caribbean Jazz a bigger draw for audiences. In 2023, we welcome talent from the Caribbean and the USA on to the JAOTG Stages.

Contemporary jazz, steelpan jazz, a mix of jazz vocals and instrumental music will be offered to patrons at this return to jazz. Familiar favourites, Bajan Elan Trotman and American Andy Narell will perform with local ensembles to bring their magic to local audences. Collaboration is the key theme in 2023. Dean Williams and Clifford Charles will have guests that showcase our best. The icon that is Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe and superlative jazz song stylist Charmaine Forde will work with Charles, while D Piano Girl Johanna will mix it up with Williams to announce her entré into the local jazz festival circuit. The world will hear Ju-né sing, and it will not be disappointed! And if that wasn’t enough, we have restarted our LiveStream and Pay-per-view options for residents outside these islands. World class regional and international talent in a relaxed picnic ambience combine to create the ultimate Caribbean jazz experience. Three stages, many artists, a thousand memories. Our mantra remains, Come for the lime...Discover the music!™ It’s an invitation to bring friends, invite the curious, entice the cynical, and just have a fabulous time with great music, interesting merchandise, tasty food—and drink—and high fashion, as only we can do it here in the Caribbean. Welcome to the return of Jazz Artists on the Greens™.

Jazz Artists on the Greens™ 2024 is March 16, 2024

Production One Ltd. is a company committed to the top quality production of high profile concerts and to expanding the audience for Caribbean jazz, and other live music in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean. This will be achieved not by compromising the music but through a dynamic and highly visible marketing strategy and by developing the public’s trust through a commitment to quality. In addition to fulfilling the role of a traditional concert promoter, we also specialize in providing opportunities for sponsorship by adding value to events through sophisticated marketing, advertising, design, public relations and production of collateral media.

Directors: Anton Doyle, Rolf Doyle, Martin Wellington, Maria Wellington, Keith Niles, Nigel A. Campbell

Production One Ltd.

PO Box 1919, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

info@productiononeltd.com

www.productiononeltd.com

SOUVENIR PROGRAMME designed by Jett Samm Publishing

ANDY NARELL

Andy Narell returns to the Greens for the first time since 2014. He recorded his first album as a leader in 1979 and has never looked back. He’s spent the past 39 years exploring the possibilities of the steel pan in contemporary music, and is equally known as a jazz improviser and steel band composer. His work is the subject of two documentary films: Andy and the Jumbies and Calypso Fever. In 2017, Narell was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.

His most recent album releases are Dis 1.4. Raf, a two-CD set jazz album, featuring both his Paris based quintet and a duet with Cuban pianist Janysett McPherson (who was on the Greens in 2019), that is dedicated to his close friend and kaisojazz innovator, the late Raf Robertson, We Kinda Music, a collection of new and experimental music for steel band, and Like a Child, on which Andy plays a sampled steel orchestra, a breakthrough project utilizing the plug-in Andy Narell Steel Pans/The Ellie Mannette Collection.

Teaching and touring, innovating and recording are all part of the work Narell continues to do to spread the idea of a steelpan as a lead instrument in a jazz band. He was not the first, but his 18 albums as a leader, and many more with the bands Caribbo, Caribbean Jazz Project, Sakesho, and others prove that there is a lot of music to be heard from the steelpan of Andy Narell.

ELAN TROTMAN

Elan Trotman returns to the Greens after headlining at the 2018 show. One of the most exciting up-and-comers among a new generation of saxophonists, Trotman has emerged as an exhilarating force in the world of contemporary jazz. Born and raised in Barbados and educated at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Trotman approaches jazz in his own way. Blending Caribbean rhythms from his roots with skillful horn textures, his playing is full of surprises. He has quickly become one of jazz’s most thrilling and emotive performers as he continues to stand out and push boundaries as a composer, performer, teacher and recording artist. Dear Marvin is Trotman’s eighth album, and second on the Woodward Avenue Records imprint, and Brighter Days Ahead is his ninth. Albums available at the JAOTG Merchandise Tent.

Trotman has recorded and performed with a number of worldrenowned musicians, including Michael McDonald, Roberta Flack, Jonathan Butler, Keiko Matsui, Johnny Gill, Jeffrey Osborne, Sheila E, Marcus Miller, Will Downing, Earl Klugh, Jeff Lorber, Peter White, Peabo Bryson, Brian Simpson and many others.

Trotman is also the Executive Producer and host of the Barbados Jazz Excursion, a jazz and golf weekend island escapade, which brings hundreds of music lovers, including Trinis, to Barbados for a getaway with the stars of contemporary jazz.

CLIFFORD CHARLES

Innovative Caribbean smooth jazz guitarist Clifford Charles from Trinidad and Tobago was influenced by the best guitarists in the business, such as George Benson, Norman Brown, Ronald “Boo” Hinkson, Lee Ritenour and Earl Klugh. For Charles, jazz is the musical expression that brings the greatest satisfaction to both artist and audience when he commands a stage. His musical journey on the circuit sharpened his fiery, yet free-flowing style on the guitar. Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian and Trinidad’s Fitzroy Coleman are also among his influences. So what can Caribbean and international music audiences expect from Clifford Charles? Nothing less than a tapestry of smooth jazz expression, created from the very soul of the artiste! Five albums later, he is a mainstay on the Greens having featured several times, last being 2016. His guests are the icons in local music: the sublime song stylist Charmaine Forde, and the legend Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe, whose appearance here is made possible by a Featured Artist Sponsorship courtesy the HADCO Group. Forde, who returned to Trinidad after a storied career abroad, is an inspiration to a new generation of jazz singers in the island. Sharpe’s role in the development of the steelband and on the music composed and performed on the steelpan is supreme and globally recognised by fans and institutions. This pair will enhance the Clifford Charles JAOTG experience and make it a must-see.

JAZZ ARTISTS ON THE GREENS™ FOOD, FASHION, MUSIC & MERCHANDISE

Annually, our vendors and concessionaires create a marketplace for music and music related merchandise, food and fashion experiential encounters, and fun! 2023 is no different.

JAOTG is attempting to expand the options for purchase by patrons. We have bundled items for a simple decision. Apparel plus music, and a branded wine bag, tumbler or tote bag are some of our initial offerings. Visit our JAOTG Merchandise Tent for purchase offerings, as well as to buy of our regular branded apparel, tee shirts and music CDs from the jazz artists.

As we begin to grow out of the pandemic, we noted the unintended consequence of more local businesses opting for online stores and cashless

payment. Our major sponsor, Republic Bank, is promoting digital wallet service for customers and

The food concessionaires are listed in this programme on the “Thank You” page near the end. Local cuisine, unique fusion foods, down home creole jorts and more. Our Chandileer Bistro bar service is available too. Ten apparel and fashion accessories vendors are to be visited. Garments made for the tropics, hand-made jewellery, and more await.

Of course, distributors and sponsors have product activations, give-aways, and snack & beverage samplings for patrons. Jazz Artists on the Greens. is an experience touching all the senses. A keepsake is suggested.

Come for the lime... Discover the music! It is still a music festival, after all, but we aren’t stopping you from eating, drinking and having fun. Visit our website www.jaotg.com for more information about the festival. We also look forward to any suggestions from you, our loyal patrons, towards making the whole jazz experience better.

Jazz in the Islands magazine — print and digital — is dedicated to compiling and reviewing Caribbean jazz music recordings, musicians and festivals throughout the islands. The magazine serves as a fillip to the dearth of collated information on Caribbean jazz album releases, artists and reviews of festivals and showcases in the Caribbean featuring this fusion exercise we call “jazz.”

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the economy of music in the Caribbean badly, and the return to normal has seen rising costs for printing and other publishing costs. With this new issue, Jazz in the Islands magazine is exclusively digital, putting the information on Caribbean jazz and steelpan jazz on your phone and other digital devices.

SCAN THE QR CODE TO READ THE LATEST ISSUE OF JAZZ IN THE ISLANDS MAGAZINE

https://magazine.jazz.tt

DEAN WILLIAMS

Multi-genre guitarist—jazz, world beat, and more—Dean Williams will be back on the Greens in 2023. Teacher, session guitarist to the stars of jazz, calypso and soca— Luther François, Ronald ‘Boo’ Hinkson, Mighty Sparrow, Calypso Rose, Machel Montano, Destra, and many more—and a member of the hallowed TriniJazz Project, Williams is part of a new generation of Trinidadian jazz musicians who are evolving the kaisojazz and Caribbean jazz idiom begun on the cusp of Independence. Fashion forward, fusion ready, Williams has toured, recorded and performed all over the world and is back with his quintet to continue his experimentation of jazz with a Caribbean flavour that has influences from rock, worldbeat, and sonic colours from Brazil, India and the African continent. His track “Li Jwe Gita” explores the Antillean vibe in the Caribbean and is the soundtrack to joy here.

Williams’ guest is the rising star, D Piano Girl Johanna whose ability to elevate any song with musical elegance and soulful energy is the hallmark of this fine pianist. Her solo career has taken great strides since she transformed Kes The Band’s “Savannah Grass” into a musical elegy and memorial to the patriarch of the Dieffenthaller family. Her use of modern soca, and other genres of music as a platform for arrangements that have awed audiences in Trinidad and Tobago, and regional and international audiences, showcases her versatility and musical dexterity.

Ju-né makes her Green’s debut this year, three years after the lockdown scrapped her planned 2020 debut. She is an award winning inspirational singer who has big dreams of becoming a Jazz/Soul Artiste. While her professional music career is relatively new, this vocalist has the pipes of a seasoned performer. She has been compared to Ledisi and Jill Scott, but she has a surprise element which is all her own and that arrests her audience’s attention from the moment she croons her first note. This Tobago-born artiste exudes a down to earth, authentic vibe, but she definitely sizzles with an undeniable charisma. Ju-né’s choice to pursue a career as a singer has shown her that hard work and persistence pays off. As result, she approaches her art with passion and love, and intends to be a positive inspiration to both young and mature to showcase that anything is possible once you believe in yourself. Currently, Ju-né is working with UK-based artists and musicians and will be travelling the world with her electrifying Soulful Jazz music. The future is very bright for Ju-né, we will be looking to see her lifelong dream come true in the very near future.

CARIBBEAN STEELPAN CONNEXTION ENSEMBLE

Caribbean Steelpan Connextion Ensemble prides itself as being the vibes, passion and music of the Caribbean! Founded in 2017 to participate at Expo Astana in Kazakhstan, that pioneering work brought the sound of pan to that country for the first time. Expos have been a proving ground for steelpan in the past — Esso Trinidad Steelband, later to become Trinidad Tripoli were a hit at Expo ‘67 in Montreal, Canada — and now, the enhanced group is moving to take the ensmeble to new spaces with new combinations of instruments outside the steelpan family. As producers of The World of Steel, a concert where the primary source of entertainment comes from the music of the steelpan, they have engaged with a wide audience and comntinue

to develop a new fanbase. This is their debut on the Greens.

It is a tradition from the inception of Jazz Artists on the Greens™ to feature a small steelband to perform before the main stage activity, to get the crowd in the mood. Caribbean Steelpan Connextion Ensemble continues in that honourable tradition.

THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNERS

BROUGHT TO YOU BY MAJOR SPONSORS

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNER

OFFICIAL HOSPITAITY PARTNERS

JAOTG™ 2023 SUPPORTED BY

IN-KIND PARTNERS

• Langston Roach Industries

• SUBWAY®

• Blue Waters

CONCESSIONAIRES

OFFICIAL TICKET OUTLETS VOLUNTEER AT JAOTG™ PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

• House of Chan

• WrapWorks Deli

• Digicel

• The Medical Dispensary

• Crosby’s Music Centre

• Solera Wines & Spirits

PRODUCTION ONE LTD, each year, presents a world class jazz experience on the Greens. It could not pull off such an amazing event without the dedication and hard work of its volunteers. If you would like to volunteer for the next Jazz Artists on the Greens™ in 2024, send an email to:

jaotg@productiononeltd.com

PRODUCTION ONE LTD offers your organization an opportunity to partner with it in the presentation of the country’s premier, open-air Caribbean jazz festival, and to benefit from the synergies to be obtained through an alignment with the company. For more information, send an email to:

jaotg@productiononeltd.com

Andy Narell

Steelpan jazz innovator and iconoclast

American

pannist and composer

Andy Narell is an iconoclast who fearlessly challenges the narrow definitions of acceptable pan music. He is global, and his usefulness as an ambassador for our national instrument is tainted by suspicion long held by panmen and the pan fraternity in general here. It may be an attitude of his own making. Long held beliefs are hard to dispel with logic. Pan pioneer Rudolf “Fish Eye” Ollivierre welcomed itinerant writer Patrick Leigh Fermor back in the late 1940s to Hell Yard, as described in his travel book The Traveller’s Tree — “The ease of his manner was admirable” — implying a sense of awe and acceptance we have nurtured over the years in this region for “tourists.” Narell has long ago stopped being a tourist. The

cri de coeur of a Trinidad-resident critic sums up the native posture towards Narell:

He is one of us and thus, prone to the same criticisms and praise as the rest of us. He is critical of our music, our Panorama and we react without obsequiousness. And rightly so, for that is the Caribbean posture, effectively practised by the panman forever; never back down from a challenge.

Andy Narell belongs to a pantheon of expatriate creatives who “belong” here in Trinidad and at the same time are aware of their difficulty of so belonging. Important regional authors were temporary immigrants to these

shores in the mid- 20th century — Edgar Mittelholzer in 1941-48, George Lamming in 1946-50, Derek Walcott in 1959-76 — and their presence and experiences added to the canon of great West Indian literature. Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, and by extension, the island is a place frequented by those wanderers in search of inspiration and succour. It still is a moving place designed to shape memory and ways of feeling.

George Gershwin’s symphonic tone poem, An American in Paris is the impression of a visitor — probably Gershwin himself recounting an earlier visit — moving through the City of Light. Andy Narell is an ideal template of An American in Paradise! The idea of an expatriate musician in a foreign

land and his potential influence on the music industry formed a question in my head: “would an American in Trinidad energise a jazz (steelpan jazz?) renaissance here, or would it foster competitive jealousy?” The answer could be gleaned from the Narell narrative. Narell’s initial visit was as a 12 year

The apprehension to fully adopt this ambassador of steel pan jazz has been noticeably clear. French filmmaker Laurent Lichtenstein, in his portrait of Narell filmed in Trinidad in 2009, Andy and the Jumbies asserts that his presence and concert “may help him to be accepted as a real Trinidadian.” Narell himself has noted to writer Asha Brodie in 2007 that he wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea: “I guess I also have a reputation for being ‘avant garde’ and for not caring about who wins [Panorama], which is why my phone isn’t ringing.” That isolation could either be the result of xenophobia or artificial rage. “Small people with simple destinies.”

he succeeded to place the instrument in the context of global music industry via prolific recorded output, sales and performances. According to his bio:

He’s one of only a small handful of steel pan players in the world who are playing jazz, and perhaps the only one among that coterie to commit an entire career “live and in the studio” to creating new music for the pan in that context.

old child to perform at the 1966 Music Festival. That life-changing experience introduced him to the panyards and the pioneers, especially Ellie Mannette, and served as the education of this lifelong student of the steelpan and the steelband movement. His annual pilgrimage to the source has been unceasing since 1985. His encyclopaedic knowledge of panmen, the music and the environment of pan suggests that he has done his work, and his global journeys in the service of spreading the sound of pan and his music are not matched by many.

V.S. Naipaul posits poetically in A Writer’s People: “small places with simple economies bred small people with simple destinies.” Narell, the American, sees the world differently. He recounted to me that when he first did a concert here in 1985, it was billed as a shootout, a competition. The promoters thought that would pique interest. The implication of race and nationality was an unspoken catalyst. I was at that show, and that idea was whispered loudly!

His presence has not swayed the minds of dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists. The years-long struggle for the privilege to compose for Panorama was an exercise in the fleshing out of de facto prejudices that disallowed foreigners from composing or even arranging for the competition, much less a tune without lyrics. Triumphant in 1999 in breaching the divide, Narell was in Trinidad arranging his composition “The Last Word” for Birdsong Steel Orchestra for the 2013 Panorama competition. This is his third competition, and controversial to the end, judges and commentators noted that the tune doesn’t “reflect Trinidad’s energy or language!” Despers’ arranger Beverley Griffith noted in a conversation with ethnomusicologist Shannon Dudley: “Excitement is one of the key things in today’s Panorama; you hear that on every judge’s score sheet: ‘It could do with a little more excitement.’ They wouldn’t tell you exactly what it is…” De facto prejudices and de jure standards are continuing challenges to Narell.

A narrow focus on ensemble music for pan can limit our need to accommodate him. He is more than an arranger. It is not without trying that

The intersection of location and presence can yield surprising results on music output. Narell was categorized by the music industry abroad — sheet music publishers and reviewers of his initial Heads Up Records recordings — as a Latin Jazz artist, even if not so selfdescribed, thus negating the growing influence that the music of these isles had on his growing canon of music. His effortless movement and adaptation of Latin American melodies and rhythms including his work with Caribbean Jazz Project and on the album Behind The Bridge in the mid-to-late 1990s signalled new directions in music.

In 1999, he reaped the benefit of post-apartheid South Africa’s adulation of him and his music at the Arts Alive Festival, with 60,000 fans “singing” his lyric-less pan melodies. The juxtaposition of an Afro-Caribbean bred instrument in Africa led to recordings there. Later relocation to Paris and meeting with exiled French-Antillean jazzmen there led to the formation of Sakésho and the resultant two CDs. The corpus of Trinidadian pan music allows space for this steelpan maverick. (Of note, Narell divides his living between St. Lucia and Paris.)

Narell, the frequent visitor if not the fortunate traveller has created music that to the local ear resonates with the sound and energy of calypso and the harmonic and melodic sentiments of the Panorama compositions of calypso legend Lord Kitchener, and steel pan players/arrangers Ray Holman, Len

Andy Narell, about 12 years old, at right in front.

“Boogsie” Sharpe, Robert Greenidge, among others. This town—Port of Spain, paradise—has rubbed off on him. He belongs to Trinidad.

Narell, ever pushing to envelope, has embarked on a new venture that takes the sound of the steelpan, and specifically the sound of steelpans crafted by steelpan pioneer Ellie Mannette, and and created a sample library for Native Instruments Kontakt Player. There are five types of pans, each one a distinct voice of the steel orchestra. In all, 22 instruments were recorded, presented in solo and ensemble combinations. That which was birthed in Port of Spain, Trinidad in the 1940s as a symbol of musical rebellion is now a virtual instrument.

Andy

ANDY NARELL Oui ma Chérie (Listen 2 Records, 2015)

Trinidadians are notoriously protective of their national instrument, the steelpan, so much so that when iconoclastic American pannist Andy Narell releases a new CD, the chauvinistic hubris echoing among local voices can and does sting. Narell’s riposte in this instance is an album of five long musical interludes, a balance of originals and Trinidad song /calypso that defines broader genre options for the steelpan. Jazz dissonance and tropical rhythms that suggest the wider Caribbean outside of Trinidad move the body of music for the instrument several steps ahead. Narell single-handedly plays all the parts of a small steel orchestra to capture with near sonic perfection the timbre of the modern steelband, and blends it with solo guitar and trumpet to imagine newer possibilities.

Scan or Click the QR Code below to listen to the Island Jazz Chat podcast with Andy Narell on which he discusses his recording career and the new venture into virtual instrumentation.

After 18 previous albums, it is clear that the sound born of “the audacity of the creole imagination” in Trinidad is now global, and this album is apt proof of Narell’s significance.

— Caribbean Beat

As if driving home the point that the pendulum of commercial influence for steelpan appears to be moving away from Trinidad was not enough, now comes the new release by American steelpan musician Andy Narell that boasts not one, but two CDs of refined exploitation of the sound and ambience of the steelpan in the context of a jazz quartet and as musical partner with piano. Dis 1.

4. Raf , a tribute to the late Caribbean jazz pioneer Raf Robertson, is another rung in the ladder of success of Narell. With his cohort of players from Cuba and Guadeloupe, Narell on this album weaves a new path for the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago to tread that encompasses influences beyond the archipelago. On the second CD, a duet, he juxtaposes the enhanced idea of modern percussive and rhythmic sounds from the New World—the steelpan— and the Old World—the piano—to subdued and subtle brilliance.

— Caribbean Beat

Available at AndyNarell.com

ANDY NARELL Dis 1.4. Raf (Listen 2 Records, 2016)

Tony Chasseur is Kréyol djaz

Meet this Martiniquan singer and Ambassador of Créole jazz

Tony Chasseur is a musician, singer, songwriter, and producer from the Caribbean island of Martinique. He was born on July 26, 1961, in Fort-de-France, Martinique.

Chasseur began his music career in the 1980s as a member of the band Malavoi, one of the most popular groups in the French Caribbean. He worked as the lead singer and co-writer for the band for over a decade and became known for his smooth and soulful vocals.

In 1995, Chasseur left Malavoi to pursue a solo career. He released his first album, Inifini in 1996, which featured a mix of Caribbean rhythms, jazz, and soul. He has since released several more albums, including Mizik Sé Lanmou (1998), Eritaj (2004), and Konviksyon (2014).

Chasseur’s music is known for its fusion of traditional Caribbean styles with modern influences. He often sings in Kwéyòl, the French-based language spoken in the French Caribbean, and his lyrics address social and political issues affecting the region.

Aside from his music career, Chasseur is also involved in cultural and political activism. He is a member of the cultural organization Groupe d’Action Martiniquais (GAM) and has been an advocate for Martinique’s independence from France.

In the sprit of that activism in music, he produced the radio programme Kréyol Djaz to play the music of his Antillean peers who were not getting the exposure on French mainstream radio. In 2018, Guadeloupean trumpeter Franck Nicholas began a hunger strike on April 24 so that jazz from Guadeloupe and Martinique is accepted in festivals in France. In solidarity, Chasseur penned an open letter that expands on his advocacy for Créole jazz:

For 30 years of my career, I was in all the news about contemporary music from Martinique, not to say from the Caribbean, with several tours and performances in various parts of the world. I appeared, at different levels, on a significant number of albums produced during these last 3 decades. In 2006, I created the first big band of Caribbean contemporary music, MizikOpéyi. Since 2010, I am the producer and host of a radio show called “Kréyol Djaz” (Créole Jazz) for the France Television group, broadcast in Martinique, Guiana, Wallis & Futuna, La Réunion, Paris. This radio program allowed me to interview the creators of the genre of Créole

jazz — from the pioneers Alain JeanMarie, Mario Canonge, Jean-Claude Montredon to the young generation Grégory Privat, Stéphane Castry, Arnaud Dolmen, Franck Nicolas, and more. So, under this name are grouped the “jazz” coming from creole lands in all parts of the globe, with characteristics and specificities which are unique to each region and each musician.

The name of this program is inspired by the comments from French festival directors and radio managers, filled with condescension and confirmed ostracism, which can be summarized as follows: “It is not Jazz”. That’s how they consider the Jazz creations coming from

Créole lands and using the rhythms indigenous to each land as a rhythmic base, whatever the level of harmonic elaboration and improvisation — the historical bases of jazz. Now, we can answer that as there was Latin Jazz or Afro Jazz, today there is “Créole Jazz”.

I even had to hear some remarks from festival directors ordering me “not to sing in Kwéyòl” in my performance.

It is clear that the actors of Créole Jazz are discredited and rarely scheduled, or not at all, at the major festivals in France, even if they represent the colours of our country on many stages abroad and receive there recognition and gratification for

the quality of their performances. This sectarianism, assumed in the network of festivals, justifies completely the position taken by Franck Nicolas and I support it without any reservation. It is inconceivable that France, rich in all these overseas cultural components, could let some sectarian individuals, finally with limited knowledge, deprive the French population of the diversity and creative wealth of these lands that are supposed to be in the Republic. They could be a world cultural force that participates in the renown of our country, by the originality and the power of the proposed works.

Please accept my testimony denouncing, like many others, these barriers, these walls, erected in our Republic by people whose function should be the presentation of all cultures that make up our country. It is also a great shout of irritation.

Tony Chasseur does not just talk the talk, he walks the walk. His radio programming, and increasingly, his production and compilation of Créole jazz, and extension Créole though and ideas — two volumes of Créole Jazz, and two volumes of readings of texts by the poet Aimé Césaire enhanced with original Créole jazz music — which add to the canon of Caribbean music to be heard by the world, and importantly, to be validated by increased streams, and where relevant, sales and concert attendance increases.

In recognition of his contributions to music and culture, Chasseur has received numerous awards, including the Martinique Music Award for Best Male Artist in 2016 and the Medal of Honor from the city of Fort-de-France in 2019. With a career spanning more than three decades, the Kréyol djaz of this music ambassador has to be heard by all.

MIZIKOPéYI

Creole Big Band

(Aztec Musique / 3M, 2019)

MizikOpéyi is an interesting concept in the Caribbean; a big band in the style of the New Orleans big band but one that “combines swing in all its forms with the rhythms of the Antilles, with a rejuvenating modernity.”

Formed by former Malavoi lead singer Tony Chassseur and his fellow Martiniquan, pianist and arranger Thierry Vaton, the band mines the music of the French Antilles, Haiti and other Creole music sources globally. On this, the fourth album, the eponymous Creole Big Band covers the Creole music of the Caribbean and the overseas department of Réunion, and adds new tunes that showcase the band’s wide repertoire. It also fascinates with a sound that can rival any big band in the land of jazz, yet is suffused with a kind of Caribbean fusion originality. Guest soloists include Jacques SchwarzBart, Franck Nicolas, Orlando Valle, Alain JeanMarie and Michel Alibo, and more. A new favourite for the seeker of Caribbean excellence.

Caribbean Beat

Available at Amazon.com

Martniquan singer Tony Chasseur calls his music kréyol djaz (creole jazz in its native form): “jazz coming from creole lands in all parts of the globe using the rhythms endemic to each land as a rhythmic base, whatever the level of harmonic elaboration and improvisation.” This reorientation of the jazz aesthtic away from the U.S. is heartening in our Caribbean space. Raise is the new supergroup of Antillean music stars; along with Chasseur are Ronald Tulle on piano , Michel Alibo on bass, Thomas Belon on drums and Alain Dracius on percussion. Sublime musicianship by all guides the listener to places where the primacy of zouk and other Caribbean rhythms create an elegant counterpoint to modern soul-jazz music. There are songs to make one dance on this album, there are songs to make one sing along to, even if kréyol is not your primary language. Tulle’s playing shines here on songs like “Dous O Péyi” while Chasseur’s voice has the tone that keeps listeners attached to the sound.

Caribbean Beat

Available at Amazon.com

RAISE Vini Bien

(3M / Mizik Moun Matinik, 2020)

Caribbean Jazz Festivals return

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be measured

TheCaribbean is home to a number of jazz festivals that showcase local and international talent, and celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the region. The COVID-19 pandemic ultimately shuttered all the festivals in the Caribbean in to 2022, until the easing of restriction began in the latter half of the year.

In 2023, all the surviving festivals — Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival held in August, that brings together some of the biggest names in jazz, funk, and soul music from around the world for a weekend of performances in the Dutch Caribbean indicated that it may never return! — after the re-launch of a few in late 2022.

Each festival has its own unique character and atmosphere, but all offer a chance to experience the vibrant music and culture of the Caribbean. Some

of the most popular Caribbean jazz festivals include:

• St. Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival: Held in May each year, this festival features both local and international jazz musicians performing in a variety of venues across the island.

• Tobago Jazz Experience: Taking place in April, this festival features a mix of jazz, gospel, soca, and calypso music.

• Barbados Jazz Excursion: Held in October, this festival features a mix of local and international jazz musicians performing at various venues across the island of Barbados.

• Jazz Artists on the Greens: Held in late March or early April, this mini-festival showcases Caribbean jazz including kaisojazz and steelpan jazz.

• In the islands outside of the English-speaking Caribbean, there is Havana Jazz Plaza in Cuba in January, PAPJazz Haïti in January in Haiti, MoJazz Festival in French Guiana in November, BigIn Jazz in Martinique in September, and more.

The economic impact of festivals in the tourism islands hosting festivals is significant. Curaçao has publicly showed that their festival, over its existence, impacted the country’s GDP, via available economic impact studies, especially outside the high tourism season. The new way of engaging fans of these regional jazz festivals is via the hybrid experiences — live and livestreamed with subsequent pay-per-view options — and eager audiences in the Caribbean and worldwide await a restart, a recalibration and a return to jazz!

PAPJazz Haïti: COVID-19 survivor

The Festival, the music, the diaspora; resilience and passion

Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival, commonly known as PAPJazz Haïti is an annual jazz festival held in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The festival was first held in 2007 and has since become one of the most important cultural events in the country, and ultimately, one of the largest jazz festivals in the Caribbean. The festival features performances by local and international jazz artists, as well as workshops and educational programs for Haitian musicians.

PAPJazz Haïti is organized by the Fondation Haïti Jazz (Haiti Jazz Foundation), a non-profit organization that seeks to promote jazz music and culture in Haiti and providing opportunities for Haitian musicians to showcase their talents. The organization

also provides music education and training programs to young Haitian musicians.

PAPJazz is usually held in late January or early February and takes place over several days, and has been held in various locations throughout Port-au-Prince, including the historic Hotel Oloffson and the Place Boyer. The festival has hosted many notable jazz musicians, including Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and Christian McBride, Marcus Miller, Richard Bona, and David Murray, among others. PAPJazz has also helped to showcase the talents of many Haitian jazz musicians, such as Beken, Mushy Widmaier, and Jowee Omicil.

Despite facing many challenges, including political instability and natural

disasters, PAPJazz has continued to thrive and attract audiences from around the world. The festival has become an important cultural event in Haiti and a symbol of resilience and hope for the Haitian people.

In 2023, the festival was held in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, or Okap as it is referred to locally. This after the pandemic upended jazz festivals globally, but also because of the turmoil still present in Port-au-Prince after the assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021. If anything, Haiti shows that resilience is the hallmark of the country where nothing can eliminate the spirit of the people — revolution, ostracism, extortion, dictatorship, country intervention, natural disaster, political turmoil, poverty.

In January 2021, PAPJazz was the sole live in-person jazz festival in the middle of the global pandemic during a downward trend in active cases in the country. While there was a global peak in cases and deaths from COVID-19 at that time, Haiti had a surprisingly low rate of infection, and the country hosted audiences and musicians from overseas to have the event. Speaking to organisers of the festival, they said, “In Haiti, we are constantly in the unpredictable and challenging, achieving the PAPJazz every year is a great challenge especially in the uncertain socio-political-economic context in which we live in. Challenges become our strength, we find solutions very quickly and have great ease of adaptation. The health crisis was ultimately another challenge.” Further, “In September, most of our European based partnering embassies wanted to have a live presence, meanwhile, all the [wider] American partnering embassies, had decided for a virtual presence. Haiti Jazz Foundation’s own productions, were going to be live with artists coming from the US, Canada, Europe, and La

Réunion island, as all of the artists had all their concerts cancelled in their respective countries. Important to mention that ALL of the artists wanted to come to Haiti to play live in front of a real audience, none wanted to do a virtual concert.” (My emphasis.) The show must go on!

The PAPJazz team in 2023 delivered a message that could not make it any clearer:

If we can bring together musicians from half a dozen countries at PAPJAZZ in January 2023, another Haiti is still possible.

If the city of Cap-Haïtien can host this international festival over 3 days, January 2023 is that another Haiti is still possible.

If we can bring together local, regional and international audiences, to enjoy good music in a friendly atmosphere in January 2023, it’s just another Haiti is still possible.

If we can make the music industry work (musicians, technicians), the tourism industry (hotels, restaurants, transport, etc.), such as the sector communication (graphic designer, printer, community manager, photographer, videographer, media, etc.) in January 2023, another Haiti is still possible.

If we were able to rally men and women, businesses, institutions, partners to work together to materialize this event, in January 2023, is that another Haiti is still possible.

In short, if we can carry out the 16th edition of PAPJazz in January 2023, at Cap-Haïtien is that another Haiti is still possible.

Yes, we believe that with willpower, love, passion, tolerance, respect, truth, integrity and justice, another Haiti is still possible!

We believe in it! And you ?

The Haitian jazz spirit will endure!

Haitian-American bassist Jonathan Michel calls his debut album MDR “an entry into the world of music as me. I think it’s a great representation.” And with that declaration, Michel, along with drummer Jeremy Dutton and vibraphonist Joel Ross, plays trio-based jazz that becomes an extension of the live gig scene this musician has been a part of for much of his career. The album touches on a range of genres that identify with the Caribbean-born in the diaspora. Jazz, spirituals, Haitian folk songs, R&B are all distilled through that enhanced prism with smallunit playing; bass and drum anchor a space for the vibraphone to resonate. The bass is never far away, and we hear why Michel is the leader on this album, with the old Negro spiritual “Wade in the Water” taking a frenetic spin in tandem with the improvisations of the vibraphone. Fellow Haitian child-of-thediaspora Melanie Charles adds her soul-inspired voice on the bookend tracks.

Caribbean Beat

GODWIN

Global (Blue Room Music, 2019)

When wanderlust coincides with discovery, great things can happen. When it is your job to travel to perform, it should be your duty to discover all that you are in the context of new vistas. Saxophone sideman to the stars Godwin Louis has travelled to over one hundred countries, and focused his discovery on the history of African and diaspora music across the world. His aptly titled debut album Global , a two-CD package, features “compositions that emerged out of research that he performed in Africa and Latin America on the music exported out of Africa, to the rest of the world via the transatlantic slave trade.” Audacious in scope, adept in execution, this HaitianAmerican has compiled a record featuring jazz syncopation that juxtaposes with African rhythm and Latin American voices and Antillean grooves, making this a testament to the idea of connectedness in modern music. By joining all the musical dots, Louis spiritually finds his way home.

Caribbean Beat

JONATHAN MICHEL MDR (Imani Records, 2018)

LOUIS

Three Island Songbirds

Trinidadian singers define success for jazz in the islands

Islands in the Caribbean have been fertile spaces for the evolution of global talent. Caribbean music has played a major role in the development of popular music worldwide, and the building blocks of those island music industries must be the singers and musicians who make all this music. Female singers of pedigree have been spotted in these islands and have used their skill to carve out careers in the world, with varying success. Tony Award winner Heather Headley from Trinidad, and Barbados-bred superstar Rihanna easily come to mind as artists who were incubated in the islands to grow and succeed in the rest of the world.

Peculiar to Trinidad and Tobago is the yearning to be something different. The idea of being a globally popular soca singer has a grip on many female singers there, but there is an equally persistent belief that singing genres outside of the circumscribed diaspora Carnival circuit would pay greater dividends in the long run. As an aside, Calypso Rose’s sixdecade career in calypso with accolades still accruing, however, is noticeably not seen as a signpost for modern success for some, but there are others who see her career as inspiration.

Caribbean songbirds using jazz as a musical template for a kind of recognition that looks beyond the archipelago have a history dating back to the beginning of Windrush Generation in the UK — Myrna Hague from Jamaica

and Mona Baptiste from Trinidad are examples — that continues with those more recent journeys of exile, in the 20th century throughout the Americas and beyond. Exile was a commercial necessity for many, tenacity of spirit in that environment was the de facto modus operandi.

The profiles of three singers from Trinidad — Charmaine Forde, Vaughnette Bigford and LeAndra — coming from three different career starting points make a case study of modern singers who still aim for the golden ring of making it in the larger world of recorded jazz vocalists now dominated by women. For example, in the Grammy Award category of Best Jazz Vocal Performance/ Jazz Vocal Album, 75% of the awards since 1977 have been won by women. The three singers’ stories chart an interesting pattern of the ups and downs in the music industry and describe what potential looks like from a Caribbean perspective.

Jazz guitar great Pat Metheny once said that, “a great quality about jazz is that it seems to encourage people to bring the things that are unique to their own background to the music.” Singing jazz — whether as a fall-back choice, because of life-changing events, or as an economically viable option in the islands — has defined these three women. Their personal stories have shaped how they sing jazz and now, audiences everywhere will perceive their success.

Backin 2018, when Charmaine Forde returned to Trinidad after a storied career in the United States, fans of local popular music from the late 1970s to early 80s rejoiced. First winning wide acclaim on local radio, Forde was once the darling of the local impresario set seeking talent to make the leap outwards, when American record companies were doing business with artists from the islands. Hers is a story that needs to be told within the context of a legacy of singers from the Caribbean who have focused on the live music industry as a goal for success, as opposed to the highly profitable recording careers favoured by a more recent crop of pop singers.

Born in Port of Spain, Forde grew up in the neighbourhood of Gonzales, where the influence of family played an important role in defining her craft and her sound. Her elder sister, a fan of jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson, had her records on constant rotation in the Forde household. That inspiration melded with Forde’s natural talent to forge a vocal timbre that resonates even today with a mix of the phrasing of Wilson and the power and tone of Shirley Bassey.

Singing in church and school while growing up brought Forde to the attention of kaisojazz innovator and teacher Scofield Pilgrim, who put her in touch — and, critically, on stage — with

The classic: Charmaine Forde

Charmaine Forde Vaughnette Bigford LeAndra

local and regional jazz musicians, at home in Trinidad and then in St Lucia, Jamaica, Martinique, and Guadeloupe, at festivals and on the lucrative hotel performance circuit. One musician who was a lynchpin in her recording career debut was Trinidadian Michael Boothman, an early local jazz innovator and established recording artist on a US record label. He crafted an arrangement of the Bobby Caldwell hit “What You Won’t Do For Love” for Forde, inspired by Roy Ayers’s earlier soul-jazz recording, releasing it in 1980 to the nation and ultimately to the region, presenting her as a new voice that could swing with the best, with a powerful controlled dynamic range rarely heard locally.

When the opportunity came to leave Trinidad and travel outside the Caribbean in the 1980s, Forde was up to it: she was seeing “greener grass outside,” she recalls. “It was bigger and better.” First Toronto, then California, until she finally settled in the Miami and Palm Beach area in Florida, becoming a fixture on the high-end event circuit — cocktail parties for the country club set and major corporate clientele — as a featured jazz vocalist. She admits she was a “singer for hire,” but prefers the moniker “song stylist.” The connections she made on that circuit sustained a career where the intimacy of a pianovocal duet has as much cachet as a concert hall performance or a recording studio gig. The corporate event industry in the US is where Forde shared the stage with some of the greatest contemporary artists, including Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, and her idol, Nancy Wilson. It was a full circle connecting Forde with her longtime idol.

Another full circle brought her back to her homeland after more than thirty-five years away. Forde’s return to Trinidad and Tobago’s live music scene has included a handful of sold-out

concert performances branded as “We Kinda Jazz.”

of Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone, yet retains the expressive phrasing of her hero, jazz singer Carmen McRae, to make the familiar new for an audience trained in the language of jazz.

In 2020, Forde is looking towards expanding her brand to regional jazz festivals. “People say I am trying to make a comeback, but I am trying to live in my craft and to do the best,” she says. “Just continuing my craft from where I left off in this market.” And, aware that some younger listeners and even artists may not remember or know her, Forde is giving back by helping develop the minds of her younger peers to understand the world of music. “People can be taught, but it’s what is caught.”

The mainstay: Vaughnette Bigford

WhenCharmaine Forde debuted as a recording artist in 1980, Point Fortin–born Vaughnette Bigford was just six years old. Hasten forward to the present, and her name is now on the lips of a wide cross-section of the Trinidad and Tobago public as one of the country’s premier jazz vocalists — as one writer posits, “the Creole chanteuse who has made the local songbook the new jazz standard in the Caribbean.” The songbooks of the wider world and the languages of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East are no barriers to performance for this singer and concert producer.

With her trademark shaved head and a cutting-edge fashion sense that says I am Caribbean glamour, Bigford confidently channels the aesthetic sprits

As a child, she was not even considered a singer. “I was known more as an actress,” she admits. Though she also reminds people that, in her much younger days, she once placed third to future soca superstar Machel Montano in a calypso competition. As an adult, working in the oil industry, Bigford got into the music business later than many of her peers, despite knowing she possessed a smoky contralto voice. “I started with [jazz pianist] Carlton Zanda and the Coal Pot Band in 2004 at age thirty,” she recalls. Launching a professional singing career at that relatively late age, she believes, worked for her in terms of maturity and her ability to better understand the business of music.

Together with her husband-manager, Bigford mapped out a ten-year plan to be among the top three jazz artists from Trinidad by popular commercial demand. That plan included setting a new standard for local jazz vocal concerts. Her event series Shades of Vaughnette translated into media adulation, and invitations to perform in Tobago and Barbados at the major festivals. A one-year sabbatical in 2010 to attend the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the performance opportunities arising from being there, inspired a better understanding of her future role. “I have to be an evolving person and product,” she says. “I have to be different — constant re-invention. I am now past the stage of being called a jazz singer. I am an entertainer.”

She knew where she belonged, too: staying in the US in 2010 as an unknown singer was not an option for a highly paid oil industry worker from Trinidad. Things changed drastically, however, in

2018, when the oil company she worked at was shut down. Her new reality was to sink or swim. Bigford’s ten-year plan bore fruit, allowing for a smooth transition to a full-time career as an in-demand entertainer on the local jazz circuit. The path to that pole position included a series of recordings, first as part of the TriniJazz Project in 2014, then her first solo release, Born to Shine, in 2017, which together revisited the neglected canon of lyrically meaningful island songs.

The newcomer: LeAndra

IfCharmaine Forde and Vaughnette Bigford have mature careers in jazz singing and recording in Trinidad and Tobago, LeAndra represents the potential future in search of new opportunities in a connected world. With a voice tinged with the timbre of a young Billie Holiday, sans vibrato, with hints of British soul-jazz singer Sade, she sonically projects a tropical vibe reminiscent of João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim’s languid Brazilian bossa nova. She’s the darling among new T&T audiences hearing jazz voices for the first time. Her innocent enthusiasm is the charming counterpoint to her cool reserve.

— from Amy Winehouse and Adele to Etta James and Nina Simone — so it’s hard for me to say that I am one type of vocalist.” A move away from opera was a practical decision in Trinidad, and a career with her now trained voice began with a few shows on the local festival circuit before LeAndra headlined her first concert in 2018.

Now, with her recordings and branded concerts securing a solid base of local and regional fans, and the freedom of not being tethered to a nine-to-five job, Bigford has turned her eyes towards Europe and an entrée into an international career: “Europe understands who we are in the Caribbean, and Africa for that matter,” she says. And, as with Charmaine Forde, the idea of mentorship is a prime consideration now, beyond the concert stage or the recording studio. “I want to start with younger people and impart knowledge of my craft.” Her ideas for future growth are also influenced by the fact that, with a young son, she recognises the responsibility of creative people in the Caribbean to hasten towards the goal of collective sustainability. “We’re all in this thing together,” she says, “and as Carl and Carol, sang ‘We Gotta Live!’”

Born Leandra Head to a Trinidadian mother and a US marine based in the island, she was a precocious child with a voice that turned heads. LeAndra was winning television talent contests and garnering the attention of major festival promoters and music industry people before she was even a teenager. But that girl was human, not a machine. She felt stressed and developed stage fright, she recalls, and quit singing in front of audiences throughout her whole time in secondary school. “Until secondary school was over, I was always singing, but not performing,” she remembers. “My mother helped me by not pressuring me to perform while I was still young.” In that household, in those formative years, a world of musical influences opened up, from Barbra Streisand to Sade, from soca and calypso to the world of Broadway and Disney musicals.

In 2013, she entered the University of Trinidad and Tobago to study for an undergraduate degree in fine arts, specialising in voice. “I was pretty much training for four years to be an opera singer,” she says. “I’ve done a lot of different styles and have many influences

The accolades began, and people took notice. Reviewing her Tobago Jazz Experience performance in 2019, one local newspaper noted how her “powerful and soulful voice with her clear, pure, and soothing vocals caught the attention of the audience, even those enjoying other performances at the two stages . . . Head was not only outstanding, but was clearly a crowd favourite and received a standing ovation.”

Ingénue is an easy label to apply to young artists, but unfair to attach to LeAndra, as she’s already faced the trials and tribulations of professional singing engagements in the US (at Ashford and Simpson’s Sugar Bar in New York) and in Hungary (in a production of Porgy and Bess), as she slowly recognises where her best options lie as a performer from Trinidad. Her awareness — even as a young woman not yet thirty — that the world is large and sometimes scary is notable, as she plots a professional pathway ahead, from recording an album in 2020 to developing skills in the music business to navigate from Trinidad to the world

Anthony Woodroffe Jr.’s (Tony Paul’s) flute anchors the laid-back vibe of “Run Away”, a kind of soundscape that implores one to escape to the islands. His solo also underscores the attitude that adventure is part of escape here. “Gregory Street” is a nod to the music of Élan Parlē and a soloist’s paradise with effective solos from Salcedo, Hagley and Ryan.

The last two tracks on the album are covers, jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo” and soca star Voice’s “Cheers To Life”. Closing the album with these two songs would, in retrospect, satisfy two audiences, and older jazz one and a younger soca one. Importantly, it is the consideration of the idea that Hagley has on this debut made the right choices in his introduction to a buying public that craves the familiar but selectively admires the audacious in doses.

“Oleo” tries to retain a modern groove for Alexander to “fly.” The tightness that was admired in the other tracks veers towards the eccentric and mars an

otherwise great solo. Where this track plays with our emotions in retaining a metropolitan viewpoint while in the Caribbean, “Cheers To Life” is just joy represented with élan and grace. With a horn section that has Latin jazz written all over it, the song’s tempo is slowed down just enough for Hagley to make the melodic statement on his piano where we not just sing along but identify with the musical nuances that are evident in its composition. Salcedo’s improvised tenor pan solo with his matched scatting bleeding through on the microphone gives an idea of the elation of musicians at play. A descarga (a Cuban-based jam session) gives way to the coda that has Ryan burning through the chord changes with hard bop madness. Magic.

All in all, this album is a critical debut for a promising voice in the music landscape of Trinidad and Tobago. Insomnia implies sleeplessness. Adan Hagley may be new on the scene but don’t sleep on him; you could miss the makings of a young lion in jazz.

ALBUM REVIEWS

Reginald Cyntje Rise of the Protester (Self Released)

Ronald Boo Hinkson My Good Day (Zephryn Records)

St Lucian music icon and guitarist

Ronald “Boo” Hinkson has a career equivalent to that of an ambassador for his native island and its annual jazz festival. The languid pleasures of Caribbean life are mirrored in the tropical smooth jazz feel of this song. Featuring the vocals of Irvin “Ace” Loctar and Shannon Pinel, and Hinkson’s “signature feathery touch,” this song’s inspirational message of hope and gratitude is made clearer when you grasp the relationship between our Caribbean realities and the vision

Jeremy Hector Ascension (Thunder Dome Records)

In a series of splendid jazz albums, trombonist and composer Reginald Cyntje has been musically chronicling the range of human emotions, and providing a musical engagement with the human spirit, the soul, the cerebral self. An intelligent understanding of ourselves culminates in this new recording, Rise of the Protester, which documents the resistance of the “hue man” to bondage, to deprivation, to prejudice, and to injustice in both Caribbean and American spaces, reflecting Cyntje’s multiple heritages as a Dominican raised in the US Virgin Islands, and now living in the United States. Taking his cues from a historical record of resistance, literal and figurative — from the likes of Harriet Tubman and “Queen” Mary Thomas of St Croix to Malcolm X and others — Cyntje’s evolution of protest is given gravitas with music that engages the urgent rhythms of Caribbean movement and the contemplative space of jazz. This is by no means mournful dissonance, but a joyous celebration of spirit wanting to be free.

Available at Bandcamp

of the tourist brochure. “Survival is the triumph of stubbornness,” said St Lucian poet Derek Walcott, and in these lyrics, you get the sense that a good day is just around the corner from a series of regular bad yesterdays. The jazz guitar in the hands of giants like Wes Montgomery and George Benson became the smooth sonic antidote to melancholy, and Hinkson merrily continues that tradition here.

Young, gifted Grenadian guitarist Jeremy Hector makes his album debut with the aid of countryman, and Canadian music award winner, Eddie Bullen at the production helm. What this means is that there is a flawless sheen to the smooth jazz tropes that ooze like treacle from the eleven tracks. That could be a bad thing in that there is a sameness of the song profile, but there is a silver lining in the sound of that guitar. The tone of his instrument is one that is remarkably listenable, and one that suggests that there could be more for the listener than sonic fantasies of island life and tropical vacations. Hector’s mature supple fretting technique that allows for a fluid playing and the obvious ease of engagement for the listener with these compositions — ten, self-composed — add to the idea that this debut was long overdue. A Caribbean rhythmic aesthetic shines through on the tracks, “St Paul” and “Islander”, to give this album a unique distinction.

Available at Amazon.com

Available at Amazon.com

ALBUM REVIEWS

Grégory Privat SOLEY (Buddham Jazz)

Josean Jacobo & Tumbao Cimarrón (E7 Studios)

Pianist Josean Jacobo has been heralded as the “Ambassador of Afro-Dominican Jazz” and with that understanding, the listener has to negotiate the mine field of ideas and ideologies on Dominicanness and the other image of the island as a tourist playground. On this album, Cimarrón, Jacobo along with the band Tumbao — a unique combo of 2 saxes, drums and percussion — present a solid interface of the music born in the American melting pot of New Orleans and traditional folkloric rhythms from African-descended natives of the island.

Ijó Grafted (Spielzart Entertainment)

Martiniquan pianist Grégory Privat continues his elegant exploration of creole jazz with this follow up to his recent album Family Tree. This new album of trio music with his collaborators Canadian Chris Jennings on double bass and fellow Martiniquan Tilo Bertholo on drums sparkles with a new energy as it utilises electronics and allow Privat the opportunity to sing. 15 tracks draw on the richness of creole jazz heritage in the French Antilles, and juxtaposes those aesthetic elements with sounds that can only exist in a synthetic medium, to enrich his and his band’s playing. Privat tells us that SOLEY is “a concept of Spirituality, Optimism, Light and Energy (coming to) You.” The album represents a continuation of the mastery of technique and dynamics on the piano, and a full understanding of the Créole perspective on Caribbean music. There is a sense of experimentation on this record, which is not jarring but pointing to the idea that this music can be his catharsis and spiritual haven. Jazz illuminated and elevated.

Available at Amazon.com

His piano soars and floats on the ten songs here, while the polyrhythms of the hand drums and other percussion give credence to a history of solid representation of the music of African souls who have mingled and transformed Spanish-derived sounds to create what we today know as Salve, Congos, Bachata and more. The language of jazz has broadened in this context, and this album is a distinctive beginning for new listeners.

Caribbean jazz, like its North American precursor, has been a collaborative effort between musicians. A musical conversation, despite singular stars in the pantheon. Ijó, out of Trinidad, seeks to fulfil the role of eminent conversationalists within the context of the myriad musical influences that bathe their island nation. This new band on the Caribbean jazz scene is made up of top individual session musicians on the island, a kind of supergroup that does not disappoint on this first effort. Orisha drumming is captured on “Black Rose”, a hint of the transplanted Indian presence in “Nari”, world fusion gone mad on the track “Ijó”, are some of the soundscapes one has to traverse on this album. Long in gestation, this album takes its time to grow on the listener. So detailed are the individual voices that the “accents” are sometimes hard to decipher, not so much in an unintelligible way, but in the elegance of the melodies and harmonies.

Available at Amazon.com

Available at Amazon.com

ALBUM REVIEWS

Jany McPherson

Mi Mundo: Solo Piano (Jazzit Records)

Jacques Schwarz-Bart

Soné Ka-La 2: Odyssey (Enja Records)

Guadeloupean saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart admits that “as long as [he] can remember, there was always gwoka and jazz music in [his] life.” Gwoka drums are the basis of that island’s folk music, and on this album, he has fused language of jazz with the native rhythms to forge a new aesthetic for the Antillean musician. This sequel to the original 2005 album updates that initial intent of making gwoka jazz a defining moment, and completes the journey of discovery that happens after fifteen years of travelling and

Nubya Garcia

Source (Concord Jazz)

The solo piano album is an artistic statement of both skill and patience. Melody, harmony and rhythm, the basic elements of music, are all brought to life by ten fingers, two hands. France-based Cuban pianist Janysett McPherson has produced a sublime piece of work that unfolds with a sense of understanding her space as a transplant from the Caribbean to the European metropole. Sonic references to a kind of pastoral vision blend with percussive jaunts that locate the heat of island tempos within a world wider than this archipelago. A cover of Ennio Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso” theme song has McPherson exploring dissonance but her right hand melodic lines gird the beautiful melody with a pathos that is reflected in the nostalgic theme of the movie. Caribbean musicians, Michel Camilo and Monty Alexander for example, in the past have used the solo piano as a platform for musical identity. Mi Mundo, my world, showcases an awe-inspiring globetrotting musician.

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playing music all over the world, and knowing one’s place in it. Voice (Malika Tirolien) and sax juxtapose to shine melodically over gwoka drum rhythms and harmonic dissonances provided by the premier fellow Antillean jazz stars, Grégory Privat, Arnaud Dolmen, Sonny Troupé, and American bassist Reggie Washington. Improvisation in the context of an Afro-Caribbean pulse long eschewed in modern jazz is a refreshing return to the centre.

Caribbean migrations have birthed new generations of creatives challenging definitions of music in their new homelands. Nubya Garcia is the daughter of Trinidadian and Guyanese parents and with this heritage, the UK born and based jazz saxophonist has marked her musical space there with equal parts nature, nurture and nostalgia. Her new record Source, her first first full-length album plays between the innovative new soundscapes of the contemporary British jazz scene, and the look back to influences that echo the Caribbean and transplanted African music, as captured by children of the diaspora. The controlled tone of her tenor sax dances through dub on “Source”, and splashes up against Afro-Columbian rhythmic elements on “La cumbia me está llamando” without ever being discordant. On “Before Us: In Demerara & Caura”, one hears that calypso bass modernised and influencing a new jazz exploration beyond boundaries. Garcia is finding the centre in a world of influences.

Available at Amazon.com

Available at Bandcamp

ALBUM REVIEWS

Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Aymée Nuviola Viento y Tiempo – Live at Blue Note Tokyo (Top Stop Music)

Jesse Ryan Bridges (Fwé Culture)

As world fusion in jazz continually moves one away from the primary centre defined by the blues and swing, global musicians take up the challenge of improvisation over a sonic bed of native and ethnic rhythms, and melodies. Jesse Ryan, Trinidad-born saxophonist, now based in Canada joins a group of Caribbean musicians seeking ways to successfully commercialise the “West Indian accent in jazz.” On half of Bridges, his debut album, he explores the rhythmic pulse of Tobago’s native tambrin band music. Modern

Michael Boothman Songbook, Vol. 1 (Poui Tree Records)

Cuba represents an enigma for many travellers in the Americas. Its music salvages its imposed reputation as an outlier. To savour the excellence of its musical oeuvre, performance and its recording in global cities fortify a notion, widely recognised in the Caribbean, of the supremacy of the canon and artistry of Cuban musicians. Grammy winners, Afro-Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba and singer Aymée Nuviola, “La Sonera del Mundo”, before an audience in Japan, offer a musical tribute to their mothers with music that they say is “a tribute to the music that flows through the streets of Havana which we grew up with.”

Rumba and jazz, classic son montunos and danzonetes, boleros and ballads, and other tropical rhythms are mixed with call and response singing, jazz improvisation, percussive breaks, and dynamic piano playing to recorded elation from a Tokyo crowd. The collaboration of these childhood friends, and others, suggests Cuba’s musical history is manifestly rich.

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jazz interpolation with the sound of the tambourine drum create a soundscape for another interpretation of New World African music. With a subdued sound mix, sublime conversations between guitar, piano, sax and percussion become epic in intention, effective in interpretation. This album, three years in the making, is an opening statement of a new jazz artist in the diaspora reconnecting with his roots to seal the idea of Caribbean music beyond a dance accompaniment. Brilliant.

Nostalgia is making a comeback: The Rolling Stones and Genesis will tour stadiums next year, and Paul McCartney and ABBA have new albums in 2021! In the Caribbean, kysofusion pioneer Michael Boothman from Trinidad is back with a bang. With a professional music career spanning six decades, and as an elder statesman on the regional music scene with international standing, the appearance of a new full length album after a gap of some years is a happy revelation that signals that his creative juices are still flowing. Songbook, Vol. 1 points to the idea that this is a first step on a new journey, a fresh awakening of the Boothman oeuvre with rearrangements of classics from the 1970s, “Saying It With Music” and “Mystic Sea,” and many new songs. This album is a showcase of fine songcraft, sophisticated musical ideas, and a kind of independent production value that understands that as audiences mature, quality never dissipates.

Available at Bandcamp

Available at Amazon.com

ALBUM REVIEWS

Anthony Joseph The Rich Are Only DefeatedWhen For Their Lives (Heavenly Sweetness)

Tigana Thomas Love Has Found Its Way (Self Released)

In 1982, The Crown Prince of Reggae, the late Dennis Brown released a lovers rock/R&B smooth groove “Love Has Found its Way” to moderate success in the US and UK. The song has a staying power, however, that proves that one can’t keep a good song quiet. Guitarist Tigana Thomas from Trinidad explores the song’s potential to remain a danceable tune whether falsetto voices or full-bodied jazzy guitar strums take the lead. In this case, singer Jolene Romain sings the verse while Mya Scott sings the chorus refrain. The interplay

Theon Cross Intra-I (New Soil/Marathon)

Creole griot and poet Anthony Joseph, self-described Black surrealist, on this album directly and subliminally name checks Caribbean literary pioneers — Sam Selvon, Kamau Brathwaite, CLR James, Anthony McNeill — as a celebration of many island lives: a praise-song for a poet, “Kamau” the liquid textologist, an anthem for ancestors, “The Gift”. Rising cadences on fiery recitations saying “listen to this,” reveal a Caribbean literary heritage married to music evolved in its evocation. This is not the poetry of protest but a dissertation for the diaspora. The new UK jazz heroes, Shabaka Hutchings, Jason Yarde, et al, give the music here more urgency than a Congo Square memory, more variety than the Blues, altogether re-framing Joseph’s words beyond the bluesology of Gil Scott-Heron and the dub poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson. The frenetic swing of “Language” balances the dub rhythm of “Maka Dimwe”. Confident, eloquent, a classic.

between voice and guitar adds a layer of alternating sonic elements that are interesting enough to make this new cover of a classic song listenable beyond a few bars. The Caribbean “romantic getaway” aesthetic evoked by this recording reinforces a popular notion of what is sought after in these isles by tourists. If this song is part of the soundtrack of visitor engagement, that is not a bad thing at all.

Caribbean heritage remains strong in a newer generation of Britishborn musicians at the forward edge of a recent wave of jazz there. Theon Cross — Jamaican dad and St Lucian mom — is the boundary-pushing tuba player who is evolving the role of that instrument, and critically, reinforcing the cultural legacy of the islands as a lynchpin for a modern jazz that moves away from the blues as the music’s foundation. With that knowledge and ancestry, he improvises and fuses jazz with dub, dancehall, soca, UK hip-hop, grime and “other sounds connected to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.” Critically, sound system culture exudes from the sonic profiles of the 10 songs on this album. The extended Caribbean, beyond Windrush, brings island ideas to global audiences. While the tuba is not generally the first instrument one thinks of as a lead, Cross has found a way to move the sound and musicality beyond comedic artifice towards ethereal reinvention.

Available

Available

Available at Bandcamp

ALBUM REVIEWS

Charlie Halloran ALCOA Sessions (ArtistShare)

Before quick airline travel to the sunny Caribbean was both utilitarian and a vital part of the tourism product, cruising from ports north to the islands was an adventure in itself that required patience and a tropical assimilation. Halloran from New Orleans, a kind of cultural Caribbean North Pole, has reimagined the zeitgeist of the era and recreated “the musical experience aboard cruises run by the Alcoa Steamship Co. out of New Orleans from 1949-1959.” A broad dance music repertoire from Trinidad, Guadeloupe,

Arnaud Dolmen Adjusting (GAYA)

Guadeloupean drummer Arnaud Dolmen says that this, his second album, is “about how we adapt and adjust...The unexpected should be a source of strength.” Within it, Kwéyòl jazz, vodou lyricism, and native gwo ka drum rhythms mix with and influence instrumentation that echoes a creole past and points to new ways of assimilating. Antillean music evolved.

The tambrin drum — a kind of frame drum similar to the Irish bodhrán and the Brazilian pandeiro — is indigenous to Tobago, and acts as that island’s sonic identification, much like the steelpan is to Trinidad. Tobago-born musician and keeper of the cultural flame, John Arnold, seeks a rhythmic basis and bedrock for the tambrin drum family, the cutter (high pitch), roller (rhythm) and boom (bass), outside of the island’s traditional festival and ceremonial dances on this new album. Six popular jazz standards are performed here to find a new interpretation of how songs can swing when imbued with rhythms born in the islands. The indigenous reel and jig beat is used to give “Fly Me To the Moon” the “feel of the folk style.” This kind of attempted amalgamation of genres and sounds has a presence in jazz, and this experiment in fusion has merit. This conversation between cultures, jazz and tambrin, expands the possibilities of World Music.

New Orleans, and Venezuela gives the listener an appreciation of what the Caribbean aesthetic sounded and looked like to foreign tourism execs. Calypso, biguine and joropo are played energetically and well. The songs of Trinidadians Lionel Belasco and Pat Castagne are given new life as the idea of cruising “down to the Spanish main” becomes, not so much a bygone dream, but a way of restoring majesty to local music.

Available at Bandcamp

Available at artistShare

Available at Bandcamp

John Arnold Jazz Standards in the Tambrin Sauce (Self Released)

ALBUM REVIEWS

Elan Trotman

Brighter Days Ahead (Island Muzik)

Joy Lapps Girl in the Yard (Joy Lapps Music)

Steelpan music recordings are back. Toronto native of Antiguan descent, Joy Lapps is providing a new engagement with the steelpan that is welcomed after the seeming dearth of new material for the instrument in the last few years. On this new album, her fifth since her recording career began in 2006, one hears the development of a broader palette of musical environments in which the steelpan is placed. One hears rhythms and sounds on these originals that are part of the multi-cultural milieu of her Toronto situation: metropolitan

Leon Foster Thomas

Calasanitus (Krossover Jazz)

Bajan saxman Elan Trotman is a prolific musician who used the pandemic down time for live performances to continue his creation of an unrivalled oeuvre of contemporary jazz music for the discerning masses. Enhanced by a host of featured guest performers, this album presents a Caribbean smooth instrumental soundtrack to a hopeful future.

Available at Amazon.com

motifs mimicking a Caribbean presence, latent Latin American vibes, searing electric guitars, and sterling musicianship. One hears Andy Narell’s melodic template on “Josie’s Smile”, including cuatro and bottle and spoon accommodated in a vintage Caribbean scene; as a bonus, he solos here. Lapps presence a female leader on a steelpan recording is rare, trendsetting and welcomed. Her story. Our joy.

The steelpan, as an instrument to translate emotion into sound does not get the high profile notice that, say, a violin or piano gets. With a history of not yet 100 years, that may be inevitable, but in the hands of a master, one can hear the expressive potential of the instrument. Foster’s rapid-fire touch dexterity takes a back seat to his improvisational elan on this, his fourth album, to let his compositions breathe and his guest soloists fly. The songs on this album — a tribute to his late mother and her imparted life lessons — follow a range of ideas and moods from heartache to joy, contemplation to memory. Steelpan, piano, saxophone and trumpet dramatically converse with each other to tell stories: a parent’s sacrifice, an immigrant’s dream, the migrant’s challenges, a happy evocation of childhood, a meditation on the end of Caribbean life, and more. This mature reflection, both good and sad, all well played, makes this album a keeper.

Available at Bandcamp

Available at Bandcamp