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 other.

London-based record label Honest Jons 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 form 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

Wilrfed 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” that, calypso and ska elements that shaped the destiny of the modern jazz musicans making a statement globally, at present. Those recordings and their distribution served as a catalyst for the development of a music industry and cement the Caribbean contributions to its growth — one must read of the influence of Trinidadian Lord Woodbine on four lads from Liverpool who would rule the music world forever.

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.