ALBUM REVIEWS

Jany McPherson

Mi Mundo: Solo Piano (Jazzit Records)

Jacques Schwarz-Bart

Soné Ka-La 2: Odyessey (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.

Available at iTunes 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 iTunes

Available at iTunes