Island Jazz Chat: Episode 21 – Anthony Pierre

Anthony Pierre represents a pioneering effort of a Caribbean musician to establish a sustained island jazz presence in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That multi-decade journey has resulted, by the 1990s, in the formation of the Caribbean jazz sextet Kalabash, which focused on "using the steel drum as a lead voice in a jazz ensemble, while experimenting with the layering of rich jazz harmonies over the folk and popular rhythms of the Caribbean, from reggae, son and salsa in the north, to calypso, soca, rapso and zouk from the Eastern Caribbean." With two albums under the band's belt, the self-titled debut in 2001, and the follow-up, Keep Them Close in 2013, Pierre relates the historical journey to establish a popular contemporary jazz fusion outfit with an island vibe within the metropolitan and increasingly multicultural space that is Canada's largest city. Tue, 26 Mar, 2024.

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 20 – Vaughnette Bigford

Vaughnette Bigford is the Creole Chanteuse, the island songbird who "has made the local [Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean] songbook the new jazz standard in the Caribbean...the premier jazz song stylist in these islands whose palette knows no boundaries. Tone, beauty, presence: the definition of the New World African." An apt description from the pages of Jazz in the Islands magazine that also signals an artist ready to make the leap outwards and internationally. We chat with Vaughnette about her recording and live performance career, and her growing reputation regionally. Her move towards concert design and promotion for her art is a winner that links Caribbean fashion and music in a way that suggests a tropical Met Gala aesthetic. An international career beckons. Sat, 20 Jul 2024

Music Buzz | Reviews (Mar/Apr 2024)ª

Gentle Touch  Reginald Cyntje

(Self released)

On this his seventh album, Reginald Cyntje — pronounced SIN-chee — continues his musical exploration of emotional themes and the intangible through instrumental jazz. With his trombone as lead, this US Virgin Islander explores in a quiet contemplative way the vulnerability of being in love. “Vulnerability is key to authenticity,” he says. “Being vulnerable takes strength, courage, and emotional intelligence. A gentle touch.” That gentle touch is revealed in five tunes on this short EP. They sashay smoothly, and exist within a fine balance of subdued tempo and an earnest reach for moods that showcase languid tropical vibes through bossa nova, reggae, neo-soul, and jazz. Celebration, hope, empathy, the memory of the first time, and growth are the themes highlighted here. Excellent musicianship by his quartet takes centre stage; Allyn Johnson on piano shines. An island perspective on love is always welcomed. Inspiration and reflection are encouraged.

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1. This review appears in the March/April 2024 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2024, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 19 – Garvin Blake

Garvin Blake, pan jazz musician based in New York has re-discovered his intention to preserve and promote the idea of steelpan and jazz as global music. After a pair of significant albums in 1999, Belle Eau Road Blues, and 2015, Parallel Overtones, Blake is now in a place in his life to continue to record and let the music of the steelpan be the 'new voice' in the conversation that is jazz. Island Jazz Chat catches up with Blake on this annual Carnival return to Trinidad to speak about his career, his work with South African Tony Cedras, Vincentian Frankie McIntosh, and a number of important American musicians on the creation of new music for jazz ensembles with a starring role for the steelpan.
Sat, 17 Feb 2024

• Programme Date: 17 February 2024
• Programme Length: 01:15:47

© 2024 Jett Samm Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Etienne Charles: The Road March in Concert – a review²

An edited version of this article appeared in the T&T Newsday as, “Etienne Charles celebrates road march history in concert"

Etienne Charles’s engagement with the Carnival and its music is ongoing — his albums Kaiso (2011) and Carnival: The Sound of a People, Vol. 1 (2017) and the subsequent live performances here, the evolution of Carnival music on the road with his music/masquerade band Riddim, Brass & Mas, his recording kaiso/soca collaborations with Kes, Terri Lyons, David Rudder — and on Thursday, February 1 at Queen’s Hall in Port of Spain, he delved deeper into the magic of this music that moves a society and defines celebration. The Road March in Concert was a review of those songs that are the most popular song on the road, at Carnival competition spaces, in fetes.

The concert began as a historical showcase of the chants, lavways and leggos of Emancipated folk, and almost sequentially moved towards a veneration of popular calypsos and soca tunes, highlighting the personalities who made these Carnival music hits. It was a timeline; what began as a contemplation of music history, ended in celebration and the cheeky marketing of Charles’s 2024 Carnival band, Magnificent. And that was a good thing as it targeted the two aspects of an audience in search of Carnival entertainment outside the sweaty jam of modern fetes. That juxtaposition of contemplation and celebration is at the heart of Carnival and was the ultimate ethos of the event. 

Music Buzz | Reviews (Jan/Feb 2024)ª

Of Love & Life  Ava Hutchinson

(Self released)

Ava Hutchinson is a treasure in her native Trinidad and Tobago, carving out a niche as one of the few female jazz pianists leading a band. On this, her debut album, another side of Hutchinson is revealed: she is a talented composer, brave enough to bare her inner self in lyrics that transcribe her life and loves, good and bad. The melodies are noteworthy with a keen sense of style, and are enhanced by a production from innovative producer Roger Israel and a crack cohort of local musicians. That support becomes necessary to move the music towards a point of distinction, allowing the 18 songs here to provide a clearer picture of Hutchinson’s life. We are no longer left to wonder. Musical autobiographies can either be rigid relaying of facts as rhyming couplets, or figurative lines that allow listeners to fill in some blanks. This album captures a life with lyrics that sing, with words that neatly identify remembered relationships and emotional ups and downs. Revealing.

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1. This review appears in the January/February 2024 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2024, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Music buzz | Reviews (Nov/Dec 2023)ª

Re-Potted Jonathan Scales Fourchestra 

(Le'Rue)

The angular harmonies and rhythms of modern jazz fusion present a rare context for the steelpan to interact, to play to its potential, to exist. Jonathan Scales is an American musician and composer recently transplanted to Brooklyn, New York. And in his hands, the instrument — in the company of his trio’s sublime bass and poly-rhythmic drums — heralds another way to engage with one’s soul outside a Carnivalesque celebration. On this, his eighth album of steelpan jazz, he explores “what it means to ‘uproot and replant’ into a more expansive yet more challenging environment”. How that translates on the instrument is a heady mix of musical modes, melodic adventures, and varying soundscapes — rap, wordless vocals, found-object percussion, strings and horns — where challenging rhythmic changes make for a focus on how this juxtaposition of instruments brings resolution to a journey. Steelpan, “the audacity of Creole imagination”, has evolved beyond the islands.

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Live in San Francisco, vol. 1 Etienne Charles

(Culture Shock Music)

Prolific recording artist and composer Etienne Charles is taking his Caribbean jazz trumpet to important venues to play to audiences everywhere the music gleaned from the wanderings of his Creole soul. The Black Cat, “in the historic jazz district of Tenderloin in beautiful San Francisco”, is the setting for the recording of a live album that excerpts his Carnival opus; charts the arc of Caribbean composers Lord Kitchener, Bob Marley, Winifred Atwell, and Juan Tizol; and incorporates his new composition, “Greenwood”, which elucidates a monumental episode in American history. “Greenwood” musically translates the violence, chaos, angst, and pathos of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre against African-Americans in “Black Wall Street”. The wilful attempt by others to erase this history is countered here by transcendent musicianship and sound recording clarity that enlivens excavated histories and recalled stories from survivors. One can’t wait for Vol 2.

Album available exclusively from the Etienne Charles website

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Mango Hugh Masekela & Siparia Deltones (Single)

(Monk Music/Gallo Record Company)

Sitting under a fruit tree has been inspirational — for centuries. The story of Isaac Newton under an apple tree coming up with the theory of gravity is apocryphal. For Trinidadian jazz musician Carlton “Zanda” Alexander, a mango tree was the key to a composition that celebrates tropical idyll. Sitting under de mango tree / Watching baby mangoes fall / Making room for more to come, with tiny stems and all / Suddenly, I heard a song / Dancing through the leaves / A lonely mango fall. That song has taken a long journey to release. A decade in the making, a musical project (From Siparia to Soweto) among Zanda, the iconic South African flugelhornist “Bra” Hugh Masekela (1939–2018), pannist Akinola Sennon and his steelband Siparia Deltones in Trinidad was a major collaborative cultural event on the island. With its soothing, twee, island vibe, this lilting Caribbean ballad sung by Masekela is a hopeful entré into the long-awaited album’s release.

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1. These reviews appear in the November/December 2023 issue of Caribbean Beat Magazine.

© 2023, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.