Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival 2023 – a review series²

Once again, the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority invited me and facilitated my coverage of its signature festival tourism event, the Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, for the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday. Old friendships rekindled and new adventures encountered as this mammoth event has grown, and approaches its optimal dimensions. As far as Caribbean music festivals go, Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival is defining what is possible regionally, and settling in among the top global music festivals, jazz and otherwise. Here are the articles:

Playlist (May/June 2023) | Music Buzzª

Traces  Etienne Charles

(Culture Shock Music)

One result of migration, forced and voluntary, is a blossoming of new music cultures. On his new album Traces — a limited edition in both vinyl and CD — Trinidadian jazz musician Etienne Charles continues his exposition of “New World” stories through music genres born where disparate peoples meet. Charles finds catalysts for composition in his colleagues’ origins. Performed here by a stellar quartet — each member with a different birthplace — playing cello, cuatro, double bass and trumpet, this album’s music reflects their individual cultures and traditions. Antillean waltzes and biguine from the Caribbean, festejo, merengue, joropo and choro from South America all provide sonic connections to tales, tributes and the legacies that define an expansive Creole soul. Charles the musician is the fortunate traveller who gloriously and majestically adds to his oeuvre by mining his African sojourns, his Latin American expeditions, and his Caribbean recollections and discoveries.

• Vinyl copies of this album are available exclusively here.
• CD copies of this album are avalable exclusively here.

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1. This review appears in the May/June 2023 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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