Music Buzz | Reviews (Jul/Aug 2025)ª

Island to Island Victor Provost and Alex Brown

(Dark Fire Records)

Victor Provost continues to provide listeners with an ever-expanding range of jazz music possibilities for the national instrument of Trinidad & Tobago, the steelpan. On this, his third official album — this time with pianist and frequent collaborator Alex Brown — Provost explores more Caribbean and Latin American rhythms including the Venezuelan joropo, the Brazilian baião, and the Creole mazurka of Martinique, and applies the language of jazz (expanded harmonies and improvised melodies) to a satisfying result. Brown counters with three compositions that speak to this tropical jazz vibe with elegant touches of virtuoso playing, allowing for the interplay of steelpan and piano that does not seem overly cerebral but assuredly sensual. The Brown composition “Victor’s Tune” is their 10-minute swan song on the album that encapsulates the idea that calypso and Latin rhythms, together with moving tempos, work well to smartly celebrate pan jazz.

 

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1. This review appears in the July/August 2025 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2025, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Music Buzz | Reviews (Mar/Apr 2025)ª

Penta Ronald Snijders

(Night Dreamer)

Flautist Ronald Snijders is a hero of Surinamese jazz, rarely heard outside that diaspora (the Netherlands and its former colonies). His music on this new album continues his notable efforts over nearly five decades of layering modern jazz fusion music over the native kaseko rhythms, along with regional influences for global uptake. Marketing terms like “ethno-jazz” don’t do this album justice; its grander vision is placing the Caribbean heartbeat front and centre. And it does!

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1. This review appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2025, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.