Playlist (March/April 2019) | Music reviewsª

The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions Various Artists 

(Craft Recordings)

Between 1956 and 1964, the major Cuban record label Panart captured the sounds and descargas — improvised musical jam sessions — of the most innovative native musicians on the island. With the freedom of jazz and the soul of Cuba, this is “a stylistic and historic panorama of Cuban music, from big band son montuno to Afro-Cuban rumba, mambo, cha-cha-chá, and country acoustic guajira music,” as described by compilation label Craft Recordings. This bit of history is here remastered for a new generation and collected in a five-LP box set (five CDs are another option), offering a unique glimpse of the zeitgeist of the nation during and after the Cuban Revolution, which nationalised Cuban culture and record companies. Legends of Cuban music recorded in that loose setting include mambo co-creators (and brothers) bassist Israel “Cachao” and pianist Orestes “Macho” López, alongside jazz drummer Guillermo Barreto and other pioneers. A keepsake for the ages.

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1. These reviews appear in the March/April 2019 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2019, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (July/August 2018) | Music reviewsª

Believe Kellie Cadogan 

(Self Released)

Bajan songstress Kellie Cadogan oozes charm on this album, with songs that flirt with the sonic qualities of soul-jazz and gospel. This long-in-gestation project includes half of the ten-song album composed by Cadogan, who, with these tunes, displays an ear for contemporary popular songcraft. You can make a range of comparisons: from the sound of a reborn Anita Baker to an intimate acoustic Ella Fitzgerald duet. Songwriting and performance aside, Believe acts as a calling card for a performer who can thrill with a voice that signifies more than just a tropical hotel lounge entertainer, but a singer in touch with a wider palette of sounds. The title tune hangs on a set of lyrics that reflect a positivity and faith that act as a kind of spiritual testimony. The juxtaposition of these original songs — uplifting odes all — and twentieth-century jazz standards makes this album an interesting listen, and a pleasant reminder that Caribbean singers stride many worlds effortlessly.

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CooBago Jazz John Arnold 

(self released)

Tobagonian pianist John Arnold has a knack for writing music that finds its resonance in the heartbeat of Caribbean life. Songcraft more than execution is highlighted here on this nine-song album, with tunes running the gamut from modern piano jazz to contemporary jazz-influenced hip-hop. A longtime pinnacle of Tobago’s music scene and its jazz experience, Arnold continues with his approach of self-sufficiency in creating music that is an extension of the idea of the real Caribbean. Tobago sells itself as a laid-back paradise, the yin to Trinidad’s yang. That counterpoint to the energy of Trinidad’s music is reflected in the soft ostinato grooves of Arnold’s tunes — a repetition that isn’t boring, but that forces the ear to hear what is played on top of the groove. Funky piano and saxophone riffs help the listener discover the intended goal of the album: to define a cool Tobago sound in a sea of smooth jazz.

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Got A Light? Jeremy Ledbetter Trio 

(Alma Records)

Canadian keyboardist Jeremy Ledbetter is no stranger to island ears and aesthetics, having helmed the successful Caribbean Latin jazz ensemble CaneFire since 2005. With his new trio, featuring Larnell Lewis on drums and Rich Brown on bass — of Kittitian and Jamaican heritage, respectively — the West Indian cred is solid. Any fleeting ideas that Canada is a wasteland devoid of multiculturalism’s ethos of integration is abandoned on a first listen to this new album, featuring Ledbetter’s supple performance sharing space with that solid rhythm section. Lewis’s drums play inside and outside time signatures and showcase rhythm unhinged from the metronome-like quality of drum machines. It has to be so, as the nine tunes here echo the beat and harmonic sense of a rediscovered Caribbean transformed by virtuosity. The sound is hushed yet potent, the mood is languid yet dynamic. “Her New Wings”, sung by Eliana Cuevas, is perfection. This album is a revelation of possibilities.

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1. These reviews appear in the July/August 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2018, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (May/June 2018) | Music Reviewsª

This Is Me Jeanine S. Ruiz

(Self released)

Young Trinidadian keyboardist Jeanine Ruiz releases her first EP as a musical autobiography of a life recently begun, and a testament to her emotional journey thus far. Going through the song titles — “Ambitious”, “Overthinker“, “Impulsive”, “Temperamental”, and “Dreamer” — one can gauge how far she has come and how far she can go. Listening to the music, one can hear the subtle influences of style that have touched her compositions. World fusion has a new advocate. Admittedly influenced by Japanese jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara mainly, Ruiz has a sure handedness in her playing and a keen sense of timing and cinematic breadth in her arrangements that catch a number of genres without being confusing. This is more than jazz-influenced trio playing, this debut signals a potential to take on the rigours of inspiring a waning instrumental music listening audience, here and there, to stick around and continue to track Ruiz's ongoing musical journey.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the May/June 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2018, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (March/April 2018) | Music Reviewsª

Palmyra and Other Places David Bertrand

(Blujazz Productions)

The flute, in jazz music, has a less prominent place than the saxophone or trumpet, but in this new album New York-based Trinidadian flautist David Bertrand makes a sincere attempt to expand the repertoire of the instrument. Seven of the eight tracks of sublime quartet playing are new compositions by Bertrand: the listener is given an opportunity also to revel in the studied application of jazz language to the inherent native vernacular of Trinidadian rhythm and tone. The titles of the tunes also suggest the idea that this is a subliminal musical autobiography: “Palmyra”, “Claude’s Nariva” and “Wood Slave” recalling Bertrand’s home island’s habitat and fauna; “Lexington and 63rd” and “245 South 1st” offering a survey of his New York present. The result is testament to the continued strides made by musical émigrés from the Caribbean to an American diaspora, inspiring art that takes no prisoners.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the March/April 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2018, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (January/February 2018) | Music Reviewsª

Glass World Rudy Smith

(Stunt Records)

Trailblazing steelpan jazz virtuoso Rudy Smith has been fusing the sound of the pan with bebop and progressive jazz for nearly fifty years, premiering the sound of native invention and “creole imagination” in the wider world. Europe has been his stomping ground for all those years, and with his eleventh full-length album Smith serves as a bona fide symbol of music excellence. Glass World finds Smith back fronting his Danish jazz band, re-inventing the idea of the steelpan as a solo instrument for jazz without the feeling of it being too avant garde. “Plangent” was the word used by a reviewer to describe the sound of the double second steelpans used by Smith, but a more apt descriptive would be “euphonious.” That tone juxtaposes beautifully within the songs, mainly written by his long-time collaborator and pianist Ole Matthiessen, to serve up a new standard in a diminishing marketplace for unique jazz. Traditional jazz is best served with originality, and this album delivers.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the January/February 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2018, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Caribbean Beat Caribbean Playlist – September/October 2017ª

Pan Roots Culture Kareem Thompson 

(Self Released)

Brooklyn-born pannist Kareem Thompson revels in his Trinidadian heritage on his debut album as a leader away from his band K.I.T. Caribbean Connection, fully exploring more complex jazz harmonies. The continued fusion of Caribbean rhythms and melodic phrases makes the listener recognise Thompson’s roots, and he has not strayed too far from those early cultural influences. The title track with its percussive voicing gives credence to the idea that steelpan jazz is wide open to further evolution, as those sonic cues that define the sub-genre are subtly pushed aside for an exploration of the broader range of harmonies and rhythms. “The Sun Will Shine Today” is a standout track that has the players on this album skilfully soloing. With five out of seven tracks composed by Thompson, this album is a showcase for a rising talent in pan jazz, hopeful to maintain the Caribbean variation of jazz music in the Americas.

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Cé Biguine! Charlie Halloran 

(Twerk-o-Phonic)

This album represents, in the twenty-first century, a kind of harking back to the music and technology of a bygone era. New Orleans trombonist Charlie Halloran and his band have recorded an album of orchestrated biguine — the music of the French Antilles created in the early twentieth century as a creole stew of Afro-Caribbean and European musical tropes — straight to 78 rpm acetate disc master, to create a modern artefact of music history. Pops and clicks like an old vinyl record give this recording a nostalgic ambience, while the music has a quality that makes you want to grab a partner and dance the night away under tropical stars. It eschews the kitsch of 1950s American tourist views of the Antilles as a playground, for a re-awakening of the musical distinctiveness and inventiveness of the creole musician. Novelty aside, this album is a keepsake for listeners wanting to understand the Caribbean’s role in the evolution of jazz. Jazz, then and now, is rewarded.

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Electro Sax Elan Trotman 

(Island Muzik Productions)

Bajan saxman Elan Trotman keeps churning out new albums at a rapid pace, as if to suggest the uptake of his new music is effective and guaranteed to be popular. With this, his seventh full-length album since 2001, he keeps evolving his style around his smooth jazz base to eke out new niches. Utilising the electronic dance music drum elements so popular in recent times, Electro Sax redefines what is possible with Caribbean music. Aware that this album will “definitely ruffle feathers” for its modern production aesthetic — he assembled a creative team of up-and-coming producers, all Berklee College of Music alumni: Spardakis, P-Nut, Dr O, and Da Troof — Trotman is persevering in his push to promote the tropicality elements along with just great music for dancing. Debut single “Island Gyal” percolates with a sexy reggae vibe, keeping hope alive that this experiment in EDM fusion remains grounded in his Bajan roots.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the September/October 2017 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2017, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Caribbean Beat Caribbean Playlist – July/August 2017ª

Shades of Life Marvin Dolly
(Self Released)

New York–based Trinidadian guitarist Marvin Dolly surprises on this debut album, Shades of Life, with a quiet contemplation of trio-playing featuring just guitar, bass, and trumpet. In an intimate setting devoid of the thump of the drum, the soloists each have room to speak clearly and emotively in this conversation among acoustic instruments. Dolly, along with J.S. Williams on trumpet and John Gray on double bass, mainly, cruises through this set of subdued jazz tunes that harken back to the cool jazz ambience of 1950s West Coast America, contrasting with the bebop bombast of New York of the same era. The music, thankfully, does not wallow in the excess of a similar-sounding ambient lounge or minimalist new-age aesthetic. Dolly’s guitar finds its full voice on the tracks “Calypsonian Dream” and “Short Letters to Mother”, solo and duet guitar pieces, respectively, that make a solid opening gambit for a Caribbean instrumentalist’s voice in the diaspora.

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Sabiduría/Wisdom Eddie Palmieri
(Ropeadope Records)

The Caribbean is a trans-nation of expanded and connected diasporas. Puerto Rican heritage extends beyond its island space to include its famous diaspora citizens. Bronx-born Eddie Palmieri is a legendary Latin jazz pianist, who at the age of eighty may have delivered one of the most sonically and musically endearing albums in his career. Not that he “finally got the formula right,” but with those years of experience as a bandleader, composer, and arranger, and the “wisdom” — sabiduría in Spanish — that comes with that experience, Palmieri can pull together some of the finest talent, young and old, in jazz and salsa/Latin music to successfully and pleasingly blend the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of his Puerto Rican island “home” with the harmonically complex sounds of mainland jazz and bebop. The album also extends the fusion to include bossa nova on “Samba Do Suenho” and Cuban son on “Coast to Coast”.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the July/August 2017 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2017, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Etienne Charles - a profileª

Machel Montano and Etienne Charles.  Photo © 2016, Che Kothari

There’s a photograph floating around the Internet from about a year ago, of a dapper Etienne Charles, Trinidadian jazz trumpeter, warming up with soca superstar Machel Montano before performing a short impromptu set at the White House. President Obama could not attend the event — his loss — where the recognition of Caribbean people and their contributions to the United States reached an apotheosis. Charles and Montano embody the high pinnacle of Trinidad and Tobago’s music success in the US — and both belong to a new wave of Caribbean musicians who have honed their craft within an environment of learning and high standards.

The trumpet’s evolution and positioning as the symbol of jazz has a heritage marked by iconic figures throughout its history. Icons like Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis represent a linear history. They also represent a shift from the working-class unschooled genius to the middle-class educated musician, who have paid their dues by apprenticeship. Charles, in this pantheon in the Caribbean context, represents the modern incarnation of the jazz musician taking his craft and skill to the world.

In the Caribbean, jazz does not have as high a profile as reggae, dancehall, calypso, or soca. Despite the region’s reputation for the once ubiquitous “jazz festival” — writer B.C. Pires noted back in 1993 that there were “more than 30 jazz festivals every year in the Caribbean and most Caribbean people have never been to one.” — these islands have not offered up many global stars in the modern jazz industry. Still, the most prolific modern recording artist in the Caribbean is Jamaican jazz pianist Monty Alexander, with over fifty albums released around the world. It’s also noteworthy that Caribbean music and musicians figure prominently in the genesis of jazz music in America. Charles carries on the tradition of regional jazz musicians who have fused their native cultural influences, rhythms, and melodies with aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation to create something new.

Caribbean Beat Caribbean Playlist – May/June 2017ª

Born to Shine Vaughnette Bigford 

(Self Released)

Creole chanteuse Vaughnette Bigford delivers a sublime mix of tunes from her native Trinidadian songbook on her debut album Born to Shine. With a restrained but fine voice that captures the timbre and phrasing of excellent jazz singing, Bigford transforms familiar calypsos and island pop songs from the 1970s and 80s into well-wrought modern jazz and R&B settings that highlight fine examples of local songcraft. “All these years of toil, burning the midnight oil / Creating something from nothing,” wrote soca pioneer Lord Shorty in 1978. Bigford literally and figuratively has done just that with these rehashed songs. The proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover,” may be applied here — defaults in packaging design aside — as we bask in the splendour of what’s inside the music. High production value, lucid enunciation of lyrics needing to be heard, and elevation of island song are the hallmarks of an audacious debut destined to shine brightly.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the May/June 2017 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2017, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Caribbean Beat Caribbean Playlist - March/April 2017ª

Bright Eyes Victor Provost 

(Paquito Records)

Virgin Island steelpan jazz virtuoso Victor Provost sets an optimistic tone with his second album, Bright Eyes, capturing the influence of the Caribbean more so than on his debut album six years ago. Bebop swagger gives way to a progressive jazz world fusion while still maintaining a deft touch that allows the tenor pan to ring true. On the eleven tunes on this album, Provost runs through a gamut of styles and select composers, to give the steelpan a context outside its calypso base. The obligatory homage to calypso legend Lord Kitchener is included — “Pan in Harmony” — but this album reflects Provost’s recent apprenticeship with Cuban saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and his wider exploration of improvised tropical music. Mazurka, baião, calypso, and funky Afro-Cuban jazz all have a presence here. Guest soloists — including the aforementioned D’Rivera, alongside Etienne Charles and Ron Blake, to name a few — flavour this Caribbean jazz gumbo which swings with enough intensity to keep your attention.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the March/April 2017 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2017, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Caribbean Beat Caribbean Playlist - January/February 2017ª

Family Tree Grégory Privat Trio 

(ACT Music)

Martiniquan pianist Grégory Privat reveals in his new album of music, Family Tree, the subtle links between the Caribbean trove of rhythms and melodies and the grand vocabulary of jazz. Supported this time by bassist Linley Marthe originally from Mauritius and fellow Martniquan Tilo Bertholo on drums, Privat with his fluid playing centres the idea that the roots of jazz are firmly planted in the Caribbean creole culture that was present at the genesis of jazz. The music finds inspiration in the beguine, the bèlè and gwoka of his native Martinique and Guadeloupe. Bassist and drummer Marthe and Bertholo respectively, despite their creole backgrounds, evince the African DNA of the new world rhythms that a Caribbean perspective has produced. Privat is a fine musician with solid classical and jazz training who on this album finds the core impulse of a iconoclast to dynamically paint anew the heritage and beauty of jazz that is found in these Antilles.

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Double Take Elan Trotman's Tropicality 

(Island Muzik Productions)

“First impressions are the most lasting,” is a popular proverb that makes the case for a grand debut to cement a perfect memory. Well, certainly not this time as Barbadian saxophonist Elan Trotman has recast a number of his previously released songs from his many years as a recording artist and given them a second look, a double take if you will. He has refreshed the sound and arrangements of his Caribbean-rhythm infused smooth jazz to make them shine through—to Caribbean ears at least—with the positioning of the steelpan in a more forward position. His vocals on Bill Withers' classic “Lovely Day” are direct and make one smile at the simple charm of this song. “Tradewinds” is the antithesis to a dull day in the tropics; lilting and easy to dance to. His band of fellow Berklee College of Music alumni, Tropicality, has the musical chops to make this new impression far from diminished.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the January/February 2017 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2017, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.