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.

Playlist (January/February 2023) | Music Buzzª

Calasanitus  Leon Foster Thomas

(Krossover Jazz)

The steelpan, as an instrument to translate emotion into sound, does not get the high-profile notice that, say, a violin or piano gets. With a history of not yet 100 years, that may be inevitable — but in the hands of a master, one can hear the expressive potential of the instrument. Thomas’ rapid-fire dexterity takes a back seat to his improvisational elan on this, his fourth album, to let his compositions breathe and his guest soloists fly. The album is a tribute to his late mother and her imparted life lessons, and its songs follow a range of ideas and moods — from heartache to joy, contemplation to memory. Steelpan, piano, saxophone and trumpet dramatically converse with each other to tell stories: a parent’s sacrifice, an immigrant’s dream, the migrant’s challenges, a happy evocation of childhood, a meditation on the end of Caribbean life, and more. This mature reflection — both good and sad, all well played — makes this album a keeper.

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1. This review appears in the January/February 2023 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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

Playlist (July/August 2022) | Music Reviewsª

Herencia Criolla  Josean Jacobo

(Self released)

Pianist Josean Jacobo says: “I take the folkloric idioms, our traditional culture, African-Dominican heritage, and I blend it with contemporary jazz in a trio setting.” That statement aptly describes his new album, but does not convey the extent of the rhythmic impact one can hear. Bachata and merengue pulses cement a new island jazz aesthetic.

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1. This review appears in the July/August 2022 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2022, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (March/April 2022) | Music reviewsª

ALCOA Sessions  Charlie Halloran

(ArtistShare)

Before quick airline travel to the sunny Caribbean was both utilitarian and a vital part of the tourism product, cruising from ports north to the islands was an adventure in itself that required patience and a tropical assimilation. Hailing from New Orleans, a kind of cultural Caribbean North Pole, Charlie Halloran has reimagined the zeitgeist of the era and recreated “the musical experience aboard cruises run by the Alcoa Steamship Co. out of New Orleans from 1949 to 1959.” A broad dance music repertoire from Trinidad, Guadeloupe, New Orleans, and Venezuela gives the listener an appreciation of what the Caribbean aesthetic sounded and looked like to foreign tourism execs. Calypso, beguine, and joropo are played energetically and well. The songs of Trinidadians Lionel Belasco and Pat Castagne are given new life as the idea of cruising “down to the Spanish main” becomes not so much a bygone dream, but a way of restoring majesty to local music.

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1. This review appears in the March/April 2022 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2022, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Playlist (July/August 2019) | Music reviewsª

Ascension Jeremy Hector

(Thunder Dome Sounds)

Young, gifted Grenadian guitarist Jeremy Hector makes his album debut with the aid of countryman — and Canadian Music Award winner — Eddie Bullen at the production helm. There is a flawless sheen to the smooth jazz tropes that ooze like treacle from these eleven tracks. That could be a bad thing, in that there is a sameness of song profile, but there’s a silver lining in the sound of that guitar. The tone of Hector’s instrument is remarkably listenable, suggesting there’s more for the audience than sonic fantasies of island life and tropical vacations. Hector’s mature supple fretting technique allows for fluid playing, and the listener’s obvious ease of engagement with these compositions — ten, self-composed — add to the idea that this debut was long overdue. A Caribbean rhythmic aesthetic shines through on the tracks “St Paul” and “Islander”, in particular, to give this album a unique distinction.

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Creole Big Band MizikOpéyi

(Aztec Musique / 3M)

MizikOpéyi is an interesting concept in the Caribbean: an ensemble in the style of a New Orleans big band, but one which “combines swing in all its forms with the rhythms of the Antilles, with a rejuvenating modernity.” Formed by former Malavoi lead singer Tony Chassseur and his fellow Martiniquan, pianist and arranger Thierry Vaton, the band mines the music of the French Antilles, Haiti, and other Creole music sources globally. On their fourth album, the eponymous Creole Big Band covers the Creole music of the Caribbean and the overseas department of Réunion, and adds new tunes that showcase their wide repertoire. It also fascinates with a sound that can rival any big band in the land of jazz, yet is suffused with a kind of Caribbean fusion originality. Guest soloists include Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Franck Nicolas, Orlando Valle, Alain Jean-Marie, and Michel Alibo, to name a few. A new favourite for the seeker of Caribbean excellence.

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1. These reviews appear in the July/August 2019 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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

Playlist (May/June 2019) | Music reviewsª

Rise of the Protester Reginald Cyntje

(Self Released)

In a series of splendid jazz albums, trombonist and composer Reginald Cyntje has been musically chronicling the range of human emotions, and providing a musical engagement with the human spirit, the soul, the cerebral self. An intelligent understanding of ourselves culminates in this new recording, Rise of the Protester, which documents the resistance of the “hue man” to bondage, to deprivation, to prejudice, and to injustice in both Caribbean and American spaces, reflecting Cyntje’s multiple heritages as a Dominican raised in the US Virgin Islands, and now living in the United States. Taking his cues from a historical record of resistance, literal and figurative — from the likes of Harriet Tubman and “Queen” Mary Thomas of St Croix to Malcolm X and others — Cyntje’s evolution of protest is given gravitas with music that engages the urgent rhythms of Caribbean movement and the contemplative space of jazz. This is by no means mournful dissonance, but a joyous celebration of spirit wanting to be free.

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My Good Day Ronald “Boo” Hinkson (Single)

(Zephryn Records)

St Lucian music icon and guitarist Ronald “Boo” Hinkson has a career equivalent to that of an ambassador for his native island and its annual jazz festival. The languid pleasures of Caribbean life are mirrored in the tropical smooth jazz feel of this song. Featuring the vocals of Irvin “Ace” Loctar and Shannon Pinel, and Hinkson’s “signature feathery touch,” this song’s inspirational message of hope and gratitude is made clearer when you grasp the relationship between our Caribbean realities and the vision of the tourist brochure. “Survival is the triumph of stubbornness,” said St Lucian poet Derek Walcott, and in these lyrics, you get the sense that a good day is just around the corner from a series of regular bad yesterdays. The jazz guitar in the hands of giants like Wes Montgomery and George Benson became the smooth sonic antidote to melancholy, and Hinkson merrily continues that tradition here.

RONALD BOO HINKSON · My Good Day

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1. These reviews appear in the May/June 2019 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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

Playlist (November/December 2018) | Music reviewsª

Pillar Jonathan Scales Fourchestra 

(Ropeadope Records)

The steelpan and its sound have become almost the cliché of Caribbean fantasy and escape, but in the hands of musicians with a determination to move away from that old trope, the music can challenge listeners to re-imagine the unique timbre of this creole invention and its canon. North Carolina native Jonathan Scales revels in odd metres and radical time signature changes to produce music for the instrument that can be complex, intriguing and ultimately funky enough for listeners to bop their heads. On this new album, the bass guitar serves as a fulcrum for a rhythmic chase as the steelpan matches it on some tracks like, “This Is The Last Hurrah”, or plays counterpoint standing in awe of the superb musicianship of the likes of Oteil Burbridge, Victor Wooten and MonoNeon on “Fake Buddha's Inner Child” and “The Trap”. Scales's musical hero, banjoist Béla Fleck guests, showcasing the adaptability of the steelpan in musical settings born outside the archipelago.

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1. These reviews appear in the November/December 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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

Playlist (September/October 2018) | Music reviewsª

In The Moment Larnell Lewis 

(Self Released)

Toronto is a multicultural paradise, more so for a number of artists and a second generation from the islands. Drummer Larnell Lewis, of Kittitian heritage is the premier drummer in the city, landing a job with Grammy winners Snarky Puppy and collecting a couple statuettes for himself. On this, his debut album, he calls on his Caribbean diaspora friends and his Snarky Puppy bandmates to add to this novel referencing of jazz from the perspective of a black North American jazz musician who is not African-American, freed from conjecture and obligations of jazz heritage. That freedom allows Lewis to explore rhythms and harmonies that suggest New Orleans (“Beignets”), gospel jazz (“Rejoice”), Latin jazz (“Coconuts”), fusion (“Change your Mind”), bebop — the solo on “No Access” is a drum masterclass — and tropical World Music (“Essence of Joy”). Memories and moments of Lewis's life are freed to inspire this joyous set of ten sparkling tunes. Dexterous and divine!

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1. These reviews appear in the September/October 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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