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.

Caribbean Beat Reviews – May/June 2015ª

Parallel Overtones Garvin Blake

Brooklyn-based steel pannist Garvin Blake at long last follows up his 1999 debut album Belle Eau Road Blues with his new paean to pan jazz music, Parallel Overtones. The album is described as exploring “the synergy between pan, calypso, and jazz,” which it does with sure-handed skill. Balancing a repertoire between jazz standards and calypsos, Blake stealthily makes the case for renewed efforts of Caribbean pannists to record new music for the instrument. Vincentian keyboard stalwart Frankie McIntosh shares co-production along with songwriting and arrangement credits, making this album a showcase for the art of the Caribbean piano, with a sense of swing found only in hot latitudes. Kaiso-jazz classic “Fancy Sailor” sashays along at the steady chip of a slow lavway, while “Body and Soul” waltzes effortlessly to ably feature Blake’s quintet of players as soloists. The steelpan jazz oeuvre, while notably small, is emboldened by the addition of this well-produced album.

  

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the May/June 2015 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2015, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.