Island Jazz Chat: Episode 20 – Vaughnette Bigford

Vaughnette Bigford is the Creole Chanteuse, the island songbird who "has made the local [Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean] songbook the new jazz standard in the Caribbean...the premier jazz song stylist in these islands whose palette knows no boundaries. Tone, beauty, presence: the definition of the New World African." An apt description from the pages of Jazz in the Islands magazine that also signals an artist ready to make the leap outwards and internationally. We chat with Vaughnette about her recording and live performance career, and her growing reputation regionally. Her move towards concert design and promotion for her art is a winner that links Caribbean fashion and music in a way that suggests a tropical Met Gala aesthetic. An international career beckons. Sat, 20 Jul 2024

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 14 - Chantal Esdelle

Trinidadian composer and educator Chantal Esdelle, a Berklee College of Music graduate, holds an important place among jazz musicians in the islands, as she is one of, if not the only female band leader who is a renowned pianist there. A multifaceted individual — performer, producer, promoter — who has, since 2000, released two albums as leader with her band Moyenne, and produced another pair of live compilation albums, all on her Ethnic Jazz Club label, Esdelle has put into the wider public domain, music guided by her understanding of the African experience in the Americas that challenges Caribbean people's notion of identity, and clarifies what it means to be a New World African. Her extensive pan-Caribbean music connections serve to define "ethnic jazz" as a new standard for engagement and exchange in jazz. She chats about being and doing. Fri, 23 Sep 2022

• Programme Date: 23 September 2022
• Programme Length: 01:30:13

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 8 - Clifford Charles

Trinidadian guitarist Clifford Charles describes his music as "smooth soca jazz." Grounded in the sounds and language of Trinidad, his liking for transforming the music of Carnival, the popular sound of Trinidad, into a contemporary jazz idiom sets him apart from other Caribbean jazz guitarists. With 5 albums under his belt, and counting, since 2004, this fan favourite prepares for a new path in life as he will have the time to make the familiar new again, with a vibe that says Caribbean smooth. Clifford Charles talks about his life, his music, his recording career, the future.

• Programme Date: 20 July, 2022
• Programme Length: 00:45:29

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 3 - Clive Zanda

The father of modern kaisojazz, Trinidadian pianist Clive Zanda recounts a career spanning from his days in England in the 1960s innovating with the fusion of calypso in the language of jazz, to his return to Trinidad and his collaboration with Scofield Pilgrim, Bajan-born kaisojazz theorist and pedagogue and beyond. The explorations of this new fusion exercise was given "proof of concept" in 1976 with the landmark album, clive zanda is here! "With dat kinda ting": Calypsojazz Innovations. His continuing efforts to create a philosophy for our understanding of jazz and kaiso music in the Caribbean are told with his development of a new book on the music and how to apply music theory to make kaisojazz music more than a niche music but a legacy.

• Programme Date: 25 January 2019
• Programme Length: 01:08:36

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 1 - Rudy 'Two Left' Smith

Jazz in the Islands magazine is proud to announce the launch of its podcast series Island Jazz Chat, featuring conversations with Caribbean jazz and pan jazz musicians based in the islands and the diaspora. In our premiere episode, editor Nigel A. Campbell chats with steelpan jazz pioneer, Rudy "Two Left" Smith. Listen below, and subscribe for future episodes of the podcast.

• Programme Date: 1 November 2018
• Programme Length: 00:24:38