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.

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 11 - Annise Hadeed

Panman, steelpan virtuoso, steeldrum musician. Just don't call Annise 'Halfers' Hadeed a "pannist". He is more than that! This important musician and recording artist from Trinidad and Tobago, now resident in the U.K., has been blazing a trail in the jazz scene there, as well as contributing significantly to the Caribbean presence there as an award winning steelband arranger. He made his recording debut in the 1980s with The Breakfast Band, and recorded, toured and performed widely in the U.K. & Europe, the US, and the Caribbean, as part of a new wave of Caribbean jazz talent, reinforcing the work of pioneer kaisojazz musicians like Clive Zanda and Russell Henderson, and moving the music forward with important collaborations that put the steelpan at the forefront of a new jazz aesthetic. 

• Programme Date: 10 August 2022
• Programme Length: 01:32:28