Music buzz | Reviews (Nov/Dec 2025) ª

Dezòd Jean Caze 

(Self-released)

On his third album, Miami-based Haitian Jean Caze is a horn specialist — trumpet, trombone, flugelhorn, conch shell — who continues his successful blend of Haitian heritage with modern American jazz influences. The interplay between trumpet and saxophone showcases engaged improvisation while the rhythmic bed (djembe and other percussion) allows for feet to chip and hips to move. Thirteen tracks — including a sublime solo version of the Haitian national anthem, “La Dessalinienne” — define new pathways for Caribbean jazz in the world.

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Scratch Band Ron Blake

(7tēn33 Productions)

The minimalist instrumentation of his native quelbe music bands of St Croix, USVI was a starting point for saxophonist and SNL band regular, Ron Blake, to retrace and reform legacy island music production towards new compositions and improvisations. With just double bass and drums in tow, calypsonian Shadow’s “Bassman” is recast as melody and rhythm alone — harmony implied — to great effect. Begun during COVID lockdowns, this LP allows listeners to hear sparse yet soulful one-on-one jazz conversations.

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1. These reviews appear in the November/December 2025 issue of Caribbean Beat Magazine.

© 2025, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved. 

Music Buzz | Reviews (Nov/Dec 2024)ª

Psalms and Proverbs Godwin Louis

(Blue Room Music)

For centuries, music has been an adjunct to prayer and liturgical texts. When European colonists came to the “New World”, hymns and psalms were ritualised, with a mission to convert the populations they encountered (and subjugated) to Christianity. In the contemporary Caribbean, the music inspired by these ancient words of faith and control have taken on new dimensions. Haitian-American saxophonist Godwin Louis is a global traveller who has used his Caribbean perspective to reinterpret and remake this body of sacred texts, music, and traditional hymns. Haitian, Cuban, and Trinidadian musicians are all in the mix, transforming the music for your soul into relevant idioms. Hard bop madness blends with Afro-Caribbean rhythms to fine effect. Jazz “with a West Indian accent” imbues this album with a new aura of responsibility for positioning Caribbean creativity and ideas beyond old totems. A Kreyòl djaz celebration for any soul.

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1. This review appears in the November/December 2024 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

© 2024, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights Reserved.

Island Jazz Chat: Episode 4 - Elan Trotman

Elan Trotman, Boston-based contemporary jazz saxophonist from Barbados discusses the business of jazz with Jazz in the Islands. In 2019, he released his new album Dear Marvin, a saxophone tribute to the late great Marvin Gaye on the Woodward Avenue label. We get the Caribbean-American perspective from this Berklee College of Music alumnus about the significance and possible advantage of label distribution in enhancing the brand via radio and physical sales. This year also marks the sixth anniversary of his Barbados Jazz Excursion, a major destination festival in the islands where contemporary jazz meets the sun, sand and sea.

• Programme Date: 22 September 2019
• Programme Length: 00:39:14

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 Reviews – November/December 2014ª

#LiveAndUncut Elan Trotman Group

Barbadian saxophonist, Elan Trotman serves up on this eighth album #LiveAndUncut (“Live and Uncut” for the Twitter hashtag averse) a tropical feel that defines the elements of smooth jazz that have a legion of fans reaching for a Rum Punch and the resort menu. Combining catchy hooks and warm melodies, with the purposeful blending of danceable calypso and reggae rhythms is a strategy that would separate Elan from the rest of the pack of smooth jazz saxophonists. Lead single, “Smooth ‘n’ Saxy” aptly describes the mood of the album that introduces the listening audience to the steelpan sound as an ambience enhancer. The track “Simon Paul” slyly mimics Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” melodic charm to cheerful results finding the Caribbean jam where there was a hint before. “Bop & Run” is a calypso re-invented while “Funkalypso” is a jazz soloist’s paradise. This album should be a must-have on any jazz or Caribbean playlist.

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1. More Caribbean Playlist reviews appear in the November/December 2014 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

Jesse Ryan: A New Jazz "Superstar"

Jesse Ryan © 2010, Jade Slinger

Jesse Ryan is humble to a fault, but his talent, even at his young age and admittedly juvenile academic level is profound, enticing the ears of those who listen with the phrasing and improvisatory ideas of an old soul. I had the pleasure of hearing this student of jazz—a Berklee undergraduate intermittently returning to the college as funds would allow—at La Casa de Ibiza at a Karl Doyle produced event last year and was immediately making comparisons in terms of long-term potential with the young lion colossus, Etienne Charles who single handedly reaffirmed my belief that one must sojourn in the centres of academe abroad to make sense and add sensibility to our native music and it's variations. Jesse's technique is there. His improvising skill is growing. His composition skill is ambitious and set for taking Caribbean jazz out of its niche of ethnic fusion to a mainsteram acceptance based on skill, talent and precedence.

This generation of jazz musicians born after the oil boom years is making a space for itself after the prolific New School generation of Ming, Theron Shaw, Sean Thomas, Clifford Charles, Sean Friday. It is my belief that this thing that Scofield Pilgrim codified as Kaiso Jazz, calypso jazz, call it what you may, was given life by Clive Zanda's generation—"Two Left", Ralph Davies, "Buddy" Williams—and enhanced by the generation of Raf Roberson, the Boothman Brothers, the late Dave Marcellin, Anise Hadeed, "Boogsie". The New School had the chops but frustratingly got the business model wrong, laying a path for the young lions of Etienne, Jesse, Tony Woodroofe Jr, Mikhail Salcedo to play and, critically, to compose and play their originals to a growing audience of discerning listeners who get this thing called jazz.