Playlist (July/August 2018) | Music reviewsª

Believe Kellie Cadogan 

(Self Released)

Bajan songstress Kellie Cadogan oozes charm on this album, with songs that flirt with the sonic qualities of soul-jazz and gospel. This long-in-gestation project includes half of the ten-song album composed by Cadogan, who, with these tunes, displays an ear for contemporary popular songcraft. You can make a range of comparisons: from the sound of a reborn Anita Baker to an intimate acoustic Ella Fitzgerald duet. Songwriting and performance aside, Believe acts as a calling card for a performer who can thrill with a voice that signifies more than just a tropical hotel lounge entertainer, but a singer in touch with a wider palette of sounds. The title tune hangs on a set of lyrics that reflect a positivity and faith that act as a kind of spiritual testimony. The juxtaposition of these original songs — uplifting odes all — and twentieth-century jazz standards makes this album an interesting listen, and a pleasant reminder that Caribbean singers stride many worlds effortlessly.

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CooBago Jazz John Arnold 

(self released)

Tobagonian pianist John Arnold has a knack for writing music that finds its resonance in the heartbeat of Caribbean life. Songcraft more than execution is highlighted here on this nine-song album, with tunes running the gamut from modern piano jazz to contemporary jazz-influenced hip-hop. A longtime pinnacle of Tobago’s music scene and its jazz experience, Arnold continues with his approach of self-sufficiency in creating music that is an extension of the idea of the real Caribbean. Tobago sells itself as a laid-back paradise, the yin to Trinidad’s yang. That counterpoint to the energy of Trinidad’s music is reflected in the soft ostinato grooves of Arnold’s tunes — a repetition that isn’t boring, but that forces the ear to hear what is played on top of the groove. Funky piano and saxophone riffs help the listener discover the intended goal of the album: to define a cool Tobago sound in a sea of smooth jazz.

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Got A Light? Jeremy Ledbetter Trio 

(Alma Records)

Canadian keyboardist Jeremy Ledbetter is no stranger to island ears and aesthetics, having helmed the successful Caribbean Latin jazz ensemble CaneFire since 2005. With his new trio, featuring Larnell Lewis on drums and Rich Brown on bass — of Kittitian and Jamaican heritage, respectively — the West Indian cred is solid. Any fleeting ideas that Canada is a wasteland devoid of multiculturalism’s ethos of integration is abandoned on a first listen to this new album, featuring Ledbetter’s supple performance sharing space with that solid rhythm section. Lewis’s drums play inside and outside time signatures and showcase rhythm unhinged from the metronome-like quality of drum machines. It has to be so, as the nine tunes here echo the beat and harmonic sense of a rediscovered Caribbean transformed by virtuosity. The sound is hushed yet potent, the mood is languid yet dynamic. “Her New Wings”, sung by Eliana Cuevas, is perfection. This album is a revelation of possibilities.

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1. These reviews appear in the July/August 2018 issue of Caribbean Beat magazine.

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

De Riddim of Tings! A 2012 Overview

A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we've seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What's happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we're being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We're being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard. My worry is that we could be moving in that direction, towards becoming more and more sort of docile copiers.
"Infinite Stupidity: A Talk With Mark Pagel." Retrieved 15 December, 2011.

To say that riddim is king in soca 2012 would be partly true. All the breakout hits in the first week of parties and significantly on the radio have been riddim-based. But history has shown that the big winners of Carnival 2011 and before have been those unique soca compositions not shared with other artistes: Wotless (Kes The Band) and Advantage (Machel Montano), to name a couple. That's not to say that Benjai, hot off his "Give Away" riddim driven Ah Trini did not have an extended bumper 2011 with Wine to the Side on the "Honeycomb" riddim shared with Machel Montano and Lil Bitts. Riddim is it, and if you look sharp, a handful of riddims could dominate a TT Carnival season.

Carnival is Money, or The Canonization of William Munro, the ultimate Soca Monarch.

As I write this note in the hours before the madness of j'ouvert, the world wide web and global online commentary spaces are abuzz with analysis of:

• the quality of Panorama,
• more thoughts on Panorama,
• the length of Dimanche Gras,
• the politicization of soca,
• the screed on soca mafia and who is a "lick bottom African,"
• who get t'ief at Soca Monarch and other conspiracy theories,
• who had better picong, Bunji or Boy Boy, what happened to Destra, and so on, and so on.

I like it. Carnival is war. A war of words and ideas. Fuck that shit about "Carnival is Colour." There is finally a recognition that Carnival is MONEY. Big money, at that. In this global village where concepts like the "earth is flat" and "wikinomics" are fertile, Trinidad Carnival is making a space for itself. Streaming carnival shows online are now just mundane content delivery jobs, and opportunities to monetize everything Carnival are as pervasive as the branded bandana or tee-shirt. Text/SMS voting, while not new locally, is now part of the evolution of the net-generation's movement to make business decisions that count. Artiste branding, whether for white rum or cellphone providers, is de jure for international exposure. Only thing left is the performance vehicle to tip in favour of North American lenses and the Holy Grail of the US market as a given with recognition from peers there.

Etienne Charles & Folklore: Jazz…with a West Indian Accent

© 2010, Maria Nunes

“...Etienne Charles exhibits both an authentic preservation of the music of his native culture of Trinidad as a composer and bandleader, while broadening our scope of understanding through the collaborative sound of American jazz as it meets new colors, new textures, and new motifs across the world. It will certainly bring more of our public into the jazz audience”
–Marcus Roberts, world-renowned jazz pianist and recording artist.

On a large stage in front of large crowd by a sandy beach, Etienne Charles delivered the first part of his prodigal return to Trinidad and Tobago. A hot night for hot jazz. The listener's mind is relaxed in the Tobago air, but alert enough to discern excellence at the "Experience." The posture says, "I come back home", the sound says, "I reachin'."

The attitude is there: the stingy brim fedora on his head, like the porkpie hat of Lester Young or the Sinatra fedora in the '50s, acts as a crown, a signpost and symbol of differing superiority, a trademark. He is jazz with a West Indian accent. Meanwhile, there exists a cabal of whiners claiming jazz in Trinidad and Tobago, musicians really, but only complaining. Periodic performances never in juxtaposition with excellence hence the stasis of the third world is their burden. Etienne is on another plane(t?) literally and figuratively.

Karl Doyle: The Brand New Heavy

Tuesday, April, 6, was the date of a fascinating event in the calendar of jazz performances here in Port of Spain. Karl Doyle, along with his partner Jean-Marc Aimey hosted the second jam session of their weekly Jazz & Fusion Tuesdays @ La Casa de Ibiza that featured young lion musicians, saxman and flautist Tony Paul, panmen Derron Ellies and Kern Sumerville, bassist Peter Noel, guitarist Dean Williams and Karl himself on drums. Even Modupe Folasade Onilu fell in on drums for a couple of numbers. A couple singers even ventured into the realm of kings.

This jam inspired this writer to give a running commentary on Facebook via Twitter to one of the fans who is abroad. As I tweeted that night,

"Karl Doyle & krew just turned a bunch of limers into jazz fans. Awesome!"