Island Jazz Chat

Anthony Pierre represents a pioneering effort of a Caribbean musician to establish a sustained island jazz presence in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That multi-decade journey has resulted, by the 1990s, in the formation of the Caribbean jazz sextet Kalabash, which focused on "using the steel drum as a lead voice in a jazz ensemble, while experimenting with the layering of rich jazz harmonies over the folk and popular rhythms of the Caribbean, from reggae, son and salsa in the north, to calypso, soca, rapso and zouk from the Eastern Caribbean." With two albums under the band's belt, the self-titled debut in 2001, and the follow-up, Keep Them Close in 2013, Pierre relates the historical journey to establish a popular contemporary jazz fusion outfit with an island vibe within the metropolitan and increasingly multicultural space that is Canada's largest city. Tue, 26 Mar, 2024.

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 

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

Island Jazz Chat host, Nigel Campbell chats with globe-trotting Trinidadian musician and Guggenheim Fellow Etienne Charles about his upcoming performance in Trinidad and Tobago, A Creole Christmas Gift: Concert and Cocktails presented by HADCO Experiences. This event will showcase the extraordinary talents of Caribbean music legend and 7-time Grammy award winning jazz pianist Chucho Valdés within his Royal Quartet, along with Charles and his Creole Soul band, in a celebration showing appreciation through music, food and festivity, with a focus on how people in the wider Caribbean celebrate the Christmas season. Sat, 11 Nov 2023

Etienne Charles is a creole soul. A Caribbean intellectual and sublime musician who positions the "native gaze" to reflect a new perspective on the wider Americas beyond a boundary. From Trinidad, with a trumpet in his hand and a rhythm in his veins, he has, over an 18-year recording career, observed and composed music that "re-charts the ruins," excavates supressed histories, and elevates island ideas over metropolitan ideals. Post-pandemic, he was busy with his "San Juan Hill: A New York Story" commission from the New York Philharmonic, and the release of 2 limited edition albums: unique quartet music, Traces, and a live recording of his Creole Soul band in San Francisco where a new piece recalling the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre had its debut. With more recordings to come, the creole soul never sleeps. Sat, 26 Aug 2023

Jacques Schwarz-Bart from Guadeloupe can be considered a Caribbean jazz explorer who is mining musical histories and creating new experiences based on tradition, heritage, spirituality, and a full understanding of the Caribbean legacy of being at the centre of many cultural moments in the Americas. His dual Afro-Caribbean and Jewish heritage has allowed him to make bold musical statements, both live and on record, that re-chart the ruins, and to place in the wider public consciousness the music of Haitian Vodou, Guadeloupean gwo ka rhythms, Hebrew liturgical chants, and other creole spiritual conversations all resonating with a jazz vocabulary. From neo-soul and jazz to introspective takes on the spectrum of African diasporic music and retentions, Schwarz-Bart continues to expand the Caribbean Jazz footprint globally with tours, recordings and teaching. Tue, 10 Jan 2023

Leon 'Foster' Thomas, contemporary steelpan jazz musician and composer from Trinidad, and at present, Caribbean Jazz researcher now based in the UK, chats on his career and the continuing journey to move the steelpan to the front of the jazz bandstand with his recordings and performances. His compositions, what he calls his "book of stories", position the instrument as a transcriber of emotions that allows for a dynamic range of sensitive touch and dexterity. His new album, Calasanitus due in March 2023, explores a range of topics that get to the heart of what Thomas sees as lives lived and the fates of people moving among the Americas.  Mon, 9 Jan 2023

Richard Bailey, born in Guyana (then British Guiana), raised in Trinidad, and long resident in England, is the go-to drummer for major recording and touring artists in the UK since the 1970s. Jamming and recording with the likes of Jeff Beck and Bob Marley as a teenager, Bailey was a pivotal member of the new generation of musicians who forged a funky and jazzy new direction for British music from the '70s onwards that reflected the rhythmic influences from the former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. His bands Batti Mamzelle and The Breakfast Band, as well as his contributions to the groups Gonzalez, Incognito, and Citrus Sun lead to solo recording work that cements the Caribbean contribution to UK acid jazz and evolves kaisojazz and Caribbean jazz towards a universal recognition at the turn of the century.  Thu, 1 Dec 2022

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

Andy Narell, globe-trotting and pioneering steelpan jazz musician, composer and arranger chats about his beginnings in the world of steelpan in the 1960s, and the evolution of the sound that he is leading in the 2020s with a new sample library of steelpan instruments created by the legendary master tuner Ellie Mannette. And everything in between. From the West Coast of America to Trinidad to South Africa, to the French Antilles and Japan, the Narell sound and music is a standard for many on how the business of steelpan jazz performance and recording operates. Caribbean and Latin American rhythms, African pulses, post bop references all colour his music, and with a prolific output of recordings, steelpan jazz is part of the global jazz conversation. Wed, 21 Sep 2022