Island Jazz Chat Nigel A. Campbell

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

Saint Lucian singer Teddyson John returns to Trinidad with his Stripped: Carnival Magic show in 2024, in which he transforms his deep catalogue of soca hits of more than a decade into jazzy smooth songs that discard the aesthetic of an energetic Carnival for a sophisticated tropical experience island experience. Teddyson chats about his beginnings in soca in Saint Lucia after a early life in church and on cruise ships, and gives details of the show with its star-studded cast of soca singers. This event, in the middle of the massive Trinidad Carnival celebrations, is another side of how Caribbean people celebrate. Mon 21 Jan, 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