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 ..read more

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 Caribbe ..read more

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 ..read more

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: New York Story" commission from the NY Philharmonic, and the release of 2 limited edition albums: unique quartet mus ..read more

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 ..read more

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 th ..read more

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 ..read more

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 Car ..read more

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 rhyth ..read more

Trinidadian guitarist Clifford Charles describes his music as "smooth soca jazz." Grounded in the sounds and language of Trinidad, his liking for transforming the music of Carnival, the popular sound of Trinidad, into a contemporary jazz idiom sets him apart from other Caribbean jazz guitarists. With 5 albums under his belt, and counting, since 2004, this fan favourite prepares for a new path in life as he will have the time to make the familiar new again, with a vibe that says Caribbean smooth. Clifford Charles talks about his life, his music, his recording career, the future. Wed, July 20, 2 ..read more