Island Jazz Chat
26 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago -A podcast featuring conversations with Caribbean jazz and steelpan jazz musicians based in the islands and the diaspora.
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Episodes
Episode 20: Island Jazz Chat with Garvin Blake
March 31, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBGarvin 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 ab...
Episode 19: Island Music Chat with Teddyson John
January 29, 2024 00:00 - 47 minutes - 45.4 MBSaint 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...
Episode 19: Creole Christmas Chat with Etienne Charles
November 11, 2023 00:00 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBIsland 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 showin...
Episode 18: Island Jazz Chat with Etienne Charles
September 29, 2023 00:42 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBEtienne 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 N...
Episode 17: Island Jazz Chat with Jacques Schwarz-Bart
January 16, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 83.8 MBJacques 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 consciousne...
Episode 16: Island Jazz Chat with Leon 'Foster' Thomas
January 09, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 87.6 MBLeon '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, Calasani...
Episode 15: Island Jazz Chat with Richard Bailey
December 14, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 76.8 MBRichard 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 th...
Episode 14: Island Jazz Chat with Chantal Esdelle
October 05, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.6 MBTrinidadian 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 wid...
Episode 13: Island Jazz Chat with Andy Narell
September 26, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 83.5 MBAndy 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...
Episode 12: Island Jazz Chat with Victor Provost
September 15, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 108 MBVictor Provost, from St John, USVI, has been variously described as a "rising steelpan master...whose refreshing melodic approach to soloing on the pan is wholly steeped in the jazz tradition," and "living proof of the nuance and versatility of the [steelpan]." In this chat, Victor discusses his beginnings, his influences and the practicality and privilege of "being in the right place at the right time" to develop both a performing and recording career that continues to build recept...
Episode 11: Island Jazz Chat with Annise Hadeed
August 17, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 84.7 MBPanman, 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 ...
Episode 10: Island Jazz Chat with Cameron Pierre
August 09, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 78.7 MBGuitarist Cameron Pierre has come full circle returning to his native Dominica after a multi-decade recording and performing career in the UK. After establishing an important Caribbean jazz presence there, with six albums produced, he reflects on the journey to this point. Beginning in the reggae scene here in the islands and into the UK, his evolution towards jazz through the 1980s and beyond traces a parallel development of how the Caribbean musical DNA has influenced the society ...
Episode 9: Island Jazz Chat with Theron Shaw
July 28, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBReticent. Diffident. Two words to describe the personality of guitarist Theron Shaw of Trinidad and Tobago. Another pair of apt adjectives would be determined and inventive. In a revealing conversation, we get into what made Shaw the popular choice for the islands' premier jazz guitarist. Three acclaimed albums, years of touring and working at defining for a new generation what the essence of kaisojazz is and can be for that demographic are hallmarks that are explored and revealed. ...
Episode 8: Island Jazz Chat with Clifford Charles
July 22, 2022 00:00 - 45 minutes - 31.2 MBTrinidadian 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 Cari...
Episode 5: Island Jazz Chat with Reginald Cyntje
June 16, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MBJazz trombonist, Reginald Cyntje is the ultimate Caribbean jazz musician. Born in Dominica, raised in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, of Curaçaoan heritage, he is the epitome of a Caribbean musician making it in the United States. With the release of his sixth album, Healing, Reginald chats with us on this album and his previous albums' their development and his growth as an artist and a jazz teacher. Mon, 16 Nov 2020
Episode 7: Island Jazz Chat with John Arnold
June 16, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 50.5 MBJohn Arnold is the pioneering musician, recording artist and jazz festival coordinator on the island of Tobago. As a recording artist, he has helmed half a dozen albums that play with the idea of Caribbean jazz as original music, including his latest, Jazz Standards in the Tambrin Sauce, which incorporates the Tobago-native tambrin drum family. This family of frame drums adds a unique colour and sonic identification to the music that begins a new vision to flavour improvised jazz wi...
Episode 6: Island Jazz Chat with Michael Boothman
June 22, 2021 19:09 - 1 hour - 70.4 MBMichael Boothman is the personification of excellence in the arts in Trinidad and Tobago. Pioneering, innovative and consistently successful as a performer, composer, arranger and recording artist, Boothman continues his 50-plus year career that showcases a number of firsts and milestones in the development of modern music in Trinidad and Tobago. He discusses his kysofusion innovation, and chats about his career from his teenage combo years through to his label deal with the Clarenc...
Island Jazz Chat with Reginald Cyntje
November 18, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MBJazz trombonist, Reginald Cyntje is the ultimate Caribbean jazz musician. Born in Dominica, raised in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, of Curaçaoan heritage, he is the epitome of a Caribbean musician making it in the United States. With the release of his sixth album, Healing, Reginald chats with us on this album and his previous albums' their development and his growth as an artist and a jazz teacher.
Episode 4: Island Jazz Chat with Elan Trotman
September 30, 2019 17:29 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBElan 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 ...
Island Jazz Chat with Elan Trotman
September 30, 2019 00:00 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBElan 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 ann...
Episode 3: Island Jazz Chat with Clive Zanda
January 28, 2019 22:28 - 1 hour - 62.8 MBThe father of modern kaisojazz, Trinidadian pianist Clive Zanda recounts a career spanning from his days in England in the 1960s innovating with the fusion of calypso in the language of jazz, to his return to Trinidad and his collaboration with Scofield Pilgrim, Bajan-born kaisojazz theorist and pedagogue and beyond. The explorations of this new fusion exercise was given "proof of concept" in 1976 with the landmark album, clive zanda is here! "With dat kinda ting": Calypsojazz Innov...
Island Jazz Chat with Clive Zanda
January 28, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 94.2 MBThe father of modern kaisojazz, Trinidadian pianist Clive Zanda recounts a career spanning from his days in England in the 1960s innovating with the fusion of calypso in the language of jazz, to his return to Trinidad and his collaboration with Scofield Pilgrim, Bajan-born kaisojazz theorist and pedagogue and beyond. The explorations of this new fusion exercise was given "proof of concept" in 1976 with the landmark album, clive zanda is here! "With dat kinda ting": Calypsojazz Innovations. ...
Episode 2: Island Jazz Chat with Élan Parlē
January 12, 2019 01:53 - 1 hour - 66.1 MBComposer, producer and recording artist, Michael 'Ming' Low Chew Tung is called by Jazz in the Islands, "the architect of the new calypso jazz in the 21st century in Trinidad and Tobago" for his band/brand Élan Parlē. In this in-depth and revealing chat, 'Ming' gives an oral autobiography that gives clues to how he became the major influence in modern jazz fusion in Trinidad and Tobago, and puts into perspective the trials and tribulations of the native artist in the music industry ...
Island Jazz Chat with Élan Parlē
January 12, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 49.6 MBComposer, producer and recording artist, Michael 'Ming' Low Chew Tung is called by Jazz in the Islands, "the architect of the new calypso jazz in the 21st century in Trinidad and Tobago" for his band/brand Élan Parlē. In this in-depth and revealing chat, 'Ming' gives an oral autobiography that gives clues to how he became the major influence in modern jazz fusion in Trinidad and Tobago, and puts into perspective the trials and tribulations of the native artist in the music industry in the C...
Episode 1: Island Jazz Chat with Rudy Smith
November 01, 2018 23:46 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBPioneering steelpan jazz musician, Rudy "Two Left" Smith chats with Jazz in the Islands editor, Nigel A. Campbell, about his career. His beginnings in Trinidad, his sojourn into Europe to perform and ultimately record are discussed. Landmark albums like his Otinku with the Modern Sound Quintet are put into context as a steelpan jazz first. Now resident in Denmark, Smith's career spans more than 50 years playing and recording music on the steelpan, being among the few still alive who...
Island Jazz Chat with Rudy Smith
November 01, 2018 23:46 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBPioneering steelpan jazz musician, Rudy "Two Left" Smith chats with Jazz in the Islands editor, Nigel A. Campbell, about his career. His beginnings in Trinidad, his sojourn into Europe to perform and ultimately record are discussed. Landmark albums like his Otinku with the Modern Sound Quintet are put into context as a steelpan jazz first. Now resident in Denmark, Smith's career spans more than 50 years playing and recording music on the steelpan, being among the few still alive who made re...