Articles by Nigel Campbell
Adan Hagley: Insomnia
by Nigel Campbell
The Trinidad-born Nobel laureate, VS Naipaul, implied that Trinidad and Tobago was a country of mimic men, but its geographic location in the world and social history makes the pull of myriad sonic and rhythmic influences inevitable. Adan Hagley on his debut album, Insomnia, has made those connections from his wide listening palette. He cites Michel Camilo and Snarky Puppy as influences, but you also hear Ray Holman's melodic template, Élan Parlē's early harmonic experiments and the late Raf Robertson's ...
Continue ReadingJazz from the US Virgin Islands' new breed
by Nigel Campbell
September 2017 was a horrible month for the US Virgin Islands (USVI). As the New York Times wrote, “In the Virgin Islands, Hurricane Maria Drowned What Irma Didn't Destroy." We should not forget that from these isles, a pool of talent has created music that has endured, survived, and influenced. Music writers and researchers have investigated the interrelationship between the mainland and the Virgin Islands jazz scenes to conclude that they have “a fundamental mutual relationship: the American jazz scene ...
Continue ReadingThe Narell Brothers: Steelpan Music Merchants
by Nigel Campbell
Steelpan musician, Andy Narell and his older brother Jeff Narell represent a game change in the status quo of island music and the instruments born in the Caribbean. Originally created as an musical accompaniment to celebrate Trinidad Carnival, the steelpan has evolved over the years to become a modern acoustic instrument family that supplies a range of unique timbres and tonals colours for all the world's music, including jazz and calypso. Andy Narell, with over 18 albums as leader or ...
Continue ReadingEtienne Charles: San José Suite
by Nigel Campbell
Whenever Trinidadian jazz trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles releases an album, it is an event. In this case, it is his latest opus, the ten-part San José Suite--soon to be performed live in Trinidad and Tobago for the first time on November 20. [The album was released in the US in June 2016 and debuted live at the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest in August 2016.] This suite dares to magnify the idea of the wider Americas as a crucible ...
Continue ReadingAkinola Sennon: Cousoumeh
by Nigel Campbell
Trinidadian steelpan player and musical director of local steelband Siparia Deltones, Akinola Sennon's Cousoumeh is a mix of effective songwriting and performance and a daring leap into a new way of hearing improvised music from the Caribbean. Ropeadope Records--an increasingly important record label in the U.S.--is home to steelpan jazz artists Leon Foster Thomas and Jonathan Scales Fourchestra--remarks openly that the record, “is an interpretation of jazz where the heritage of the island [Trinidad] and the full sense ...
Continue ReadingTheron Shaw: Gumbo Caribe
by Nigel Campbell
Theron Shaw is well known in local music circles as the go-to man for guitar support ranging from jazz to calypso. His two previous releases signalled a willingness to engage with native cultural mores and tackle Caribbean Jazz not only as a way to “tropicalise" harmonically complex original music, but as a way to validate and valorise calypsoes, ethnic music and folk songs in a surprisingly new context. With his third release on CD, Gumbo Caribe, Shaw almost exclusively utilises ...
Continue ReadingAll Star Tribute to Ralph MacDonald at Holy Cross College
by Nigel Campbell
Etienne Charles with his All Star Band Jazz on D Hill Holy Cross College Arima, Trinidad May 11, 2014 On a picturesque plateau above the town of Arima overlooking the distant Caroni plains on the island of Trinidad, the Holy Cross College Alumni produced a jazz event for the ages--Jazz on D Hill-- featuring an All Star Tribute to Ralph MacDonald on Mother's Day, May 11. The music of the late ...
Continue ReadingEtienne Charles at The Little Carib Theatre, Port of Spain, Trinidad
by Nigel Campbell
Etienne Charles Little Carib Theatre Creole Soul Port of Spain, Trinidad November 30, 2013 Fresh from an exciting TEDx Port of Spain talk in the morning, the always dapper Etienne Charles and his band delivered a superb set of jazz at the gala opening of his Creole Soul tour stop in Trinidad on the evening of November 30 at the Little Carib Theatre in Port of Spain. A homecoming of sorts—this is the second ...
Continue ReadingAn American in Paradise: The sense of Belonging of Andy Narell
by Nigel Campbell
American pannist (steel pan soloist) and composer Andy Narell is an iconoclast who fearlessly challenges the narrow definitions of acceptable pan music. He is global, and his usefulness as an ambassador for Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument is tainted by suspicion long held by panmen (steel pan players) and the steel pan fraternity in general here. It may be an attitude of his own making. Long held beliefs are hard to dispel with logic. Pan pioneer Rudolf “Fish Eye" Ollivierre ...
Continue ReadingEtienne Charles: Creole Soul
by Nigel Campbell
With his simple declaration, “sound is my art...I just try to create," Trinidadian jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles puts into context his role of creator and producer in relation to his latest recording. This new album, previewed earlier this year in Tobago at Jazz on the Beach at Mt Irvine, reveals an evolution of his art that parallels the jazz idiom's most eclectic trumpeter and influence. The fourth studio album from this US-based musician and teacher bristles with a ...
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