Island Exports & Descendants Broaden Jazz Expressions

The contribution of jazz musicians of Caribbean lineage is as old as jazz itself. The difference with the current generation is their perhaps more overtly prideful embrace of elements of their native culture in their expressions of jazz, reflecting the more ecumenical nature of the 21st century approach to the genre. There is a growing cadre of jazz musicians of Haitian descent, and other Caribbean arrivals or first gens, who openly embrace elements of that most misunderstood island’s rich musical heritage. Owing much to its historic position as site of the West’s most successful slave revolt, coupled with its often dire economic conditions on the wings of cruel dictatorships, muddled politics, and natural disasters, Haiti has an image that has been cloaked in negativity by the world media for far too long. Consider the Haitian derivation of Yoruba religion, known as vodoun or voodoo, and the misunderstanding and intensely negative connotations that practice has long endured. First and second generation Haitian arrivals, as well as many of their peers from other parts of the Anglophone or Francophone Caribbean, have enthusiastically embraced music and rhythms found in voodoo rituals, such as Racine (or rasin), incorporating these elements in their 21st century expressions of jazz.

For ages jazz from the Caribbean islands has been primarily defined by the dominant strain known as “Latin Jazz.” That potent and well-chronicled form has concentrated on the influence of the Spanish-speaking sector of the Caribbean, particularly the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. This is despite significant evidence of cross-island pollination. There has been much written on so-called “Latin Jazz,” often citing the historic enterprise of Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban hand drummer/vocalist/dancer Chano Pozo as the key touchstone. That partnership was primed by Dizzy’s friendship with trumpeter Mario Bauza starting when they both sat in Cab Calloway’s trumpet section. But little has been written on jazz influences from the English and French-speaking islands of the Caribbean. There have certainly been no books on the order of the John Storm Roberts classics Latin Jazz: The First of the Fusions, 1880s to Today (Schirmer) or The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin Music on the United States (Oxford University Press), and the writings of numerous others like the scholarly Cuban author-critic Leonardo Acosta.

Jelly Roll Morton spoke of the “Spanish tinge,” insisting, “If you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning for jazz.” Haitian rhythms, however, were perhaps of equal importance in early jazz developments. So what of that Haitian tinge, or tinges from Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Trinidad, Guadeloupe, St. Martin, Martinique, Barbados, St. Lucia and the rest of the former English and French colonial islands?

This writer recently had an opportunity to more closely ponder those tinges when invited to deliver a presentation on Caribbean jazz at the conservatory in the lovely southern Italy seaside town of Bari, as part of the annual Bari in Jazz festival last May. As I tossed around ideas, how illuminating would it have been to reiterate all the historic facts, partnerships, recordings and copious research that’s been done on the so-called Spanish or Latin tinge so essential to jazz? Listening to an advance of Naked (BBjuiss Records), the latest release from the emerging Miami-based saxophonist Jowee Omicil, who performed on Bari in Jazz as the festival’s lone U.S.-based representative sparked some ideas. Omicil is a first generation Canadian raised in Montreal by Haitian immigrant parents, and his music often reflects that birthright. I determined to focus my presentation on artists whose heritage is in the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean islands, primarily Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, and Haiti.

Later in June, at a 70th birthday celebration, the distinguished Jamaica born and raised virtuoso jazz pianist Monty Alexander, on the heels of his Harlem-Kingston Express Vol. 2, The River Rolls On (Motema), quite convincingly played Alexander’s mento/ska/reggae-based jazz grooves at DC’s Howard Theatre with his Jamaican crew. That performance followed Trinidadian trumpeter Etienne Charles’s joyous performance on the DC Jazz Festival. Subsequent research as well as communications with Omicil, Charles, and saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart revealed a vibrant community of island-proud emerging young jazz artists. Charles and Schwarz-Bart were also guests of Alexander’s 70th birthday band performances in DC and New York. What distinguishes these artists from their Caribbean forbears who’ve impacted the jazz landscape from the early days of jazz is their seemingly more explicit desires to view their jazz perspectives through the lens of their island heritage and subsequently reflect that marriage in their music. Many of their jazz forebears from the islands did indeed evidence some measure of their island heritage in their music, but not as readily as this new generation, reflecting the broadening diversity of jazz as global music in the 21st century.

There is a growing generation of musicians either arriving from the Caribbean islands or second generation Caribbean-Americans who have or are in the process of immersing themselves in the musical heritage of their respective ancestral homelands. They’re bringing their own flavors to the jazz firmament and expanding our sense of Afro-Caribbean jazz expression, Haitian musical culture predominating those influences.

The Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 delivered a great influx of Haitians to New Orleans. Many others who fled Haitian bondage landed in Cuba, so even the island generally credited with having the broadest and deepest impact on jazz was significantly influenced by Haitian rhythms. Turning our gaze to the American city with arguably the greatest impact on jazz development, post-rebellion roughly 3,000 black refugees fled Haiti for New Orleans. Coupled with the approximately 2500 slaves in the New Orleans vicinity who were imported from Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1776-77 and Jelly Roll Morton’s vaunted “Spanish tinge” begins to broaden.

Consider Caribbean island music or rhythmic traditions that have seeped into jazz: calypso (the rather strident, highly syncopated, late 18th century Trinidadian music that arose from the islands plantations), Jamaican mento (an Afro-Jamaican acoustic music construct with a kinship to calypso whose topical lyrics focus on the human condition) and its derivatives ska (characterized by a walking bass line and rhythmic accents on the upbeat) and reggae (with its characteristic offbeat 1 & 3 accented rhythms, staccato guitar chords played on the offeats of the measure, and liberal use of call & response), kompa (the national dance music of Haiti, a modern merengue attributed to the 1950s multi-instrumentalist Nemomas Jean Baptiste), quelbe (an indigenous Virgin Islands form that engages improvised instruments like gourds and washboards), racine (or rasin, a Haitian musical movement that is a voodoo ceremony roots music fused with rock rhythms), zouk (a jump-up Carnival beat from the French Antilles that was popularized in the 1980s by the Haitian band Kassav, a band which influenced late period Miles Davis), Gwo-ka (a family of indigenous hand drums characterized by seven rhythms or dances; the largest of the drums plays the central rhythm while the smaller drum embellishes that rhythm), just to cite a handful. (Note: true to African nomenclature, many of these forms, traditions (e.g. voodoo), or rhythms are known by multiple spellings.)
The jazz festival phenomenon has found a welcome home in many Caribbean islands’ tourism profile. Jazz festivals are hosted on the islands of Aruba, the Virgin Islands, St. Croix, Bonaire, Cuba, Curacao, Guyana, Barbados, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Jamaica, and St. Thomas (which experienced a jazz festival launching in 2014). Some measure of these events may prove inspirational to succeeding generations of island musical youth in terms of their own professional pursuits. Taken island by island we find a growing number of emerging jazz artists making—or poised to make—their marks on the contemporary scene. Many of them have expressed their island heritage in recordings rooted in jazz principles, or have expressed imminent plans to do so. Here’s a representative sampling of some of the more compelling of the Caribbean exports emerging in jazz.

Haiti

Trumpeter Jean Caze was a finalist in the 2007 Thelonious Monk Competition. When he was a baby his family migrated from the island to Queens, New York, where he grew up. The year prior to the competition Caze (pron. Cos) found himself back home, where he’d been invited to perform with the noted Haitian jazz pianist Reginald Policard. “He has been blending jazz and Haitian rhythms for a long time,” says Caze, “and when I played that music for the first time I felt liberated! I write music with Haitian rhythms in mind, also the Creole language is very colorful and has a very musical sound to it. I use the words to come up with melodies often. In Haitian music there are hundreds of rhythms to choose from. All of the rhythms have West African origins. New hybrid rhythms were developed when West Africans from different regions were grouped together in Haiti as a result of the slave trade,” Caze asserts. “When composing with Haitian rhythms I like to use uptempo 4/4 rhythms named Petwo and Rara. When writing in 6/8 I use Yanvalou. In 3/4, I use Mayi. There are interlocking call and responses in the rhythm of the drums that set it apart from rhythms used in jazz swing.” To best illustrate these traditions Caze offers the following demonstrations from a Haitian drummer.

Petwo 

Yanvalou
Caze is currently working on a new recording that he suspects “will stir interest in the music of Haiti, featuring many musicians with diverse backgrounds.” Though his previous release was more straight ahead jazz, this original “Kitem Pran” from his forthcoming release—with fellow Haitian-Americans Godwin Louis on alto sax, Obed Calvaire on drums, and Tiga Jean Baptiste on hand drums—illustrates how Caze has embraced his ancestral traditions in his current sense of jazz.

Like many of his contemporaries, pianist Willerm Delisfort has crossed over freely between pop sounds and the art of the improvisers, where he’s encountered employers ranging from NEA Jazz Masters Jimmy Heath and Curtis Fuller to saxophonist David Sanchez and worldly guitarist Fareed Haque. His family began arriving in Miami in ’75 and Willerm was born stateside in ’83. “As I look back at the nights as a child listening and dancing with my mom to kompa music, I realize I was learning the language of music, the piano simply gave me that tool to express it,” Dellisfort declares. “Kompa is simply the fusion of traditional Haitian music with jazz. It’s usually in 4/4, but as for the traditional part of it, you can definitely hear the roots of it coming from Africa, also its influences all over the Caribbean and in Brazil.”

Trained at Northern Illinois University (on a Liberace scholarship), Willerm was mentored by the perpetually swinging Chicago pianist Willie Pickens. Bringing his Haitian roots to that foundation is a natural move. “The incorporation of folkloric music, harmony, rhythm… is almost impossible for me NOT to incorporate!” he insists.

Bassist Jonathan Michel was raised by parents who migrated separately from different Haitian towns, each landing in Brooklyn. “Growing up I attended and played multiple instruments at a church that worshipped in the Haitian Protestant tradition. In addition to French and Creole translations of traditional hymns, we sang worship choruses composed with traditional Haitian melodies and rhythms,” Michel details, recalling his early immersion. “The rhythms I grew up on helped me to understand and internalize the swing beat that defines American music. I realize that it is the underlying pulse of the ‘swing’ feel that is similar to me. With Kompa it is the underlying pulse of the ‘swing’ feel that is similar to me. If you compare the traditional New Orleans ‘street’ beat to Kompa (the Haitian rhythm style I grew up playing) you hear the same syncopation in the pulse. You can also feel a similar ‘four on the floor’ implication in Kompa that connects with the walking bass element in American swing beat. I did not make this connection until well after I discovered Black American Music [BAM] as part of my musicianship,” Michel declares, subscribing to the BAM declarations famously, and not without resulting controversy, espoused by trumpeter Nicholas Payton.

In addition to working with such exemplary jazz pianists as Orrin Evans, Aaron Goldberg, and Johnny O’Neal, Michel has also collaborated with Etienne Charles and fellow Haitian-American saxophonist Godwin Louis. He declares himself “At the outset of developing my own Haitian music project.”

Vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles is among a trio of notable young Haitian-American singers poised to make their marks, including Melanie Charles (no relation) and Pauline Jean. Raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, by a Haitian father and French Canadian mother, Sarah credits the tutelage of bassist Vishnu Wood, at Springfield’s Community Music School with really encouraging and pushing her artistry. “He wanted me to compose, arrange, and eventually have my own band and I consistently struggled to meet his expectations.” Growing up, her father kept such Haitian icons as Tabou Combo and Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) in heavy rotation. Martelly is currently the president of Haiti. “It wasn’t until 2009-2010 that I really started delving into Haitian music, folkloric music, with the help of my amazing singer-sisters Pauline Jean and Melanie Charles. I began to arrange very well-known [folkloric Haitian] tunes like “Wongolo Wale” and “Mesi Bondye,” both of which she arranged for her current recording Red (Truth Revolution Records), “and worked on my Creole pronunciation with Pauline and my father.” Last January she played the Port-au-Prince Jazz Festival and “the [Haitian] influence expanded to another level,” she enthuses. Besides leading her SE Charles Quartet, Sarah can also be heard in keyboardist Jesse Fischer’s unit.

Born in Harlem and raised jointly in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Port-au-Prince, alto saxophonist Godwin Louis was first immersed in jazz through a jazz guitarist uncle who, urging him in Haitian Creole, insisted that Godwin focus on Charlie Parker. Later, as a Berklee student, after a gig with Haitian trumpeter Edy Brisseaux the elder encouraged Godwin to more deeply investigate his Haitian roots, saying “You are a Haitian-American. Don’t forget about that identity.” When he entered the Thelonious Monk Institute graduate studies program at Loyola University in New Orleans, the Haiti connection hit home. “As soon as I landed in New Orleans, I felt like I was in Haiti. The cultures are very similar, the cuisine, the architecture, I was amazed by it all.” This immersion encouraged further research and “I found out that without Haiti there would be no jazz music.” The scholarly altoist regularly returns to his family homeland to research and further develop his own music, an investigation that was most recently realized in “a series of compositions all based on a research trip to Haiti” that he performed as part of a residency at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan. “The rest of the world is still unaware of Haiti’s contribution to music in the Americas,” a disparity Louis aims to close at least partially.

Saxophonist Jowee Omicil has made a remarkable transformation from the callow teenaged saxophonist first encountered at a Thelonious Monk Institute summer colony in Aspen in ‘01 to the confident artist whose energetic performance earned him many new friends at Bari in Jazz. Where the Haitian grooves show up most vividly is in his tribute to Michel Martelly, titled “Micky’s Groove Reloaded,” an extension of his original “Micky’s Groove” from his Roots & Grooves previous release. That record also featured the traditional Haitian songs “Wongol” and “Mesi Bon Die”. “Wongol” is half of the traditional Kompa [or compas] groove, with a cadence bass line,” speaking of the influence of a Haitian merengue form that has been the core of a national folk music since the 1800s. “I really mixed different elements from the Haitian/Cuban roots with [Francisco] Mela [the Afro-Cuban drummer and Jowee’s Berklee classmate on the date] to the African roots in the bass line and Lionel [Loueke] on guitar and asked him to dialogue with me in call and response,” Jowee characterizes his work on the track “Mesi Bon Die” with Mela and fellow Berklee and Monk Institute alum Loueke. “Overall it’s really my interpretation of Nat Simon’s “Poinciana,” Ahmad Jamal’s groove Jowee style.”

The lure of Haitian folkloric traditions is not limited to strictly Haitian-American musicians; in the case of hand drummer Markus Schwartz those hypnotic vibes reached all the way to his native Denmark. After migrating to the Bay Area to study he came under the influence of Haitian drum traditions as a result of an internship with an Afro-Haitian dance company. “I realized that playing Haitian rhythms exposes one to a vast cross-section of various African-based musical traditions that have survived in Haiti,” he says. In the early-90s “I was privileged to have the chance to work closely with the members of Jean-Raymond’s band Foula, a pioneering “Voudou-Jazz” ensemble from Haiti.” By ’94 Schwartz had moved to Brooklyn “specifically to put myself in closer proximity to a larger Haitian community.” Once in Brooklyn he began collaborating with such Haitian jazz artists as the ensemble Mozayik, with whom he recorded Haitian Creole Jazz (Zoho) in ’05, as well as saxophonist Buyu Ambroise and singers Emeline Michel (who has also collaborated with Jowee Omicil), Pauline Jean, and Riva Nyri Precil, all Haitian artists based in the New York City area. He has also collaborated with Omicil and Jacques Schwartz-Bart, who guested on Markus self-produced Tanbou Nan Lakou Brooklyn release.

From that recording the track “Gede Drum n Bass” is based on the drum rhythm maskawon, “and is traditionally played in Haiti for the Gede spirits; the intro melody played by the bass is a traditional Gede song as well,” says Schwartz. “On “Danbala,” which features Jean Caze and veteran Haitian saxophonist Buyu Ambroise, “the melody is a traditional song for Danbala, typically played over the rhythm Yanvalou, another 6/8, 3-drum Rada beat, one of the most well-known rhythms and dances in the traditional Haitian repertoire,” says Schwartz. “My drumming is informed mostly by the Yanvalou drumming language, and drummer Jeff Ballard is playing freely, yet inside the groove.” The recording also includes “Tanbou Ti-Roro” a tribute to the legendary Haitian drummer known as Ti-Roro (Raymond Ballargau), who was a powerful influence on the master drummer Max Roach, who traveled to Haiti to study with Ti-Roro.

Trinidad and Tobago

Always stylishly topped with a narrowly-brimmed fedora, trumpeter Etienne Charles’s growing prominence is linked to the evident bliss he puts into his performances and his skill at transforming an audience attitude into a carnival atmosphere, though his music is thoroughly immersed in the improvisational principles of jazz. In his series of recordings on the Culture Shock label Charles’s music has incorporated everything from the traditional carnival chants of figures like Roaring Lion (Rafael de Leon) and Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts) to Bob Marley to re-imaginings of songs of the calypso king Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco). Growing up in Port-of-Spain, “there was lots of improvisatory music around,” says Charles, “lots of calypsos with improvising, steel pan and many players fusing jazz and calypso. I’m heavily inspired by the classic calypso arrangers, the folk drummers, storytellers, dancers and calypsonians.” Charles’s latest recording, aptly titled Creole Soul (Culture Shock) employs the haunting voice of Erol Josue, a Haitian Houngan (voodoo priest) who practices in Brooklyn, on the two-part title track.

That disc also includes his original “Roots,” which is steeped in a rhythmic tradition from Martinique (ancestral home of his great-grandfather) known as belair. Elsewhere Etienne investigates the Haitian mascaron rhythmic tradition, which “inspired the melody and underlying grooves for ‘Midnight,’” the trumpeter reports. The product of a conservatory jazz education, Charles studied at Florida State under Marcus Roberts and completed his graduate studies in the Juilliard jazz program. He currently holds an assistant professorship in jazz studies at Michigan State University.
U.S. Virgin Islands

Tenor saxophonist Ron Blake, who has worked with such notables as Jack DeJohnette, Christian McBride, and Regina Carter, grew up in St. Thomas where his father Tom Blake, an ardent jazz enthusiast, laid Cannonball Adderley’s “Phenix” on him for his 10th birthday after the youngster expressed an interest in playing saxophone. “I think I gravitated towards jazz eventually in my youth because the saxophone was featured more. My [island] heritage influences my musical style and composition entirely. I think that my preference for the most melodic solutions in my soloing and the way I think about composing, even when I’m writing something based on Caribbean grooves, is based in some way on my Caribbean heritage,” Blake insists. Hearing Sonny Rollins dig into his “St. Thomas” celebration of familial roots was an early inspiration for young Ron.

In ’08 Blake and fellow St. Thomas musician drummer Dion Parson formed the 21st Century Band, featuring several Virgin Islands’ born musicians, including the dexterous bassist Reuben Rogers and steel pannist Victor Provost. The band enjoys annual weeklong residencies at Dizzy’s in New York, where their second release was recorded. “I was not really exposed to jazz until I was 14 years old,” confesses Parson. “The first jazz group I heard was the Rutgers University Jazz Professors. They came to the University of the V.I. and did a concert and I was completely blown away because I had no idea what these guys were playing.” Hearing that band, which comprised such masters as Frank Foster, Kenny Barron, Ted Dunbar, Larry Ridley, and Philly Joe Jones, convinced Parson to further his studies at Rutgers. After Rutgers, working with New Orleans saxophonist (and Black Indian) Big Chief Donald Harrison on his “Nouveau Swing” record “opened me up to pursuing my Caribbean culture from a musical standpoint,” says Parson.

The brawny-toned St. Thomas-born trombonist Reginald Cyntje, who matriculated through Howard University’s jazz program, has also performed with the 21st Century Band. Currently based in D.C., Cyntje found jazz through a savvy band director back home. “After learning the mechanics of the instrument,” recalls Cyntje, “I began meeting older musicians, most of whom were jazz musicians. But they played jazz with a Caribbean accent. I heard many jazz standards growing up but they were played with a calypso rhythm. I come from a culture that is strongly influenced by Rastafarian and African traditions. Virgin Islands traditional music is the root of all my current explorations. My latest album [Elements of Life] is a concept album connecting the elements to the human spirit. In many ancient philosophies the five elements were used to connect the cosmos to the internal organs,” asserts Cyntje. “‘Elements of Life’ (title track) is influenced by Quelbe music,” from his homeland, as is his original “Wind.” Quelbe is a folkloric tradition that is known as the official music of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The album also engages the steel pan mastery of Victor Provost, who hails from St. John, V.I.

Here’s a comprehensive demonstration detailing the Quelbe tradition by Virgin Islands musicologist Francis Callwood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn9j4ZoPn0s

Guadeloupe

Saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart is the product of a multi-cultural, literary upbringing. The son of two celebrated authors, Guadeloupian novelist Simone Schwarz-Bart and the late French-Jewish novelist Andre Schwarz-Bart, he grew up in Guadeloupe and Switzerland, before moving to France as a young adult. A late bloomer he didn’t encounter the tenor saxophone until he was 24, but his immersion was deep enough to land him a scholarship to Berklee. “I was heavily exposed to all kinds of Caribbean music from birth, and my favorite styles were the roots music Gwo-ka [Guadeloupian hand drums which have inspired a vibrant rhythmic tradition], and Haitian voodoo music. When I became a working jazz musician, I was constantly trying to find a language that would express both sources harmoniously. My record Sonekala [2007 Emarcy] was the first mature expression of this research, as it integrated jazz and Gwo-ka music.”

Gwo-ka is a family of indigenous Guadeloupian hand drums characterized by seven rhythms. The largest of these drums plays the central rhythm while the smaller of the drums embellishes the rhythm, characterized by seven rhythms or dances.
On a 2006 journey with NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston and his African Rhythms quintet to Guadeloupe, as part of the book project that yielded Weston’s autobiography African Rhythms, a musical meeting was arranged between Weston and the Gwo-ka master drummer Kafe. Arriving at the auditorium for the initial encounter between these two masters, we were taken aback by the onstage sight of a complete set of Gwo-ka drums connected in the manner of a traditional drumset, with Kafe seated at the drums much as a trap drummer might, but immersed in distinctive rhythmic traditions of Guadeloupe.
Neil Clarke, the African Rhythms hand drummer and a tireless student of global rhythmic traditions, was subsequently invited back to Guadeloupe to further immerse himself in the Gwo-ka tradition. Neil wrote about that experience .

The title track on Schwarz-Bart’s ’09 release Abyss (Oblique) is the clearest representation of the Gwo ka tradition. Schwarz-Bart describes his latest, the brilliant Jazz Racine Haiti (Motema) as coming “from a fascination with Haitian voodoo chants,” representative of the Haitian racine or rasin ritual, a music forged in the 1970s. Like his frequent collaborator Etienne Charles, Schwarz-Bart also engages the distinctive Haitian folkloric vocalist Erol Josue on his latest recording. “From the Gwo-ka tradition I use a lot of lewoz (war rhythms), toumbiak, Mende, pdjanbel, woule, graj, and Kaladja” rhythms, the saxophonist explains. “From the voudou tradition I use a lot of petwo, Mahi, dahomey, Maskawon, Kongo, Djouba, Yanvalou, and Alfranchi.”

A demonstration of Kongo, courtesy Jean Caze
As musicians from across the globe learn the principles of jazz (many through exported jazz education programs and the vivid and impactful messages carried forth by touring jazz artists and jazz festivals), and view the music through the lens of their various diverse cultures and adapt elements of jazz tradition and expression to their indigenous musical traditions, jazz becomes a true music of the world. Clearly the work of these artists and others of their peers is building yet another branch on the jazz tree; on the limb marked “Caribbean.”