Etienne Charles' Creole Orchestra tops chart for five weeks

ETIENNE CHARLES' latest album, Creole Orchestra, has been the number one album on the JazzWeek Chart for five consecutive weeks.

The album had the highest debut on the chart, entering at number 25 as the biggest gainer on June 10 before swiftly moving up the chart to the top position where it has held steady.

JazzWeek publishes Jazz charts based on what is being played on jazz radio stations in the US.

“I am grateful for all the radio stations, the media, and the fans that have supported this album. This body of work is truly a culmination of my work as a big band composer and I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of the musicians and singers on this project and that joy clearly translates to those who have listened to this album. I am honoured,” Charles said in a news release on July 23.

Released in the US in June and set for release throughout Europe on September 14 on his own Culture Shock imprint, Creole Orchestra is the premiere of the titular band, 22 musicians strong and specialising in executing the Trinidad and Tobago-born trumpeter’s elaborate charts.

Charles debuted the album in six live sold-out shows at Dizzy’s Club Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York from June 14 to 16.

The shows featured a full 25-musician-strong band and performances from vocalist Rene Marie and rapper Brandon Rose.

Long hailed for his work as a trumpeter, composer, and improviser, as well as for his deep knowledge of rhythms from TT and around the Eastern Caribbean, Charles has mostly worked with small combos over his nearly 20-year career.

He had written only a few pieces for large ensembles when vocalist Rene Marie tasked him with arranging for a full set of big band tunes to take on the road. Since then, he’s gone on to write for ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Airmen of Note, Charleston Jazz Orchestra, Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Jazz Orchestra and UK All Steel and Percussion Orchestra.

That was “baptism by fire,” Charles said. “Okay, now I’m a big band writer.”

And, as Creole Orchestra makes clear, he is a shrewd and inventive one.

"It’s not just anyone who can orchestrate both the classic swing anthem Stompin’ at the Savoy and Bell Biv Devoe’s new jack swing hit Poison with equal flair and crispness.

"Those are just two of the many dimensions Charles explores on the album," the release said.

Marie is a featured guest, taking the vocal spotlight for four of the 13 tracks, including I Wanna Be Evil, Eartha Kitt’s theme song that was the centrepiece of Marie and Charles’s first collaboration (her 2013 album of the same name), as well as the jazz standard Centerpiece and two of her originals. Rapper Brandon Rose and turntablist DJ Logic appear together on Poison, connecting Charles’s arrangement with the song’s hip-hop roots.

The release said the ensemble and its various soloists put in exemplary work as well.

"Lead trumpeter Jumaane Smith and trombonist Michael Dease both give standout performances on Monty Alexander’s reggae-spiced Think Twice; bassist Ben Williams wows with his soulful improv on the hardswinging Night Train; while Charles, alto saxophonist Godwin Louis, and pianist Sullivan Fortner illuminate the leader’s calypso Douens."

Of course, the real stars of Creole Orchestra are Charles’s sterling charts, it added.

“In many musical situations the arranger has become the ghost,” he writes in the album notes. “One of the first working on a project and often the last to be recognised.”

Charles has many accolades. In 2013, his album Creole Soul reached number one for three weeks on the JazzWeek chart and was eventually named number three Jazz Album of the Year by JazzWeek.

In 2012, he was written up in the US Congressional Record for his musical contributions to TT and the world, in 2013 he received the Caribbean Heritage Trailblazer award from the Institute of Caribbean Studies (Washington, DC) and in 2015 became a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2016 he received the Michigan State University Teacher Scholar Award and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Millennial Swing Award.

He made his debut as producer and songwriter on the album Petite Afrique by Somi (Sony/Okeh 2017) which won Outstanding Jazz Album at the 2018 NAACP Image Awards and he has been featured as a bandleader at the Newport Jazz Festival, Rhode Island; Monterey Jazz Festival, California; Atlanta Jazz Festival Georgia; Pittsburgh Jazz Live International Festival, Pennsylvania; San Jose Jazz Festival, California; Java Jazz Festival, Indonesia; Ottawa Jazz Festival, Canada; St Lucia Jazz Festival; Barbados Jazz Festival; Library of Congress, Washington DC; Carnegie Hall, New York and Koerner Hall, Canada.

As an educator and conductor, he has done residencies at the Juilliard School, Stanford University, Columbia College Chicago, Oakland University, Kent State University, Walnut Hills

High School, Cultural Academy for Excellence, and the US Military Academy.

Charles currently serves as professor of studio music and jazz at the University of Miami, Patricia L Frost School of Music.