Musician Etienne Charles pays tribute to Trinidad and Tobago’s arrangers

JAZZ trumpeter Etienne Charles wants to explain why his 2024 album, Creole Orchestra – one of five nominees for the US National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for Outstanding Jazz Album – is dedicated to arrangers. They are the unsung heroes of every music project, he says.

Though based in the US, Etienne – himself also an arranger, composer, trumpeter and assistant professor of studio music and jazz – said he wanted to “remind Trinidad and Tobago that we are from a culture of arrangers. I wanted to highlight that.”

Arrangers, he said, are the first ones to work on a project, but “the last person whose name is called.”

He’s grateful, as a Trinidadian, for the award nomination, he said, adding that the NAACP Awards have been “lifting” artistes up for many years. The awards are given for outstanding performances in over 40 categories in film, television, theatre, music and literature.

Charles felt honoured to be nominated alongside American artistes like jazz singer Samara Joy, saxophonist Javon Jackson and the late poet and writer Nikki Giovanni, as well as saxophonist and songwriter Kirk Whalum and pianist Matthew Whitaker.

Also, he said, “As a Trinidadian, it could not come at a better time, because it is Carnival, which is naturally a celebration.” The awards are presented in late February. Carnival this year is March 3 and 4.

This is not his first nomination. He was the producer and songwriter on the winning 2018 album Petite Afrique by Somi.

But the news of being nominated as an artiste was still “setting in,” he said in a phone interview on January 22.

Charles discussed his feelings about the nomination, the return of brass music to soca music and its recordings, and the need to train a new generation of brass players.

Creole Orchestra fulfilled his dream of creating a big-band album, he said.

“It is an album that is dear to my heart. It took years of work. I started writing for a big band in 2010 or 11. I think my first big-band concert was in 2011. It took a while, and it was also a very expensive project, as it is a lot of people in the studio.”

He wanted the album to show jazz audiences a number of things, among them that “big-band” music could easily mean swing – but also calypso.

“When I was growing up there were always these large brass bands playing calypso. I wanted to bring that, into what we say is the big-band vernacular.”

In the 1950s, big bands headed by famed jazz musicians such as pianist and composer Duke Ellington and pianist and organist Count Basie played calypsoes at the end of their sets, Charles said.

“I led off the album with a calypso, where out the gate, people know that is what I am about.

“Also I wanted to use it to showcase different musical styles so we did Poison, which is a hip-hop tune. Then I featured René Marie on four tracks, some of her original music, some of her tribute to Eartha Kitt stuff.”

Marie is an American songwriter and jazz vocalist.

Charles said the album had a great “radio run” and was number one on JazzWeek’s Top 100 chart.

“So the album got a lot of airplay. We got a lot of live shows. We did eight sold-out shows in New York. We did London.

“Normally, when a big-band album comes out, they might have one release show and that’s it. But I wanted to make sure people heard this music live and felt the energy of the big band live, because it is something special to experience.”

In 2017, Charles started his Carnival band, Riddim, Brass and Mas, to “revive brass on the road.”

Before that, in 2012, while in conversation with “some notable Trinis,”, they had told him people did not like brass any more because it was too expensive, and people preferred DJs.

He told them that was nonsense and there was nothing like live music on the road.

“Go to New Orleans, go to Brazil, go to Uruguay, go to Martinique, go to Haiti, go to Guadeloupe, go to Dominica – it is live music pushing the people down the road.”

He was reluctant to take credit for a seeming revival of brass music in soca music this year –he knows for sure his band first came out on the road in 2017.

But it was “uplifting” to see the return to musicality, brass and live music on riddims like Tilden, which features tracks from artistes including Machel Montano, Lyrikal and others, he said.

“All these different songs that’s really channelling the sound of the 80s – I think there are a few things at play that have caused this quote-unquote ‘revival.' But to see it on the mainstream level is really uplifting.”

Charles said when he started his Carnival band, it was meant to revive the use of live music on the road, and his argument was, if children did not see instruments played, they’d think music only came out of boxes.

“They are only going to think music comes from someone pushing a button and they are not going to know that music is something played with breath, hands and feet.

“So now to see it in the music, it is also very uplifting. I think people realise that substance is a thing, and there is more substance when there is harmony and horn lines. It is like painting with more textures, or a piece of clothing with more colours and textures.”

He also credited the revival to a new generation of songwriters and producers who were interested in brass.

Charles also hopes the album and its nomination will inspire them, as there was a “studious element” to it.

TT musicians like Leston Paul, pianist and arranger Frankie McIntosh, Prof Arthur “Art” DeCoteau, musician Ed Watson, Roy Cape and Errol Ince were master arrangers, he said.

“They understood the art of arranging for horns. It is not just about putting brass in a song. There is an art to arranging it.

“So these new producers are getting into the art of it, and it is a great thing, because there is a new level of sophistication that is coming back into the music.”

The return to live music and musicality made the entire Carnival product better, he said.

“It makes it more wholesome. Live music makes it more culturally rich, more attractive to outsiders who want to visit, and makes it more attractive to Trinidadians who have lived abroad for a long time.”

He added that if TT wanted to continue its reign as the Carnival mecca, the country really needed to keep brass bands going.

Charles was a product of a movement in the 90s when Anthony Woodroffe and Cape trained younger brass players. He was part of Woodroffe’s Brass Institute.

“It was literally to train the next generation of horn players to play in brass bands. That was one of the goals.”

Charles said Cape tried contacting him before his death on September 5 last year to ask him to continue the legacy of training young brass players. He asked Charles too, to continue donating instruments to students and getting them to learn.

Accomplishing this all went back to education, he said.

“(In) the places we look up to for high-level arts, high-level sports, you see a steady support system in place that is sustained, that comes from government and corporate (entities).

“It is something we are lacking in TT.”

But Charles is doing his part as an associate professor at the University of Miami and has also been leading workshops. He hopes to start an academy that will train not only brass players but also arrangers.

He said there were few musical competitions (Panorama) in the world focused on arrangement.

“I wanted people to remember, through Creole Orchestra, we have to celebrate ourselves.”

Charles will be in TT for his February 6 The Road March in Concert II at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s Road, Port of Spain. It will feature some Road March winners and other special guests showcasing Road Marches through the eras.

“It is fun to put together because there are so many stories,” he said.

Then there’s his Riddim, Brass and Mas Carnival band, whose 2025 theme is Folklore. This year he’s partnered with TT-born, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Miles Regis to create a “sustainable” band.

“No plastics on the road, our costumes are sustainable – very usable after Carnival.”

Once again, Charles may be setting a Carnival trend.