Corie Sheppard Podcast
The Corie Sheppard Podcast
A trusted space for honest, Caribbean-rooted conversations that connect generations, challenge norms, and celebrate culture through real stories and perspectives.
Hosted by Corie Sheppard-Babb, the podcast explores the lives, journeys, and ideas of the Caribbean’s most compelling voices—artists, entrepreneurs, cultural leaders, changemakers, and everyday people with powerful stories. Each episode goes beyond headlines and hype to uncover the values, history, humour, struggle, and brilliance that shape who we are.
Whether it’s music, business, creativity, identity, advocacy, or community, this podcast holds space for the kind of dialogue that inspires reflection, empowers expression, and preserves our legacy. It’s culture in conversation—unfiltered, intergenerational, and deeply Caribbean.
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Corie Sheppard Podcast
Etienne Charles: Jazz, Kaiso, and the Responsibility of Culture | The Corie Sheppard Podcast
In this episode of The Corie Sheppard Podcast, we sit with internationally acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and educator Etienne Charles for a wide-ranging conversation on music, memory, and cultural responsibility.
Etienne reflects on growing up in Trinidad, his formative years at Fatima College, and how calypso, jazz, steelband, and African diasporic traditions shaped his artistic voice. We explore his commitment to live music, his philosophy on albums as historical documents, and why he believes Caribbean artists have a duty to preserve and contextualise their culture on global stages.
The conversation also touches on mentorship, discipline, education, fashion as expression, ancestry, and what it means to stand in the gap between generations — carrying stories forward while creating space for what comes next.
This is a deep, reflective discussion on legacy, excellence, and why culture must be treated with care.
Well, this one is class. They charge a magistrate for driving too fast. He mustn't doubt, man. Well, this one is class. They charge a magistrate for driving too fast. Now there's only one courthouse in the district. He's the only magistrate there to try it. See the whole town reaching the place to watch the magistrate try his own case. Himself told himself he was charged for speaking. Nah, spoiler was. No, that's the real genius, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Spoiler predict.
SPEAKER_04:Woman police? Woman police. He had a song where in the future where he said people will be making children via wireless. Yeah. He predict that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:He talks about corruption. He says, I have the money in the bank since the age of nine. And them rich people had their money on top of mine.
Corie:The man said, in order for me to get all mine, they had to get all theirs. That is how Kaiso is supposed to be. The man spoke about everything. David, this man knows some Kaiso boy. Welcome to the Corey Shepherd podcast. Welcome to everybody who's been listening to Tell me. We had to introduce guests, right? So we're supposed to introduce you as I don't know if you need introduction. Musician of top class, when I say top class musician, right? I was arguing with somebody the other day. I say Etienne Charles is not Trinidad top class musician, globally top class musician. Etienne Charles, where are you going to? Good to see you, Corey. Fatty my man. Yes, indeed. Yeah, David. Was here last year. You know, we had to fix this thing. Trinity. What it did? The accomplice stuff.
SPEAKER_04:Everything going, brother. We catch you in Trinidad, boy. It's good to be here. It's good to be on the show. I've been watching for a few months and loving what I see. I hope we line it up. Nah, nah, it's great. Great content.
Corie:Yeah, David Boni booking St. Mary's men. So good to it, good to have you here. Yeah, it was good to be here. Yeah, no. Yeah, so I tell them before we jump into everything. I tell my wife every year, I say, I'd play mass with a Tien on them, boy. That's looking like home to me, boy. Rhythm mass and brass is this?
SPEAKER_04:That is correct.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. How it's going so far?
SPEAKER_04:It's going good. We we're building up again for this new year. And you know, it's been amazing to see the transformation, not just within our band, but within the whole country and now across the Caribbean. Yeah. With this idea of bringing back live brass on the road.
Corie:It seemed to be something that people forgot a little bit. Because we we grew up in a time, you know, somewhere before we start. That was the norm. That was the norm to see traffic and ecstatic and Atlantic and them on the road. But I feel like if y'all are the only people who are doing what you do. I mean, you know they have bands, but y'all doing it special.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they have bands, but we do it special and we do it with a particular repertoire. We don't do it with drum machines. We you know, we are you know what you would call our old school soccer band where you know, even and we have singers, we once we start, you know, there's no set list.
Corie:Seriously.
SPEAKER_04:We call in tunes, we do it specifically how it used to be on the road, right? You know, because you want to read the crowd. The same way a DJ reads the crowd. Is that that's that's what because it's a conversation, right? And the road is the vessel for the conversation.
Corie:So got it, got it, got it. So you have like booked singers that you have because I notice real people's come true. Is it that people just fall in, or you usually say that before?
SPEAKER_04:No, no, no. So we have a we have a set front line. Um, the core front line is Nigel Lewis, who came to fame, of course, with the road march moving to the left and was in Roy Cape Kai so all-stars. Right. Um, Lima Calbio, who came to fame in in Byron Lee and the Dragon Ears. Right. Um, Roger George, who came to fame in Charlie's Roots, and um, and our latest edition is um Russell Cadogan, who came to fame in Second Image.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw you used to have Nigel Rest in Peace Mauricia as well. I saw them with it and and and carrying it, but I see years where Rudder passed through. You had plenty of people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the first year we ever did it, we had Rudder.
Corie:What was the first year?
SPEAKER_04:2017 was the first year on the road. What was that playing on your road with them, boy? That first time was you know, well, that's the first person I called when I decided to do it. You know, it's funny. This whole thing started out of a debate that I was having in New York with some well-known trine's, and the and I I won't call names, but the the conversation was I know the people don't really like live music, you know, and that. I was like, what are you talking? And I hadn't been to Trinidad in years for Carnival on the road. And so 2016, I was doing my Guggenheim Fellowship research, and I was in the savannah, literally with a microphone recording the feet of the fancy sailor band from Belmont to write this piece that it became one for Senora, a tribute to Senor Gomez. And I was like, Whitna, been in the savannah whole day. I ain't see or hear one brass band yet. You know, when I was small, I used to sit on it in Northstand with my grandmother, grandfather, and sister. Serious whole Carnival Tuesday. And Charlie's was passing with Minchell, um, ecstatic passing with Poeboy, yeah, massive chandelier passing with Barbarossa. Run you on the truck, run you on the truck, traffic with our next one, Atlantic with our next one. And um, and that's one of the reasons I became a musician. And so one of the so I said, you know what? I told Maureen Woods right there. I said, look, next year, I'll come in with a brass man on the road because we need it. Yeah, and so said, so done. And you know, announced it at the show. People was it was a big uproar, and announced I was gonna have David Rudd, and that Peter Mincher was designing the band, and people just went, and when we first the first song we did was Rainorama. Oh, um, because I felt like that was the perfect tune. One is a song after a lockdown type of vibe. And yeah, when we got to that chorus, and I said, Mama, when you're here, they go get their candle, and everybody sang the chorus. And when we and they started the job, yeah, talking about everybody from from everybody was keep rowing, everybody started singing loud. And that that that I just David Ruther recorded it on his phone and posted it. He said, On the road at 18. Wow, it feels like old times again, and it got like hundreds of thousands. I could imagine, I could imagine.
Corie:And that, you know, that was that was the the the this the the launch pad. So you're winning the argument. People love live music. I don't know if that would ever change.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and you know, it it's you know, in the I think when we got into pandemic time, people started to realize that like just a turntable, there's a place for it, but there's another level that's needed in terms of energy. Somebody wants to see a drum get hit, you know. There's a there's that energy when you're watching somebody's trauma guitar and it move, you know. Of course, it's just more energy on stage.
Corie:Yeah, I think so. And one of the things I feel people underestimate is where you said about the band adjusting to what they see in the audience. I think the band has way more adjustments that that they can make over a DJ. DJ, it's to say it's useful, but it's fixed. There's only so much you could do.
SPEAKER_04:And the next thing I would say about the road, which is a spot, a different type of playing. Like Fett is one type of playing, and road, and what I love about people like Roger George, um, is because he came up in Charlie's, which under and under rudder, is like he learned the road, and you're reading the crowd and you're making up chants as we go based on whichever song. And so, you know, a lot of times we might just follow Roger or follow Nigel or follow them. And and that's an art form in itself. And so, you know, that old chant 12 tradition, yeah, which is at the roots of carnival, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:Which is what we try to bring back at the roots of who we are, because even before we started, you were talking about some of them old time kaisos telling you going parameting Christmas time. The I always look for songs, especially once I see the the audience, right? Going up there quatro that side, this little lesson, the men's good musicians, right? So if I find something, they go follow, especially in Kaiso, they know it. And uh an example is Skrunto, take the number that go work because when you reach there, people go and say, take the number, and then it could go any direction from there. But that flexibility uh is something that we ain't seen a minute on the road. Yeah, and it's crucial, and people react, yeah?
SPEAKER_04:You could tell when people fed up of a song, and you could tell when people don't know what's coming next. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and for me, that's one of the it's getting you know I I I've seen Dave Chappelle live maybe what, three or four times. And I pay the extra money to sit up front because I like watching his eyes switch, and you see when he decides. And I watched him do the same show twice. Right. War tickets for two shows, like an eight o'clock show and an 11 o'clock show, and watch him rework the joke. And I was like, Yeah, how do I do that? And I said live.
Corie:Yeah. So you know, we we we study it and we bring it to the road. Yeah, that's good. That's good. I've been to a few of your shows. I was telling somebody as well. I remember coming and see you the first time I saw you play, maybe professionally, because school days, you kind of know you and Tony. Well, you're the musicians, you know that in school. But my mother told me, let me go a show uh Fatima on the greens and the quadrangle. Do you remember this? Yeah, that was 2010. Oh, that was so long ago. Yeah, and I say, I say, all right, cool. She said, Etienne playing. I said, I'm not connecting Etienne to Etienne from Fatima, right? Then when I reached, I said, Oh, Etienne playing. Etienne, Etienne, and boy, it was a beautiful show. That was that was a special show. Tony played as well. Yeah, that was May 2010.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow. So that would have been one of the first shows you're doing here, or that was one of the first shows I did as a band leader. Um, I the first one I did was 2007. Um, and we did just about one every year, uh, but until 2013, and then we took a break.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I once you book a date, even sometimes I live in Miami. I was there last year late, maybe around October, or maybe maybe it's the year before, and I saw you listed in Coral Gables. I said, nice, I come in. But I think the dates didn't really match up or that kind of thing. But I don't like to miss the show since back then, it's the same else.
SPEAKER_04:Because the live experience is another part of our tradition that we have to really revive. Yeah, because you're talking about the road, but the tents kind of faded. The tent, um, but I, you know, I I must say, you know, the last I want to say five, six, seven years, you've seen this revival. And it's a revival not only in fets, but on recordings. Yeah. And now I guess so many WhatsApps, yo, I need brass line on this. You know, um, and you could tell when you hear the live guitar, it's always Kyle Peters. Yeah, but you know, you hear the live bass, whether it's Gideon or whoever, and and it's you know, and you're hearing the live drums, and it it it's I knew it would happen. I knew it would get back to that because it it's necessary. That's where it comes from. And we always come back home.
Corie:So yeah, yeah, yeah. And home is when songs used to bust on stages, more than radio and them kind of thing. You remember Crosby's used almost in June.
SPEAKER_04:Crosby's home. And when Colin Lucas was on the show and he talked about how they used to bust tune live, right? Before they even record it, they bust in the tune live, and that's how you test the crow test it on the crowd.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Different time and different era, right? Like you go to Trendad for a while now, your latest album, Golder Roots, is it? Yeah. I was watching your lead up to it, right? And uh, I saw you spending a lot of time in the South Indian States, like immersing yourself in it. It's something that I've always admired when you did shows because people who have never been to IT and sure understand that you're gonna be entertained, right? You're you're gonna marvel at the musicianship. Let me say that first. You're gonna be entertained and you go and get a real good show, a tight show. But you there's an education that happens every time you play. You explain a lot, and I I feel like it's deliberate. I feel like you take the time to say, This person is from here, and they've contributed to this. And it felt like I was able to see a little slice of that on your Instagram any time you spent in like Louisiana just doing your research. Yeah, so gala roots.
SPEAKER_04:Well, first off, I always try to do that in my shows. One, because to so many people, jazz is a strange thing, right? And it's music that they may or may not know. Right. So, how do you make it a palatable experience? So, for me, creating context creates familiarity, it kind of lowers the guard. And so that's why I and you you never know who might have something in common with a story you're telling or a piece of the inspiration. So when I introduce tunes, a lot of times it's to lower that guard and to let people know that yeah, this is this is from me to you, but this is as much yours as it is mine. And so, and that has worked. A lot of people have told me, especially if it's it could be their first jazz show, it could be their hundredth jazz show, but they tell me that they enjoy the stories because it gives them a framework to listen to the music through. And it's not just uh a man blowing on a trumpet, there, a woman blown on a saxophone there, and then a drummer, and then they go, and then they're gone off stage. Um, and so with Gular Roots, the reason I did that album, you know, it was from years of traveling to the South, you know, specifically like South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, like the coastal area. And it was when I f and I love doing research projects because you don't one of my favorite things to do is find the answers to questions that I didn't even know I had. So it's like I had this set of questions, and when I reached, I get answers to questions that I didn't even know about. And so when I started digging into gala roots, it was it started because my first time at Charleston, South Carolina, I just felt this Caribbean vibe. I was like, man, you know, the way they talk, it's on kind of a beach and kind of behemoth. I was like, what is you know, and we uh something must connect us. And trineys are intuitive, like we walk down the road, it could be in China, you could be wherever. If you see a trainee, you will know they are a trine, right? And um, and same thing for the wider Caribbean, you see sense. Um, and so I started doing a little research and come to find out, you know, years into it, that the Americans that we know in Trinidad were gala people. They were originally from the Low Country, South Carolina, Georgia, and that they were given land in Maruga after the war of 1812, where they fought as British loyalists. Right, right. So right there, I was like, oh, and a lot of people don't know, our Babash culture comes from there. Is right it's two part. You see it in West Africa when you go in the in the in the voodoo shrines, um, that's their sacred um libation. But a lot of our Babash culture comes from the moonshine that came from the Gala people, and there's so there's so many rituals that we have here, and so that's when I immediately found a link, and then the music kind of just flowed out. There's such a rich history, and so many of the first Africans that went to the low country came from the Caribbean, from Nevis, and from Barbados specifically. So, you know, it was a project that was a way for me to kind of say that you know, a lot of what we know is that we are all one, yeah, and that they want us separated, but we really hand the bubble together.
Corie:Gotcha, gotcha. Reception is good. People enjoying the album.
SPEAKER_04:The album has been received really well. We had some great um radio chartage, and we've been playing the music live. We've had some great shows. We did Spoleto Festival, we did Newport Jazz Festival, which is probably the most, you know, more the oldest jazz festival in the world, and it's probably one of the most famous. So, you know, and we have some great stuff coming up um in this new year. India, Argentina, Mexico, all over the US again. We're doing Lincoln Center in June.
Corie:So, yeah, a lot of great stuff. I'm grateful. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. Congrats on it. Because I mean, to see to see that show in Fatima, which was great. And then a day I come into one of your shows, right? It's Queenshall this time, and I started to see traffic from Rung by Archbishop House kind of side. And I said, I tell my wife, I say, I say something right, man, like something going on. Accident, yeah, for sure. It was all the traffic was heading to Queenshall at that point in time. This must be, I want to say it's 2023, yeah, just out of COVID. I think it was Etienne and Friends. Yeah, random question came on that. It was it was March then? That was the road marching concert. No, no, no, that wasn't that one. Okay. I didn't make my mom went to that, but I didn't make that one. So that one was Etienne and Friends. I remember Joan of the Piano Girl that opened the show. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that? Uh random question. How come you didn't close that show? Y'all played and then a band came up.
SPEAKER_04:So I wasn't the producer of that show. Oh no, you weren't. So that that's all I'll say about that. And I think the producer didn't think I could sell the hall by myself. So I think they were a little confused. And I, you know, I had a small quartet, Jorge Glem. Or a barraquette. Or a barriquette and Vincent Segal, this incredible cellist, and you know, we're playing this acoustic music. So when I realized that they had a lot of high-energy music, I was like, Well, we can't play after somebody play fat music. Balance. So I made an executive decision. I was like, we have to go here. And then you know, I played a couple teams with the other groups, but you know, yeah. So that and after that, I kind of made the decision that I was gonna produce my shows.
Corie:I see, I see, I see, I see. Yeah, it was it was odd for us. I guess I guess maybe the will I end when I see your name on a show is your show. You know, I would think so because of the experience in the shows before. Like the Christmas shows was one of them that was was special. You know, the education, you you talk a lot about um again, introducing the artists who you bring, introducing the the theory behind some of the music. So there's a uh almost like old albums. You used to get all talking into loot before the song. You do that a lot, and there was a lady abroad from um Venezuela. Was it Betsider Machado Machado from Barlovento? Boy, some Mellsboy. Something you said there was in that in that show. I don't know if you remember it, but you were saying that while in Trinidad we play parang or parando for our music here as Christmas celebration. The music that they might play in Venezuela might be closer to what we call caiso.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so Venezuela has parranda, um, and their parranda is what we we feel is parang, or we feel as parang. Um, but they have a very strong tradition in Venezuela of calypso. And I think it's something that's not talked about enough about how connected we are. I always used to say the one of the most unique things to me about Trinidad is that there's a there's a sector of the population that speaks Creole, reads and writes in English, and sings in Spanish. You know, and you go to Param and you know, when they reach up there, it's Saka Fet. Yeah. Muela.
Corie:It's crashing singing.
SPEAKER_04:And then they sing in, and um, when you go to Venezuela, and there's you know, their neighbor, their places like El Callao is a famous place that was populated by Caribbean people, specifically Trinidadians. You know, Guiria, there's you know, I have learnt that Guiria was founded by free black Haitians, Grenadians, and Trinadians. Um and when you look at Maria Nunes always says you can't study history without studying geography, right? And when you look at how close, the closest point is 6.8 miles. Right. So, of course, when I when Bat Silas showed up um to rehearsal, um, I said, you know any collipses? And she started all day today, all night tonight, all day today, all night tonight. Harriet Ross was our marine mini police station, friendly. All day today. When I listen, I said, Wait no, I slight mongoose. And then I was like, so so is this of course, of course. We hear yeah, so you know, they're they're carnival, they play in the kitchener, they play in the hospital, walk for a carnival. So, you know, uh and the same way we our parang pions come September. It's the same way they are called so pyongs. And I'll take it first. The region is one. And the popular music now among young people in Spain, Panama, etc. The first time I ever hear that beat was Follow the Leader, Nigel Lois. Tunes like Lupita and Follow the Leader.
Corie:So it's so is everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's at the core of what we do. So you coming from a world where all of us grew up in Fatima. We had, I was listening to an interview with you talking the other day. I think it was on Phoba page. And you were talking about your Fatima experience and education, how much it contributed to it. And you were talking about some of the greats that went through Fatima and those things. But some of the things that you know I hear you say, Ray Hallman was my Spanish teacher. I think when you were in school, you know Ray, who he was, like what he was contributing.
SPEAKER_04:So I learned about Ray Hallman when I was in primary school because Ray Hallman did phase two's arrangement in 1994 and 95. So I was finishing primary school in the carnival of 1994. And I entered Fatima September 94. So I knew the name from then because he did two tunes for phase two. The first one was Panic, and the second one was Do What You Want. Um and so then form two reach and Ray Holman is the Spanish teacher. I'm like, oh, but she shouldn't be the music teacher. Then it was like something going on here. Yo bailo, two bailas. El Bilo, El Ba El Bylan, Juan Bylan, uh, Ustedes Bailer, Ustedes Bailand, Juani Christine. Juani Christina Bylan. In plain enough. And he used to have nicknames for everybody. He said, Boise. Boise. You know, they had a fella named Boise who used to sell rock cake outside of QRC. He was a nice fella, you know.
Corie:Sugar ray, sugar rain. I always wondered, like, we we had a pan side, we had a music. I think Miss Camabach was our music teacher at the time, man. I used to like, oh, yeah, Ray Hall money, and he's not teaching me the ways happen. I don't understand.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, if I can, I mean, luckily, you know, Trinidad is an interesting place, right? You you know, in Fatih when it wasn't just Ray Hall, man. I had Fenrik the Silver who was a great bass player. Right. Uh Mr. Ramsing could play and sing a Calypso.
Corie:Um Ramsing was playing.
SPEAKER_04:Ramsing was a guitar man. Um Pat Clark played guitar.
Corie:This fellow used to play guitar for the Calypso competition to Roach. Yeah, Mr. Roach Junior Roach.
SPEAKER_04:Because he had Glenn, but then Glenn Roach used to sing Calypso.
Corie:Well, I never knew that. I didn't realize Roach was Glenn's son. Right. Yeah, guitar Roach. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So and I was lucky enough to know this because I was playing gigs. Even when I saw like when all you're sleeping in all your bed, I was out playing gigs. Yeah. You know, and I would see, you know, Glenn Roach Lyman. You know, I would see, you know, people like Miss Hubbard Lyman, you know, um, all the limers I would see, like uh Miss Duff was a lima, um, Mr. Ramdas. You would see them in Woodbrook. If it was a playing at the Panyard or whatever, right? And so there was a radio, and then they'd be like, Yeah, you should check out this tune, but you should check. You ever hear this one? But you know, and so musicians. Yeah, there was a you know, I and then I also played in or Miss Miss Gomes always made sure I was playing in the mass in St. Teresa's, whether it was Pentecost or when we had to put on the dress uniform. So yeah, so I was always there, you know. Of course, it is, you know. So it I was I I was a fellow musician with a lot of those teachers, even though they were, you know, they would pull out the cane and beat us if we music is equalizing like that, right?
Corie:It connects generations, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So, what what early was it that you started? Your your music training was formal and all that?
SPEAKER_04:So it's interesting, right? I I am a big believer in ancestry, right? Your father's a musician, right? Um my father played pan in phase two, he was a DJ. Um, most of my uncles played quattro or guitar on one side. Um my grandfather played quattro and he recorded with the Growling Tiger. That's my father's father, Ralph Charles. And we didn't even learn that until my grandmother died. Because he died before I was born. But when my grandmother died, my cousin Richard decided for the first time to Google our grandfather. And his name comes up in the credits for this Growling Tiger record that was recorded by Alan Lomax, 62. That's my dad's side. Then on my mom's side, her grandfather came from Martinique as a little boy when the volcano erupted. I think it was like 1901 or two or something like that. And a lot of Martinique's came to Trinidad. And he moved to Miaro with his father, and he became a builder, but he also became a musician. He played every instrument. And luckily, he's documented in Edri Connor's book Horizons. He's documented as Mr. Monlouy and his band. And um, so that's my mother's grandfather, and then my mother's father's father, Attizong, whose real name was Zephyr Mendez, was always up in Paramount with his quattro on the weekends. He lived in Bosnia, and he was always so literally on both sides. I and then I was born, and there's always music playing in the house. You know, back then in the early 80s, I was born in 83. So it's Lady in Red. Of course, I just called to say I love you, um, feel so good, Chuck Man Gione. My father's a DJ, so you know, and then every carnival, he would go to Crosby's and get a stack. So Stalin, David, Ruther. You know, everybody would come out with a record in January. Right, yeah. Right? Um, and then where he then he would go by Reyners to get other stuff. He would go by Cleve to get his little cartridges, you know, it was a whole ritual. And then um, and then he would be in the pan yard. And actually, the double second section would practice at home. Oh, I see. They would if they would do sectionals and whatnot. So, you know, it started then, I believe. And then when I went to Bishop Ancy Junior School, I never forget Mr. White was the choir teacher. He was he was the piano music teacher. It was Mr. White and Miss Jagber. She was the conductor. And and we were in we were in KG, you know, infant choir. He picked the infant choir, and that started, and then Abby came home. My sister, Abby came home with a recorder when she was in standard. What we call in bishops, we say form. So she was in form one, she came home with a recorder, so I was in prep. So I started playing recorder too. Right, yeah, yeah. Um, so she doing that. I was like, take it and try it. And then so I started playing the recorder right through, you know, and um a little side hustle I picked up as well. So I started to um, because I had I had a good ear, so I could play songs that I hear on the radio, on TV, whatever. And so I would play a song, and then somebody, hey, I want to be able to play that song too. I was like, well, I could write out the notes for you. And people started paying me like a$2 to buy a snow cone or whatever. Nice. Right? Um, well, actually, the$2 back then would get you a snow cone and a soccer bag. Back then. Um, and they would give me money to write out the notes for them so that they could go and play it for their little girlfriend away. Right? And so that was for me the start of my music business all the way back then, seven, eight years old. And then my grandmother passed away when I was nine in 1993. Like she died carnival Saturday. Um and the funeral, I never forget, was Carnival Monday. And, you know, I have a few very stark images of my head from that, from that funeral. And I remember a lady coming from playing Juventus and she had just heard she had just heard that Madame that Madame Mendez passed away, and she came covered in still in a mud and short pants, just to because the viewing was in the living room at my grandparents' house. And my uncle Peter came down. He was living in Toronto, and when I was small, like four, we had visited him in Toronto, and he played the tennis saxophone, and he let my sister and I try it. And I remember making a sound, and just like something just went in my head. Just like I can make a sound.
Corie:You know, like a good sound idea.
SPEAKER_04:I don't even know if it was a good sound, but just the idea of the human body being able to like audiate something else with just like air. Blew my mind. Anyway, he came down, I played a recorder for him, so long and he paused. I'm like, he said, Oh, you know, you you can you get it? I think I'm gonna get you a saxophone. I was like, be insane. I don't know if I could cuss on this. So so I was like, you know, and so about three, four months later, um a trumpet shows up at my grandmother's house that was brought down by my aunt's husband. Um, and I opened the box and it was a trumpet, and I was just just as blown away. And it was like, this is your trumpet. I was like, mine, this before cell phones, of course, before social media, you know, back then social media was outside, you know, yeah, yeah. And creativity was making up games, right? Making up everything, you know, building a tree house out of wherever, piece of wood you find, wherever. So, you know, I got this trumpet, and they're like, okay, well, play it. Everybody looking at me right there. Let's go. You have your trumpet, fix up. I was like, and everybody said, I'm waiting, huh? Nobody moving. I actually there's a picture of me in my grandparents' living room the day I got a trumpet trying to play. And um David. Well, of course, the the the the the sound was you know not there now, and then finally, get some motive, nice. And everybody just get up and walk out. Everybody went back about it, but what a pixel, what I do whatever, right? So, yeah, and that was the start. I started taking lessons. Um, so that was right before I went into form five. Okay. So that was July of 1990. It's primary school form five. Three, yeah. Preschool. Oh, so I my parents were like, you can't touch that until you finish your exams of common entrance. Now they call it SCA. They used to call it exhibition, right? Um and so it sat in the box until I finished. And then so when I write that after that, after I finished CXE, I started taking trumpet lessons back and then major Eddie Wade on um Pembroke Street. And it's CXE or common entrance? Common entrance. Okay. Um 11 Plus. Yeah, 11 plus. Even I was 10. Right? Um, and then so I started taking trumpet lessons. I never forget it was like a brick wall. And I would just be sitting outside, and he wouldn't come out until it started sounding good. He would be inside, or you know, doing whatever, you know, and and when it sounded good, he came outside, turn the page, go back inside. Right? And I would I would do that for an hour or two every, you know, every week. And then um, that was all through form one, the first term of Fatima. And then in around April of the second semester, what we call it, um Can't remember there was a different name for the term. Yeah, Mickle Mus. Uh huh. You don't remember them names that I'm terms?
SPEAKER_01:Mickle Musk something and try to.
SPEAKER_04:Right? Anyway, so the second term, the third term was after Easter, right? So after Christmas term. And um, and Eddie Wade called my mom and said that this guy named Tony Woodruff was starting a music school for young people like me, and that it would be good for me to be over there because it wouldn't just be me and it would be a band to play with and whatnot. So, yeah, around I think it was April or May of 1994, I started at the Brass Institute. Um, it was one of their first weeks of class, and I met Anthony Jr., who um is still to this day one of my best friends, and um, and you know, Tony would, you know, he passed away right at the end of 2025, rest in peace. But you know, he was, you know, he became a big mentor and an example. He was a trumpet player as well. And so, and because he was in the circuit, back then he used to call it a circuit. They don't say that again, right? Back then it was a circuit of gigs. Yeah, they're playing with this band or that band, this tenth or that, but this way Bruno Rapid Response, or whoever, right? Um, and so um, because he was in the circuit and he had been in Sound Rev and he had been in all these different brands, like all those guys immediately knew us as Woody students or from the Brass Institute. So immediately branded us as like this like thing. And so um, but one of our first concerts was Fatima's 50th anniversary concert, which was in July of 1995.
Corie:Oh, as early as that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, which was exactly 30 years ago. Fatima was what it is, 80, no? Yeah, Fatima's gonna be 80 something. It should have been 80 this year. Yeah, wow. Um and so, yeah, that was the start. And you know, from Brad, I got braces when I was 14. So, one music festival, all that kind of stuff. I end up in the papers, get one set of heckle in school, right? Because I'm in my school uniform playing a trumpet, and you know, you know how young men are. I tell people, yeah, there's no more hardening than you can get than spending seven years in an all-boys school in the Caribbean.
Corie:They want to eliminate that.
SPEAKER_04:I I think that's such an important. No, I think you I think you need to spend, I mean, I think about the times when you were surrounded by men. Like, and and what you learn from. You learn like stand up, you learn. Yeah, it's the hard men, right? Yeah, for sure. Um and so, you know, whoever heckling you, whatever, right? You learn to take talk. I mean, I had a very my head has been this size since I was 11, right? So I know catch a minute. So there was a man, there was a man named Joel Penko. Yeah, and he used to stand up, wait for me in the morning, right? If I reach the school late, he in class late. If I reach the school early, he right, and he used to call me cycle cap head from morning. Because he finds my head, not psycho cap, like the psycho cap thing. Like he talks about the helmet, but he called it a psycho cap. So that's one. And next one they used to call me Eddie Murphy. Yeah, head of the class, yeah, headstrong, tonker bean. British say always jumbo jack. Change your mind, you had a way to Savannah. Somebody say, Why when Charles got a headache? He mother just gave my title now. He says a manhole. And I just take it talk after talk after talk. I gone home. I said, boy, I said, Dad, watch now. These fellas gave me real top of my head, you know. He said, watch now. When I was in Fatty one, a man tell me, he said, Charles, your mother buys some cloth to make a cap for you. And the cap is fit. So my father said, that's the old joke. He says, she take the cap and make three pounds for you, bro. So after that, I say, all right, I can I can handle it talks. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is, it, you know, it I tell people it builds character. You know, and and and we are we are a fraternity of, you know, we are a huge fraternity. You know, just that symbol, if you wear the ring or not, but that symbol means something.
Corie:Yeah, it does, it does, it does. Even the familiarity, because when you say some of the names is men who we were there. Yeah. You know, and it was level heckle.
SPEAKER_04:And so, and the really interesting thing for me now is like people who were giants to me, right? Like Keel News was a giant. Yeah, imagine that. Mark Jardin was a giant, right? Literally, like Of course, the man was huge. And I was scared. And I hike in the bush with Mark now, you know, like we drink rum together, you know, like nice, nice. You know, it's like you, you know, we you learn, you it like people are it's all it is a family.
Corie:It's a brotherhood. It is a brotherhood. You had asked me to go back and talk for um the my brother used to have awards. We used to have it in Queenswall back in the day. Yeah. But it was COVID, so they had it in Fatima. Now, of course, you'll know me in school, right? So this is my first time on an award stage ever for any reason, right? But a big part of the speech I was making then was I didn't understand when you were in school, you just go in there every day. You don't understand the institution that you're a part of until you come out and you start a single.
SPEAKER_04:And you know, what's interesting about that is when I went into Fatima, right? So my father went to Fatima, my uncle went to Fatima, he played football for Fatima, another uncle of mine taught in Fatima, right? So it was like a generational thing. So I was like, ah, you know, but then when um I never forget when Atto Bolden came in after doing the Olympics, um, he came in and he stood at the top of the outside the AV room. That's where assembly used to be right, assembly, and we all stand up outside and he spoke. And you know, I had just one music festival and he signed a card just for me to ATN Charles. Congratulations, signed Otto Boulder. It's like, yo, like, you know, same thing with Brian. You know, at that time, like we had these examples of of Fatima old boys who were doing the on the biggest stages in the world. Yeah, you know, and then you also have people, and then we would do gigs, and Curtis Rees would fly down from London, you know, and I would learn about all these musicians that went to Fatima, like Clive Bradley went to Fatima. You know, and he taught in Fatima. And then I eventually by form three, form five, I'm realizing like, there you are. Yeah, like you know, I Gally Cummings went to foot. Gally Cummings played football with Pele. When I met Pele and I told him I'm from Trinidad, the first thing he said is how is Gally? He said, How is Gally Cummings doing? My good friend. I said, Gally Cummings was my neighbor from Shiguana's, like I grumped three rows down from Gally on Book Street, yeah, boy. Right? And I wasn't, I felt so proud not only to be a Trinidadian, talking to Pele any asked about Galley Cummings, but to be a Fatima man. You know, when that Galley went, you know, and so you know the pride builds up even more. And then when they started the Hall of Achievement in 2015, somehow, I don't know what happened, somehow I end up you don't know what happened, somehow I end up on the list, right? The youngest person on the list, right? And it's the first year they did it. Brian Larr, Kwame Ryan, um Tesmo Weed. Um a guy named Cropper. I don't know if you know this guy, Andre Cropper, right? A Fatima man invented touchscreen technology. Yeah, was it touch screen technology? So I was like, yo, this is like Charles Xavier School for the Gifted. It's not just Fatima, you know, and so and especially that night, I never forget, it was a week night in November of 2015, and I was just like, Wow, all these men who've been at the top, and because they had this launch pad, some of them was when it was only priest teaching in the school, some of them, some of them, you know, but we all have a story like that.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you want to tell you why there's a uh I hope you know because it's it's not dissimilar. Like you would have been in the hall with me when we watched Lara make 375. And then we see Lyra coming up Benzo BMW 375 is chaos in his school. You remember? Yeah, you done.
SPEAKER_02:We are on a podcast. You remember when Brian Lara pull in with the bimmer and there was a lovely young lady in the car.
SPEAKER_01:And Brian Lara got the car. And everybody passed him on the back, and he gone, and everybody still swung around the car.
SPEAKER_02:100%. Men didn't move in. Fatimus be embarrassing. That man comes away. You remember that boy? I remember that.
SPEAKER_04:Like that was this morning. He went, he came in to check Harry. Ramdam.
Corie:Yeah, well, I suppose he's right.
SPEAKER_01:Because he walked and he walked upstairs to the phone to be up. And not a man moving. Hey, Brian, hey, make up this up.
Corie:No, but your memory on the next level. You remember it? But it's like when you what you're doing now, so similar to that, you know, in a different field, different thing. But when you say stages all over the world, I think you're doing that for youths now.
SPEAKER_04:Hey, I'm trying, you know, I'm trying, you know, it's crazy. But all we could do is try. I've been a university professor for 16 years, right? And um it's strange now because when I started as a university professor, I didn't have like accolades and records and what. I mean, I had like two albums. But, you know, it wasn't like now, and I don't think at the time I had had like the end door, like I hadn't played with people like Winter Marcelles or who be Hancock. I had I hadn't done those things. But at that time I had done, I had played with David Rutter, Mighty Power, Lord Blakey. Say no.
SPEAKER_01:Also you play with Blakey.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, did a gig. I played so I had braces when I was 14, right? And I didn't tell this part of the story, but I had braces and I never forget it was devastating. Like devastating. I mean, I had just one music festival. I was like riding this wave, and the papers and thing, like fellas asking me to play the football match. That's why I learned that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, boy.
SPEAKER_04:Like you're already on smart. Wasn't that men sorted? And um, anyway, and I got braces and I couldn't play. It was extremely painful because because the corners, like these two, these two teeth here, the the key lines, right, um, the the the brackets, the edges of the brackets were very sharp. And then they were put a piece of old-time braces. I used to go by by uh by a man named Claude Harper, rest in peace. And um, right there on Henry Street, right by the right. That's even more the T fed is like the the the autodoncer's office was right by Brass Institute. I see. And so instead of going to Brass Institute to play some trumpet online, I going up to get my teeth cleaning. Yeah, nice to get um anyway. So my teeth was in jail, and they so you know he was doing all this stuff, and anytime I tried to play, I was like, I couldn't even eat soup. Right? And then so Tony Woodruff, um they got a job to play a musical, right? Um Napareima Girls was doing My Fair Lady, right? A big production of Naparima Bowl, and Brass Institute was basically providing the orchestra, the pit orchestra. And I was real salty because you know, all girls school doing this play, and I had a baby. Yeah, you're supposed to be inside, right? I buy the autodantists, right? So then um Tony was like, yo, like um the drum. I used to always like try to sit on the drums, and I just mess around. And he's like, yo, um we need a drummer who could read music and um read like drum parts and turn timpani parts, put timpani parts on the drum set. You wanna try it? I was like, well, yeah, I mean, why doing I ain't doing nothing? Um and we sat in traffic to go down San Fernando every day, and they were fixing the highway. So it was one lane, you remember that nine years? Yes, of course, of course. One lane to go down south. So I'm in traffic every day, get on there, do the rehearsal. So I, you know, I became proficient in drums, drum set, and um, so right from that gig, I always tell people one gig will lead to another. And then they would the next year, Roger Henry was leading a production with the press Con Corral. I did a production of Treasure Island, right? And that's where I messed Kess Diffentala. Right, he was one of the he was one of the cast. And um, so then I started playing drums, and it was like music became more than just it became more than just trumpet. It became music. Um, you know, as a result, that's not I play, I play percussion on every album. Yeah. Um, rhythm section. I started playing Pan and Phase 2.
Corie:Nice. And you know, I didn't know that at all. Let's I came to, I can't remember which show it was, and I remember your your show's well organized as well, right? And um, I remember one part, you had played already, you played the trumpet, and it was you always soloing. And then I see you sit down, and I know if it's like a won or gym baby, same thing to me. And I see you sit down, I said, why are we doing this? Why are you seeing going trying to play drums here? What is happening? And boy, it ripped the show, ripped the show. I just never knew you was playing playing any uh percussion at all.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting. Um Truno Adias, you know, I say I I take that back to you know, parang and pan cut.
Corie:Yeah, never just one thing.
SPEAKER_04:You know, I never forget I was watching a parang band years ago when I was small and the Marak man. And then all of a sudden, the quattro man, like he didn't know the next song, so the Marak Man put on the Mara. Take the quattro, the quattro man pick up the Mara. The lady playing the talk talk, put on the tock talk. She gone by the box bass, the box bass man pick up the ticket, ticket, ticker, ticket, ticket. Wasn't that? And I was like, uh, and then the same thing with steel band, right? So, steel band culture, people don't understand how rich we have it here, you know. Like, you know, a lot of people try to say that, you know, that the music education in Trinidad is very colonized, quote unquote. And that we only focus on you know the choir this and this, that, and the other. But I think there's a whole decolonized and very um, you know, ritual from our African ancestry, musical education as well.
Corie:I wish we would formalize that in schools.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, I I think what's interesting to me is if it was in school, I don't know if I would have been interested in it.
Corie:Oh, well, then you're probably right about that, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Everybody's different, but I know for me to have a normalization of it. You know, for me, and anytime you formalize some, some people get interested in it and some people move away from it. You know, it but it it it all depends. But but I also think that it is formalized. Yeah, you know, there is a tradition, like you have to show up, like you have to introduce yourself, you have to show interest, you have to show respect. The first time you mightn't play, you know. There's a lot of, you know, I went in Facebook Pioneer for years before I pick up a pair of sticks, you know, and so but when I did, I knew exactly what to do. You know, and I never forget, I watched, you know, I watched Richard Bailey play drums for years. Richard Bailey recorded Bob Marley and with Jeff Beck and tours right now with with you know all these big groups, you know. And I when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, I watched him play drums. He showed me how to play a paradiddle. So um, yes, we do need some in the schools. We we definitely need more.
Corie:Just because you're the only person I hear say take the recorder and became something of it. I don't know if I'm missing something, but a lot of people like I was going to school playing recorder, I could have played quattro from small. So it's one of the things I see with my son and Fatima now. I went to um Go Bag. I didn't go this year, I went to the the year before. You been? You ever went to it? Gifts of Blue and Gold is the show. So it's Fatima, they do a Christmas concert every year about Gifts of Blue and Gold. The conductor is Mr. Noel. Salute to him. Because the energy he puts into them for a reason to have them youths perform is a full-on production. When I get fatigued, here I go ask him why you don't move it to Queens Hall or bigger stage, right? You know how that goes. Rental cost problem in Queens All. That's what you gonna say. That is what you gonna say.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah, it's yeah, that's it. But I will say this about the education, and I remember when Duvon was on the show, right? And Duvon talked about how you know the education was the recorder, and he was like And I love DuVon, he's an incredible arrangement. I remember DuVon when he was arranging for Pantasy. I was playing in Orange Sky. Oh. And he was playing, he was running Pantasy back then, and you know, he would make five pants sound like a big steel band. Right? But I will say this there's a purpose to recorder. I mean, if it wasn't for recorder, I wouldn't be a trumpet player. You know, um, and I think it all comes down to the passion that the teacher brings into it. If a teacher is passionate about something, I mean, like when Maurice Brash used to walk in the room. Right? Maurice used to brass, bonjour, monsieur. I like I was like, Bonjour. Yeah, you know, but if you had walking, like, bonjour, monsieur. Yeah, I'm gonna call the names. You know? So, so nobody I get that. You know, a big part of it, and so when I walk, you know, for me as a as a university professor, I think about it every time I'm working on something is that that that part of what you have to translate and and and bring across is the passion. And even if it might not be in the classroom, they have to see you do something you're passionate about, right? So we don't even know. We be driving along the road and we hear Maurice brash on the radio. Yeah, we didn't know. Whatever add it was, yeah. I could always put, you know, we didn't know then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, to Devon's point, it's not just a four, but it's that we have to show how it could be used. Yeah, and we do need to bring more of the local forms into the school system. Um, and some schools do. I mean, Teron Shaw for years, you know, was leading a great parang ban at this school. You could go down a list of a lot of local forms, and you know, a lot of schools have steel bands now. The junior panoramas are big. I mean, it's almost the same players in junior panorama and large bands and medium.
Corie:Of course. So, but that's why Fatima is doing a good job now because the integration of it, and go back is just one example. So, for instance, you talk about assembly. Every Monday morning, when they have assembly, they have performances. Every Monday morning. So instrumentalism, it's just licks.
SPEAKER_04:I used to I used to I used to tell you the way I used to quick, my boom used to be so boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. When I had to play in front of men, in front of the school, right? Whether it's assembly for the national anthem or the school song, I used to be like, yo, really, no, because I used to get a real heckle, yeah. I mean, remember I was small, it's a show. I used to get a real heckle. And so, you know, that was part of the pressure, you know, and I think that in itself is an education.
Corie:I believe that pressure works. Because when you go on a stage, no, it's a different your confidence on stage now is exactly and it's a pressure.
SPEAKER_04:You know, pressure is what makes diamonds what they are. I suppose it's true. And so, you know, people ask me if I get in the. I'm like, absolutely. Every single time I walk on the stage. Now, sometimes it's a lot less than others. You know, when I walk on Queens All stage now, it's like half the room is is somebody that sees me placing size small. So there's a level of comfort. But when I walk on stage and I'll fill our money in Germany, and half the people don't speak English, right? And I have to introduce a kitchener tune. Yeah, which you do all the time. I know by the end, I want everybody saying, run! And Ellie bossed me here. And you scare it, have to. That's the that's the job.
Corie:That's the job. Interesting. Going back to that recorder thing, right? You pick up a recorder, you blow it, it's gonna make a sound. I think most people might know that with a trumpet, it's not like that.
SPEAKER_04:You have to find it, right? It's uh trumpet, so technology is amazing, right? So this is a trumpet for those who don't know. Um, and a trumpet is a pipe, essentially. And it's a pipe with different mechanisms to make it longer. That's and that's how the sound gets deeper. Any instrument to make a low sound, it has to get bigger, has to get longer, deeper. So, same thing with trumpet. And so the trumpet technology, these things are called valves or pistons. And the reason I'm doing this is because the amount of times people look at this and call it a saxophone. And the amount of times that people have looked at this and call it a trombone, right here, in front of that. I talk about some of the most educated people in our society. Once you blow it as one of them, once you blow it on them, yeah. At least I mean, yeah, he's a he's a he's a he's a horn man, you know. The amount of times I just hear that stale joke, you can't give away a horn today. You can't give away a horn, what's that? So, so this is this is partly to educate. This is a trumpet. This is a what you call a B flat trumpet, right? And um, and so the technology of it is that each of these valves make the pipe longer, and there's seven positions out of these three valves that you can use. And then we have these things called partials. So partials um are almost like floors, right? So the same way in a quattro, quattro or a guitar, you have fret, you have strings. So the strings are like the floors, and the frets are like the valves. Got it, right? So each one makes a goal of flow.
SPEAKER_00:That's one, that's the second, that's the third, that's the fourth.
SPEAKER_04:So those are the seven. So those are the seven, and then you can do the same thing here. Then you can do the same thing here. It's different to do like that, and then now and so there are all these different partials to put it together. And that's basically like that, is the speed of your blow. So it's so so trumpet is like being a trumpet player is basically about being a physicist in real time, as being an artist, like understanding airspeed and how airspeed changes frequencies of sound. And you have to be pretty accurate to that. And you have to be accurate, and you have very little, you literally have nanometers you're dealing with with respect to the time. So he braces is such an issue. Yeah, you have nanometers of yeah, you have nanometers of space. So like the difference between is each one is a little bit more air, but then it's also a little bit more corners to make sure the air doesn't fly to the sides of your mouth. So, you know, it's a lot of technology involved in the instrument, and I'm grateful that I've had some of the best teachers on the plan. I got to study with Mark Gould at Juilliard, and I got to study, you know, you know, Scotty Bonhardt, who's now the director of the Count Basie Orchestra, and you know, Brian Lynch and um, you know, people like down here, Francis Paul and Tony Woodruff or Eddie Wade, and you know. So, but yeah, it's it's a lot to calculate.
Corie:Yeah, when you Google it, it says most difficult instruments to learn violin and trumpet. Violin trumpet French horn. Those are the all the things. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, where where did it go when you're leaving Fatima? You went to Juilliard's after that? That would have been where you went then?
SPEAKER_04:No, so so Fatima, when I was done with Fatima, so after my first year of Form 6, I did what's called a five-week program at Berkeley College of Music. And that's kind of when I decided I really wanted to be a musician. It was my first time surrounded by hundreds of talented young people who played rings around me. You know, I was coming from, you know, this like I you know, but I was hungrier, and the, you know, and everybody would show me stuff. I mean, I that's something I learned. I think that's something I learned more than I ever learned in my life as a musician. And then so I went back the next summer and California? Berkeley, Boston. There's two. There's one in California and one in Boston. And then 150 Massachusetts Avenue was the building. And then I did that again the next summer and learned more and did an audition for a scholarship and didn't get one. I was like, well, party done. Because I know my parents ain't gonna be able to find no set of coin to go, no, you know, 40,000 US a year. Right? So I came back to Trinidad. I took the year off. And I um, you know, we two gap years here, and I worked for my father. My father was a land surveyor. Really? In the bush every day. Yeah, yeah. Wherever he said, Hey, gay iron stiff, we're going. Yeah, you know, and you're going on to pong iron into the ground and go and find iron in the bush. But no, there might even do a lot of hiking, right? And I love when I hike and I find irons that I know my dad laid down, you know, uh, markers and it, right? So, so so yes, I was in the bush and I gave my little, you know, whatever. Like, I think a day walk back then was like a hundred dollars or something, right? Right, right. And um, and I was doing jingles. I was, you know, I was doing horns for jingles. It was a studio on um, was it Delhi Street? Say jingles. On Delhi Street, um, Pierre Delmas had a studio called Pro Den. And he used to do all our jingles. And yeah, what's the number election time? Oh, yeah. Jingles like peace.
SPEAKER_01:This day is watch color, next day is the next color, this day is this, and this. You know, hey, you know how to make the trumpet song like this?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I didn't, yeah, I put you know, and so you know, we would do these jingles, and I remember we did a Crick's jingle for um and Lord Blakey sang it. Um, and then I started doing voiceover work, you know, because he's like, Yeah, well, you you know, you could talk, but read this for me. And then he's like, nah, but you're reading it too much. You had to talk it. Yeah, perform it. You know, because the the engineer is there, you know. Um, the engineer, you know, remember that ad? Um, the famous stag ad. Good friends, great. The guy who sang that, right? He was uh he was he was at Engineering Studio as well. He passed away, um, unfortunately. But um, he coached me on how to read. I see um for ads. I did a KFC ad about the smell wafting down the street, all kinds of things. But so anyway, but that was the I learned the hustle Friday night. I would be playing. Um so Taron Shaw, Sean Thomas, and Dougie Reddell had a jazz trio. Right. And they used to play all over Trinidad. A lot of times on Friday night. Friday night was like jazz night. And I was the only night I could do because I was up five o'clock and wanted to go in the bush. All right. Um so they would play a jazz gig at there was this bar inside of country club, beautiful wooden floor room. I think it was called No, not Palesca. Poleska was another spot. Can't remember what it was called. Yeah, in country clubs inside the country club. Right as you walk in, you know, there was a wooden floor, and you go down in the back to go on the greens or whatever. Right. Right on the right hand side. There was a beautiful cocktail bar. And they used to have live jazz. Sean, Dougie, and um Terran used to play there. And I would go there and sit in with them. Right.
SPEAKER_01:And then it went from sitting in to hey, well, why don't you just come and play the gig?
SPEAKER_04:So and then they would also play outside squeeze. I don't even remember squeeze on our beach. This is when the avenue wasn't the avenue. This was before the avenue, right? This was this was 2001. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And um, and so I would play with them there. And then Ernesto Garcia, um Congo player from Venezuela, started a Latin jazz band. Ernesto and Friends, and the piano player was a guy named Ronald Aqui, also a Fatima boy, and um and then they roped me and Woodruffin um to play. So we became the horn section. It was um um and we would play outside squeeze, and then we would play little Latin dances around the place wherever people would have you know live music for dancing, and on top of that, we were playing our orange sky, so it would be the jazz gig from like seven to nine, then Ernesto Ernesto from um you know like 10 to 12 on the avenue, and then we would drive down to South. Yeah, and we would be playing high RPM or Screamers or one of those big bars with Orange Sky. So on a Friday night, I was going from playing jazz to playing raw, and that's like outside of the carnival season. Then the carnival season they pan yard all night. So it you know, it it set me up to like learn how to change.
Corie:But that's my sight reading, and I'm saying we're playing with you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I was I wasn't sight reading it, I could read, but a lot back then a lot of the stuff wasn't written. Oh, well that is. And that I learned that being a musician meant doing all kinds of things. So like literally, instead of instead of instead of playing one night, instead of playing one gig at a night, I was playing three. Yeah, three different judges, you know, and also being able to like, you know, know how to like drive and know, you know, I learned a lovely place. Because you can't get it wasn't it? You can't get lost if you have a gig, no ways and taking off. There's no ways, there's no GPS, you know what I'm saying? And I I I strongly believe that like a lot of our technology has made us dumb, unfortunately. But yeah, we don't think of much chances, but you know that then I I'm I'm so grateful for that time where you know it was like you know, you know, you're getting a taste of being. I was I remember when I joined RNSK and we came out with Celebration, which celebration was a hit. Yeah, so but and I wrote the horn lines, right? So like I'm literally one of the writers of that song, and I'm like, so then you know, like I get to walk in nightclubs that I used to have to stand up in one line to pay one price when other people stand up in the next line to pay the next price. Yeah, you know, and now I could just walk in because yeah, that's an RN Sky. So you know, and then that's and then I left. True that I started my first degree at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. Culture shock of the highest order.
Corie:Of course, of course.
SPEAKER_04:You're going in there to do music, or what was the degree? I went in there to do music. So so part of my year was to practice and get on the level to be able to do a strong audition at some of the top music schools in the US. That's what the year was for. Right. So I spent, you know, this was the days of downloading. So it's the days of downloading. So, you know, I downloaded a bunch of music, Chucho Valdez, all kind of thing, and just started learning it on the trumpet, just trying, you know. And that's where when I went to the audition, I was able to just like mimic. And they were like, okay, you you know, and I got a scholarship to Florida State. Oh, nice, so you get the scholarship eventually, go ahead. And um I got a scholarship for us, there's a scholarship at the University in Miami, and I chose Florida State. And um, and then for my master's, I went to Juilliard.
Corie:Oh, yeah, Juilliard would be top of how's that transition at that point in time?
SPEAKER_04:I mean, going from a big university to a conservatory is another type of culture shock. Because a big university is all kind of people, it's parties. And then a conservatory, everybody's like focused, and they have been focused since they were four years. I guess. Right? So, like most of the population at Juilliard at that time, their parents were musicians or some sort of creative, and they had been groomed in this from small. Whereas I'm like, I come up knocking up and beating iron.
Corie:Yeah, for them to make decisions for them to go Julian start when they was born.
SPEAKER_04:Stoning mango. I come, you know, I come from slingshotting my arrow to heaven in the caribot, like the different breed, right? Right. So I so socially I it was a it was a strange thing. Also, when I was at Florida State, Florida State had a very significant black population. When I got to Julia, Julian had a very small black population. So that was also a cult a culture shock. But ironically, a lot of them were first generation West Indians. I see. So I became like their Caribbean guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I mean, what was your father last night? Oh, this was I know some of this was what, you know.
SPEAKER_04:So like before you know it, it's like it became a home. And you know, Winter Marc Sales and the whole Jazz Lincoln Center family, they were very welcoming. And they started, you know, they they had liked, I did a recording right before I left Tallahassee, and they liked what they heard. I didn't. The first track was Culture Shock, which I had Shang with drums on it. Nice. And the trombonus from Jazz Lincoln Center, Vincent Gardner was teaching at Florida State, and he flew in that Monday. I was like, yo, you want to come do an album? He's like, Yeah, I come online in the studio and he played. And so he went back to New York and he's like, yo, man, skin. There's this guy in Tallahassee, he's from Trinidad, and he's doing some stuff I have never heard on with the drums and with the percussion and it. So they called me graduation day. They said, We're, you know, we're uh we want to check out your music. So I sent it to them, and they immediately booked me as a band leader in New York to do a show at the Museum of Modern Arts. So then immediately I started doing my own thing, and then right after Culture Shock got released, and then from Culture Shock came folklore, and then what Culture Shock was the first one?
Corie:Culture Shock was the first one. See, so in your mind, when you go into those schools, because I would assume that like people they're classically trained, but as I assume that they it's similar where you have to learn all different genres of music, you brought a lot of your West Indian flavour in terms of how you do arrangements and stuff from the gates. So it's interesting, right?
SPEAKER_04:Um, when I got to school, I didn't really have much grounding in terms of I had a little bit from the steel band world. I could do a steel band arrangement back then, but it was my junior year when I was spending, no, this so after my sophomore year, I spent I was studying in Paris. I did a study abroad in Paris. And then my junior year, part of that summer before I went to Paris, I was staying in New York at my own because long story short, I was trying to get a visa to go to France. And I thought I could do it in New York, and they said since I was living in Florida, going to school in Florida, that I had to do it in Florida. Some story, right? And then eventually they were like, okay, well, we will, we will, we will process it here, but you have to wait like three months or something like that because we had to send it to some story. Anyway, so I sat on my uncle's couch in New York in Long Island, and he had a quattro there, and he had Mighty Sparrow, um, volume one, two, three, and four, the CDs. He had spoiler unspoiled, he had Classic Kitsch, Volume 1, 2, 3, 4. And I just started listening, and I was there with the quattro, and I'm strumming along and looking. I had never learned quattro, and I just figured it out bit by bit. This is D, this is A, you know, you know, and um, and I started playing on, I spent most of my day playing the quattro along with the with these CDs and um and imbibing the arrangements, you know, and all those kitchen arrangements at that time were done by a guy named Rupert Neurz, who was a, you know, he was a genius. And he, you know, he studied jazz arranging. So he used a lot of really plush voicings. And you listen to like my person, that type of stuff. That's Rupert Neurz. Um, and then I'm listening to Spyro, so I'm listening to Cyril Diaz, and I'm listening to Pal Joe. I'm I don't know that. Right, but you know, but I it's coming into my head, and so that by the time I start, and then right after that, our teacher was like, okay, we want you to write something for the ensemble. So then, of course, I'm listening to that. So first thing I write in this stuff with a bounce. Right. And then my teacher told me he wanted me to write music for an album, and that that's what became Culture Shock.
Corie:Oh, I see. So it was in school that you went through. It was a pro it was a school project. I see, I see, I see. But you have stuck with that over the years.
SPEAKER_04:What album you know, about eight, nine, or guller roots is number 11. And I already have 12 and 13 recorded. Oh shit.
Corie:Recorded, mixed, and mastered. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that in the world you and albums? Because we've seen you talk about the fading of music on your road, but we've seen the fading of albums in popular music for a long time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think we here see that as a fade, but you know, people still drop albums very regularly in, you know, specifically in the US where I live in Europe. You know, it's a big part of the culture, especially if you're trying to do things like a Grammy consideration, stuff like that. And you know, and I think an album. For me, one thing about an album, I have some albums in the dressing room. Yeah, I want because I want people to see that these things still exist. Um it's a physical thing that you leave in time after you are gone. You know, for me, that's one of the most important reasons I do physical product. Because it's something that's gonna be there. Yeah. Even if it's on our beach somewhere, wash up or whatever, but it's there is something that you made. You know, and on top of that, it's a work of art, you know. The artwork is beautiful, the liner notes, and so. Um, so for me, I albums are necessary because you know, my music comes from a bigger statement. It's not just one song, one song, one song. It's like it's always like a suite, it's always a body of work.
Corie:Or a series of bodies of work. We will pause so you could get because I want people to see it as well. The um two things I remember. I remember being at one in Queenshall where I had the physicals outside. By the time I reach all the says it's sell out. That was the kind of show it was. And um, I always remember seeing I think it was folklore album when it says piece of artwork. I always remember seeing Radix. You remember Brent? Radix Radix in a vest. Yeah. Teal vest and the. I said, What that was a folklore album, right? But we had a vest with us. Yeah. I said, is that Etienne album? He's like, yeah, it's an a store and you just do merch along with the albums and them kind of things.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I CDs, it's LPs, it's t-shirts, yeah, it's tote bags. Um, because you know, I I use the model of pop artists, you know, and a lot of jazz artists, they do they do merch, they will do CDs and LPs, and some people are doing t-shirts, but you know, in the pop world, you can't go to a pop show and not see us not see a t-shirt hanging up.
Corie:Same thing with hip hop, you're a whole merch boot.
SPEAKER_04:And um, and so for me, and coming again, coming from Trinidad, steel band culture is a jersey. Right? And who not playing in the band, they buy in the jersey to support the band. So for me, that's that's really why I always do a jersey. And I will see people wearing my culture. I remember there's a radio DJ in Miami, he's a Trinidad, and his name is Skip Lazama. He's a jazz radio DJ. He works for the WDNA station, volunteers at WDNA station. And the first time I interviewed him, I interviewed with him, um, he pulled up to the interview in a culture shock jersey. Nice. I was like, where you get it? Wasn't that that's like that's like that's like you interviewing Booksy Shop when you pull up a woman's boss jersey from like 1988? It was like, where you get at? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Of course, of course, of course. So the thing about doing records for me is, and the reason I started pressing vinyl in 2016, you know, I had seen a trend of vinyl sales starting to go up like a little bit. And um, I was like, you know what? And the major record labels were starting to press limited edition LPs. I was like, you know what? I always try to operate, even on my independent label, I small little, you know, the minnows, you know. Um I always try to watch what the big boys do. Right. I always watch what they're doing. And you know, follow the market, and I saw LPs starting to pop up, and I was like, you know what? Let me take the plunge. And you know, since my album, San Jose Suite, which came out in 2016, I've pressed every single LP. Every single album has been pressed as LP. This is Gullarots. Right. You know, this one is from 2022. This is Trace's. This is the one. This is two. Oh, I see. So Gullarots is a double LP, 45, Traces is a single LP, Creole Orchestra is a double LP. This was the one that went number one on for the year on Jazz Week radio chart in 2024. Yeah. Um, and yeah, you know, we we we move a lot of these live. And so when, you know, people tell me, they ask me why I don't put my music on Spotify. I say, well, if somebody could listen to music for free, why would they buy it? So, you know, for me, part of it is, you know, I want you to appreciate the art more than just like and then you're listening to a very low quality resolution of audio. Um, whereas this is sit down and you have a glass of wine. You know, it makes it well, it makes this memorable and the digital music a little more forgettable. It does, and and I I think we as the creators, we are part to blame. Um because you know, if you know, you you make the bed, you lie in it, right? So I'm like, we don't need to supply DSPs, you know. And the the the numbers have proven that the quote unquote exposure experiment, it works for pop, but in niche anybody else, but in niche like this, yeah.
Corie:I even heard them describe the way some of them set it up. So, if I might be an example, right? A lot of people have issues with them in the music world where you have uh you have a Drake, you have a Taylor Swift who earns lions. I guess that's who attracting people to the platform as that's they're concerned. So what happens to the niche? I heard Booju in an interview recently talking about it. He's like your music starts disappearing. Yeah, Booju is a big, big um spokesperson.
SPEAKER_04:Um Snoop Dogg has come out. I mean, remember, Taylor Swift didn't have a stuff on it for a while, huh? Yeah. Um, and so for me, it's like, you know, I and I you'd be surprised how many DMs I get. Why is your music not on Spotify? Well, seriously. Oh my god, I mean, I get the types of DMs I get. Why are you wearing a blue hat? Like, the type of DMs I get, like you can only imagine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, this is from local, locals or people ever everywhere.
SPEAKER_04:But a lot, you know, a lot of times it's you know, anytime I announce an album as is out now, go get it, you know. They're like, well, I I can't find your album. It's like if you go to my website, it's there. Well, you know, but it's not on Spotify.
Corie:I'm like, so yeah, you know, I find you mentioned Chappelle. Chappelle has kind of built that habit into his audience. If you don't check Chappelle's website or his Instagram where you don't post nothing, it's the same thing with yours. I just check your every time I go to Miami, I just check to see maybe Etienne this time.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you should you should just WhatsApp because I live in Miami.
Corie:Well, yeah, I didn't know that at all. I could let you know all the time. You know what I mean? Uh and we spoke and thing and he said, But Etienne lives here. I said, But Etienne lives where? I had no idea.
SPEAKER_04:I always assume you were in New York, you know. Nah, I left New York in 2009. I see, I see, I see. Yeah, I moved to Michigan for 12 years, and then I taught at Michigan State University for 12 years. Right. And then I moved to Miami to teach at University of Miami.
Corie:Well, I have to ask as well as I brought up Hohe. Because I remember seeing um yeah, I advertised it and I might have just near about him before. And I kind of Google it and it's a quattro man. I say, all right, well, this is the song like Dong My Lane. Let me see where it is, but there's nowhere near my lane. It's it's it's crazy. It is ludicrous what he could do.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he's a freak of nature on the quattro. And I I first, you know, New York is a funny place, right? So I was living in New York, and on most of my records, the my secret source um is the quattro. So my way of really making it feel and sound trendy is the quattro. So, like, if you listen to old school on Creole Orchestra or my first album customer, talking in the mix is me strumming a quattro. Right? It's also like the ghost of my grandfather, right? So, so, and anytime I'm doing like Ralph McDonald's album, he said, bring that quattro. Yeah, I play quattro because Ralph McDonald's father used to play quattro. I see. So, yeah, and when I recorded old school, I sent it to him, and he was like, yo, this reminded me of my dad, yo. And then he put percussion on it and sent it back to me. Right? So then I moved to New York, I don't know if it's August 20th, August 24th, 2006. And August 25th, I was in the studio. Ralph he said, Yo, we in the studio tomorrow. Bring your trumpet and bring the quattroom. And I before I played trumpet on anything, I used to wrong with the rhythm section. Willie, Buddy Williams, Willie was on the Saturday Night Live Band, and Buddy Williams was in the Saturday Night Live Band. Um, Rob Mounsey on Kees, he did the music for Sex in the City, Dave Spamosa played with Aretha, all these big names, Robert Grinning. And I used to wrong there with a quattro. Imagine that. Reading course going down, you know what I'm saying? So, because for them, those guys who are Caribbean American, and especially those that toured with Belafonte, like that sound is a reminder for them of like when you know the Calypso came in to New York in the 50s and then in the 60s. So, you know, that for me, like Quattro, and anyway, so I had Quattro on old school, and um there was there's a great producer in New York named Russ Titelman. He produced um Tears in Heaven for Eric Clapton. That's like his greatest songs ever. Incredible producer, Russ Titelman. He's done he's done a lot of jazz production as well. I randomly met him in New York at Dizzy's jazz club. The same place I met Pele. We'll talk about that. I'm so sorry. Pele, Dave Chappelle, Prince, all kinds of madness. Anyway, so he had heard the album, and he was like, Yeah, you know, I heard you playing quattro. I said, Yeah, he's like, Who's that? You I said, Yeah, you know, he's like, So how do you do it live? I said, Well, I don't really play quattro live because I play troll. He was like, Well, if you ever need a quattro player, there's a guy in Venezuela named Jorge Clam. This was in 2006, right? And then I was getting ready to do Creole Christmas, and a partner of mine named Will Gobel, who was the bass player in Jason Marcelles's quarter, that's when to Marsales' baby brother posted some picture with a quattro man, and they were playing some gig somewhere, and the thing said whore he glam. I said, Yo, I need a man's number right now. So he sent me his number and his email. I sent him an email and said, Yo, amigo, uh, so I trompetisa ting on disco um the Navidad Paranda, Calypso Necesita tu 4. So the album. So he was like, he was like ballet, and I flew him from um a bottom of flight from Caracas to New York. He came up, we did the album, we wrote a tune right on, we wrote a tune on the subway together. And that was that was July 2014. Yeah, we'll just stay connected. And then we've you know we play he came to Trinidad with me in 2015, you know, and it's really he's been to Trinidad with me a couple times, and you know, because of the situation in Venezuela. One time, the first time he saw his parents in years was when we played in Trinidad and his parents came over for show.
Corie:I see, I see, I see, I see. Understood.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so so you know, we go way back and you know, we've done, you know, he's on he's on Creole Orchestra, he's on Traces with me, he's on Um Creole Christmas, he's on both of my next albums, you know. Like a brother, you know, we you know, we you know, we become very close musically for sure.
Corie:Yeah, I remember seeing you all, and I want to ask as well if if it's deliberate and the way you arrange your shows with. Because uh you brought up Chucho Valdez as well. I came to that show. I don't know that I'm getting to see them without without you, without you doing it. And I wonder if that's deliberate. Like you're bringing these musicians to give us the opportunity to see some of that. Or is it talls?
SPEAKER_04:Well, Chucho was something that I really wanted to do because it was a circle I wanted to complete. One of the first musicians I started checking out when I was living here, trying to learn about jazz was Chucho Valdez. And I'll never forget one of the guys that introduced me to Chucho Valdez was a guy named Dougie Red on a bass player. He had these Iraqiri records from the 70s. And I'll never forget. Um, so I say, you know, we and I was touring with Chucho when I met him. I met him in 20. First time I met him, so Chucho didn't play in the US for a while. And then I was living in Michigan, and Jazz at Lincoln Center announced that they were bringing Chucho to play at the Allen room, which is now the Appel room. And I think it was either 2011 or 2012. I bought a plane ticket, cancelled my gig, and flew to New York to see this man in the flesh. Right. And um, I never forget, and as soon as the show was done, I ran out to try to see him walking. Because I know that hall inside out. Okay, I played there with David Ruther and my own shows there. So then I knew where he was gonna walk or so you go, and I was standing right there, and I stuck my hand up. And he shook my hand.
SPEAKER_01:And his hand, so big, his top of his index finger is here.
SPEAKER_02:That explains a lot. And he said, all right.
SPEAKER_04:I said, What is this? Alright? Anyway, I was 2012, talk done, flew back to Michigan, cool as ever. Great weekend in New York. 2019, I got introduced to Chucho through. We had the same, we were working for the same agency, right? Um, and um, and they were like, yo, you're playing in South Florida, we won't we're gonna we're gonna send Chucho to come see you play. So he comes to my show, and I had done my carnival show, so I was showing the videos with Tambu Bambu, and I showed Jab Balas, and he saw all this culture that reminded him of Cuba. And the next day I went by his house to drink scotch.
Corie:Right. Right?
SPEAKER_04:So it was a two-part line, right? He came to the show, next day I went by his house to drink. And he brought me into his house. He showed me the pictures with Muhammad Ali, with Tearful of Stevenson, you know, all the greats. Um he showed me his Orisha Shrine, and you know, you know, he's a he's a Baba Lao. And he showed me the piano. His this there's an incredible story with his piano. His piano was his father's. Anyway, um, boom. We said um, he's like, Man, I didn't know that they played drums in Trinidad, like that, and that you know, it reminded me of my Orisha color. I said, Well, yeah, we are the same in the course. I said, I want to bring you to Trinidad. That was 2019. He was like, Oh, congusto, congusto. And then he was like, I want you to play my next band. I'm writing a opera, I'm writing an opera about the orishas, a piece. Oh, nice with all about all the orishas, and I want you to play trumpet. And I was just like, yo, why dream come true? Yo, that's like Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan asking me to join the Bulls in 90. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I was just like, whoa, okay. And um, and that was the beginning of us working together. You know, he he we did a world premiere in in 2021, November 21, in Miami South. They are centered pieces called Um La Creation. And, you know, to be able to stand on stage with somebody that you only knew on record, right? And then they trust you with their music. And he calls me his musical son. He says, Soy tu mi hijo, mi hijo musical. He said so in a musical.
Corie:Yeah, he said, and um It was Napo?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was Napo. You know, it's really my, you know, it's a my it happened to come to happen with Monty Alexander, I happened with Marcus Roberts, a few others, but like it's you know, David Rudder, it's a few, but it's really a T-fed, you know, and um and so then we did La Creation and we taught it, we did all these huge halls in Europe. I mean, like two nights sold out at the uh at the um Philarmone de Paris, which is like a 3,000 seat hall, and he sells it out two nights in a row. And it's like Palau Musica's incredible hall in Barcelona, El Fallamoni in Hamburg, my favorite hall in the world, right? And um, so I was like, yo, man, we we have to do Trinidad, you know, we have to come to Trinidad and do something. And you know, he was like, Yeah. So we worked it out, and my band opened for him, and you know, they did that incredible show at Napa. Oh, hell of an experience, you know, and everybody that I ran into, they some people tell me that's the best show they ever went to when they saw Chucho play.
Corie:Yeah, that was I didn't know what to expect. So when you put it again, I went to listen to somebody's music and so, but seeing him like seeing your life, and even even where I said there, because I almost felt a little bit of that, the way he would throw to any one of y'all. You know, it's just I wonder how impromptu them things are whore rehearsed.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, you know, he he he he rehearses his original music, but when you just play in tunes, like you know, we played a ballad together. I think we played um I think we played My Foolish Heart. Um and you know, he you know, he he he's a wealth of knowledge, you know, and he it's generational. His father was a great pianist, you know, it's you know, his children are great musicians. Um and yeah, for me, that's one of the strongest musical bonds that I've ever experienced. Yeah, you know, and you know, he brings all of it, and he's hilarious. When he tell a story, seriously when he's not when he's to tell a story, you could not speak Spanish and you understand it with everything that happened in that story. When you go, yeah, uh you know, and we just there on the floor, and you know he's in his 80s, and he's like, Yeah, he looked full. And what's not? It's not just the show, you know. We line till 3-4 in the morning after the show. What do you mean? I remember we were in Spain when we did Palau Music, and I could tell everybody was hungry. Um like I'm always the like the caretaker on the road because I'm a food man. So whatever city we reach, I know where the food is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, so we finished Palau, and I know people are hungry, but it's Europe, everything clear, every restaurant closing Tuesday night, restaurant closing at nine o'clock. Yeah, yeah. Right? So I had some partners there, and they were in the lobby after the show. They're like do shake people, shake sandwich. I say, go buy this restaurant, order everything on the menu. Yeah. The restaurant was about to close. My partner walk in. He said, let me see the menu.
SPEAKER_01:And he said, and he running the because you know, toppers, right? And the bottom watch himself. We're gonna purple lettuce all. He said, You guys all that what's not he put in the order, he said we save.
SPEAKER_04:Come true. Boom. 20 something people walk in, always thinking we ought to drink. I don't, you know, for me, the music is one thing, but the fellowship, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is you know, it's also a big part of why I do what I do.
Corie:Yeah, I think that shows like I always remember one, I can't remember which show it was, but you said just randomly during the show. You say, My father's in the order, my father's birthday, and did I owe my papa? Which that's I mean, so many pieces you all played out, but that just stood out. It was like, guys, what they just find though.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's yeah, it's I mean that but as you know, that song is very special to me because I played that song for my grandfather at his 80th birthday, right? And that year was the year before my father turned 80. Um, and you know, it was it was a Father's Day week show, you know. No, it was no, I played it for his birthday. His birthday was like the week after that show, a week before that show. So and that's a classic song, you know, and you know, I think generationally, I think we starting to we need to figure out a way to revamp that energy.
Corie:You said that that gap, and maybe that's one of the reasons I do this, because we we we stand in any gap in a lot of ways. We became the adults somewhere along the damn line, we're busy middle-aged people now. But I feel like I have a duty to connect some of these things with generation. I think you said you hit the nail on your head when you say we we could discuss politics from the 80s and 90s or the 70s or 60s, and we could discuss the twenty what 2020 something will look like. I'm not sure that the two generations before or after us connect in the same way.
SPEAKER_04:You know what's interesting, and I have to commend you. You know, I have to make sure and commend you and thank you because I'm not sure if people thank you. I see a lot of people bigging you up, yeah, but I want to make sure and thank you because one, you're creating a platform for the voices that have been waiting to be heard for a long time, right? And as you realize, these people have a lot to say. I underestimated that, right? And um, and also it you know it's rooted in love, it's your love of the culture, and it's things that you relate to. And so I have to commend you and thank you because because of what you're doing, this platform, you, David, and the whole crew, um, it's making things accessible to people who might want to go into what we or they do, and they might not know how to do it. And so I have to really commend you, and again, thank you for doing it. Because, and we talk about with our standing in the gap, you know, for me, one of my you know, people always ask me how you get to do this and how you become this and that. And for me, it always comes back to Trinal Ad. Like my Trinal Ad upbringing, my Fatima upbringing, my Bishop's Junior upbringing, right? And my street upbringing, because I was lucky enough to be as a musician young, I was 10, 11, 12, linemen with 60 and 70-year-old musicians, right? And calypsonians in their 70s and 80s, and his stories write true. Of course, right? And arrangers, like arrangers are a wealth of knowledge, you know, like Leston Paul. I, you know, I got to see, I got to see Wati Watkins, and you know, kind of, you know, our Dakota, you know, you know, those types of names. I I remember seeing their handwritten charts and being able to recognize differentiate between Wati Watkins' handwriting, uh Decoto's penmanship, um, Winston Scarborough, who's Defasto, Defasto was became one of the main copyists. Leston Paul started out as a copyist as well, is where you write all the shape. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um being around them, they tell you these stories that you know they learnt. Of course. And so even though we standing in a gap, you know, it's for me, it's interesting. I love sitting down with like my father or like some of my uncles. Even just the heady stories, just the heady stories. You know, I'll tell you, since we're on a podcast, I could be anyway. So when I was working for my uncle, my pops and them, um, you know, it was like a very small knit, right? I fell on there, okay, I fell in there sabber, right? Um, there's a few of them, right? And I literally learned how to shit talk, right? And you know, like that's important. I will censor myself. But anyway, so so we in the car. So my father had has a Land Rover, right? A whole Land Rover, right? So we in the van and we come along the road. And um, and um, you know, people are self-conscious, whatever, right? Somebody in the van smelling, yeah, right? But he smelly, man.
SPEAKER_01:Don't want nobody know you smell it.
SPEAKER_04:Right? So the man somebody said, I'm smelling something, you know. Right? The man say, you smelling something. Is your old that that that you smelling?
unknown:What's that?
SPEAKER_01:I was 80, 17 years old.
SPEAKER_02:I was something that is important.
Corie:You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04:The next time we somewhere in the bush, and you know, um, this lady cooked food for us. You know, like them days of trying to have done, like we was in the field, and a lady said, Hey, I have some soup for you. We walk in all day. It's like behind God back, yeah. Say, I have some food for you. Right? So now we eat the food, she brings some porn, yeah, we're feeling nice. Right? And she but she has a sharp tongue, yeah. She said, She's not a drop some talk. I know, older lady. So my my father would always say, get your iron stuff, let me go. And that's like that is the line to like, let me go.
SPEAKER_01:Well, fellas, get your iron stuff, let me go. And the lady watched one of them. She said, You see, he tell you something you can't do, get your iron stuff.
SPEAKER_04:That's the essence of we. That's the thing, you know. And you know, for me, that's that that comes out of my horn when I play, you know, and it goes into, you know, because we, you know, we are we are unique people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, like you, you and I, we come from, you know, very so like you could be my cousin. Because, you know, my family from Kokery, and it was all up in St. James, right?
SPEAKER_02:You never know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, um, so you know, it's just like we, you know, and I think that the reason people talk about what's causing the crime in Sharon and what's causing this, you know, obsession with money and US dollars and it's like, and I just look back at what I saw as a child. Yeah, yeah, right, and as a young man, right? I saw people communicating face to face. I think it's just not enough of this. I make sure and put my phone away before I sit down here, right? Face-to-face tour. Making sure to kind of figure out how to make somebody laugh. I I learned back and back then, man, like we had Trinidad TV. We had no boundaries. Yeah, of course. We had news.
Corie:We had our calabash.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. We had our selves on the screen. And that's one of the reasons I do those big films. Is because I want us to continue. That's why, you know, rest in peace, Daniel Diffentala. You know, she was a big advocate of us seeing ourselves. Yeah, bring up Maria Noon, same thing. Yeah, Maria, same story. Some work that's and if we don't show ourselves, that's why I have a brass band on the road. Because if a child doesn't see somebody blow a trumpet, they think they think music comes out of a box. Of course. Oh, yeah, I suppose or have a big thing. Because if you don't, if you don't see it, oh man. Like, you know, and when a child sees something, something clicks. And they could immediately, and it could be, yeah, they might be interested in the lighting, they might be interested in the clothes, they might be interested in the person singing, they might be interested in the person be beating the drum. They might be in the something might catch them. They might be interested in in the in how the person remember when we used to tie our shoelaces different ways for style. Remember that? What's not? I hold it, I all you know, and I I remember taking it. Remember when we used to have Flores and shoelaces.
SPEAKER_01:And Joseph and used to do the remember the um used to do like a um chillers. What's not? I don't know that I take it.
Corie:But that's the uh I think I'll with you. And you know, for me to talk about that. That's the reason I'm so dogged about varying the type of guests that come, the type of topics that we talk about, the backgrounds, the the the way they speak, the way they dress, because we're not one thing. Nah, we we are we are you know we are a plethora.
SPEAKER_04:For sure, and you know, our cultural history is so and it gets richer every day, you know. Like, I did my ancestry, and I had always known a lot of it because, you know, we uh one of my cousins recorded his mother before she passed away, and she rattled off all the way back to the name of her great-great-great-grandmother, who was or great-grandmother, or no, her grandmother, who was born on a plantation in Montserrat. And she dropped the name, and she dropped the name of the owner of the plantation. I went to London, I look in the archives, and I finally plantation. I went, I went once and I planned my two legs on the fucking ground. Yeah, it's important. And it changed me. It's the same way when I go to Africa. I think a big part of our problem here is we in this box. And what Trinidad was, it was always a place where people were coming from all over from the Caribbean. From different parts of Africa, right? It was all these different people. And people would go. Like for me, there's too many people here who have not been to Africa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To the motherland. I you know, and I think it's you know, people who want to go to Miami and who want to go to New York and who want to go to London and pay for the big visa and all kinds, like that's one thing, but it's something and we've been programmed to not be interested in the world. Yeah, don't think it's true.
Corie:Because all you see in the news is starvation, especially in the old times.
SPEAKER_04:Starvation, guerrilla warfare, of course, yada yada, you know, they call you know, and but when somebody wasn't like when I play Santi Manite in Ghana or in in Togo or in Benin, and they get up and dance, for them it's a celebration that they already know.
Corie:Because our stuff comes from that. Well, you say that in the beginning, you know, you see that that belief in ancestry is an important part. Now there are a couple of things I'd ask you quick before you go, yeah, because they will put you out here and they go kill me. If they ask about fashion. Alright, okay, cool. Fashion. Where the sense of fashion and the style and thing come from? You can't remember green Gucci loafers, no back, no strap, any back, it's like slippers. You come out in one of these shows. Where that came from in terms of your sense of style.
SPEAKER_04:Alright, so style. So I'm glad it switched to style because to me, style is someone's ability to dress and express themselves based on a personal taste. And fashion is someone's ability to dress based on somebody else's personal taste. Right? And um, and you know it's true and that we were big on fashion, right? Every man had a wallabies, right? I didn't, I wasn't I never had a wallabies, I never had a class, I never had a Jordan. My parents was not buying that. I used to go by the barber shop and uh when the what the mall there on the drag mall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would see all the Jordans wrap up in the plastic, and I knew I was never getting one. I had my$10 for my haircut and I was going to. That's at home. And I had my$2 for the Carnage Max East and Walkie, right? So, but what I did was it I was like, well, how am I gonna look fresh without the brands? Right? And so, you know, for me, my style comes is again generational. My mother, every Sunday afternoon after she was done with, you know, cooking lunch or whatever, and we put away the kitchen, whatever. She would go in her closet and she would just start trying on clothes and walk in front and stand up in front of the mirror and see what looking. And she just experimented. And it's not my style, I do, right? And um, back, but again, back then people used to go and buy clothes and then they would go by the tail of the sling dress, right? You got pants like the clot, right? And you know, we had more expression, and you know, I grew up listening to Kaiso. So you're watching, you know, that's one thing about watch, and you know, I give big credit to Mr. Laird and the Banyan Chronos who document, you know, and Avin Daniel for you know, because we got to like me as a child, got to see all these people were dressed. The hat. The reason I'm always wearing a hat on my head is the crown, so right? Kaiso, um, the jacket. I, you know, for me, the reason I remember I interviewed Lord Superior right before he passed away. And um, I still have the phone where I interviewed him, and uh, I never forget it was November of 2018. 18 or 19? 2018. And um And I said, why the suits mile? He said the uniform was a suit and a hat. And the reason was because we were legitimizing the art form. We were all seen as outcasts, reprobates, fajons, and the suit was a reminder to them that we're going to work. And then the colours were to show the Caribbean aesthetic. And then if you look at all of these diasporal art forms at that time, you go to Brazil and you see like you know the Brazilian singers like Jackson do Pandeiro. And you're you know it's suit and a hat. It's visible. And then looking at jazz. Of course. It's suit and a hat. And so for me, I was like, there's no way that I'm not gonna be walking around like changing that, you know, trend. And so, and then, you know, I was lucky enough early on in my career, because I have a strange body type. I have, you know, broad shoulders, big bottom. Yeah, and there's a like, you know, I have a but all of we have weird body types, and you know, so like the regular jackets, if it fits up here, it tight, tight, tight in the back and anything, flap it. Yeah, so you make sure you get it. So then people like my you should uh uh suit guy I was talking, he said, man, you should look into getting your clothes made bespoke. Yeah, so then I was like, okay, and then I found a tailor. The guy that made this jacket, actually, was one of the first bespoke tailors I worked with, a guy named Yossel Tief and Brunn. Um, and his trainer, the guy who mentored him, was a Trinidadian named Andrew Ramroop, who was one of the first black shop owners on Savaro. The highest level of soup making. And again, it's a Trinidadian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I was like, well, I am that. Now it means that I don't have as many pieces because you know they're a little more pricey, but it's made for me. And then, you know, for me, I like colour. My mother, my aunt, my sister, my sister has a clothing line, Benny Carib. And um it's all about the Caribbean. Yeah, the Caribbean is all about colour. Of course. And so for me, when I'm on stage, you know, the things I see in the bush, I might see a butterfly that's a particular colour blue. And then, like, I'm gonna get glasses that colour, or I'm gonna get shoes that colour, like the neon green. You know, like the neon, the reason I saw I got I bought those neon green, I had just come out of the bush and I had seen a iguana that bright, that same color green. Yeah, get it. And then I saw it, I was like, I get in that shoes. Because throughout the history of time, humans have dressed themselves based on the animals around them. Yeah, I suppose, I suppose, yeah. And then the colours, the dyes are made from plants and from seeds and whatnot. And so for me, it's a way to express myself and it's become a conversation starter. But at the end of the day, and I'll say this, you know, very firmly that you know, a week went to Fatima and your tie had to be tied, your shirt had to be tucked in. Your socks had to be black, yeah, your shoes had to be, you know, and your shirt had to be ironed. Yeah, in a game. And remember this we'll know where people have your finger. And remember, we couldn't come in after lunchtime sweaty. No, no, no, no. You had to cool. Remember, remember there was a half bell?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you mean there was a half bell.
SPEAKER_04:Remember the half bell so you could stop playing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can sweat. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04:And so that gave me one basis, and then understanding that your style and the way you dress is a gesture, it's a way of you showing your appreciation for people and their time, right? And that you show that like I respect you and this space that we in. So I'm gonna put on my nice clothes because you're gonna see it as a gesture too. It might be my personality, but it's also because I understand that you know, there's a great jazz drummer named Roy Haynes, he passed away last year, and um I mean he was Beijing America, and uh there's the guy that wrote a line of notes for half of my, he did Creole Sol, he did folklore, he did um, he did Kaiso, um, kind of John Stevenson, it was a West Indian as well, was interviewing Roy Haynes in Barbados, and they sit down for the interview and they're talking and whatnot, and they interviewing everything. And um, and then John was like, You mind if I just take your picture? And Roy was like, One second.
SPEAKER_01:He went up in the room, put on the tripie.
SPEAKER_04:Come back down. I'm ready. Yeah, you know, and again, going back.
Corie:I remember what the men used to, my grandfather tell me, men used to dress up to go and sit around the corner. Yeah, that was I grew up in a house like that in St. Jim's. Yeah, St. Jim's was like that. St.
SPEAKER_01:Jim's was like that. Yeah, I used to see that.
Corie:Yeah, my grandfather used, I'm gonna leave it home on Friday, come on my spent.
SPEAKER_04:What's that? I never forget. One time I was walking somewhere and I was coming out of a radio store, some interview. Because I had to do a TV interview and a radio interview, and I had on a suit. And I was walking on Tragie Road to get to my car, and uh older lady went, Oh boy, but you're looking nice like Boise.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it stands out, it stands out.
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, people people notice, and so for me, if you know, if it if it lifts somebody there because they see somebody walkress, I'll do it.
Corie:Well, when you say conversation starts, it's true. Like when they had the shows, I usually take note of the reaction when you walk out. I think people waiting to see where you're. Well, as I say appreciation, but I want to show you my appreciation as well because I think you you you I've seen maybe just get by luck get to see some of it in terms of where it started and some of the early shows you were doing here and some of the early albums. Well, thanks for doing Rose in the first place. And and doing what you do with Kaiso because our next story, right? You'd never believe how often I listen to Rose.
SPEAKER_04:Rose is our next story. So so I was so Ralph McDonald used to come to Trinidad to hang out, and I used to drive him around. Right. And I would make sure to be in Trinidad. And he took me, you remember you remember Holly Thomas? Of course. So we went by Holly Thomas, and I had done my first album. And Holly was checking out. He's like, it's nice, you know. And then we were in his radio station, and he's like, AJ and boy, boy. I like your song, but you know. Right. Yeah. You ever hear rose? I say, rose, what rose? Guns and roses, waiting on rose. Single petal of a rose. We talk about rose. He said, No, wear rose. And he pulls out the CD. And he goes, and 16-year-old Erolands with the cup mute, and he's doing all these clay for Brown. And he wasn't, I started to cry right there. This was that was July of 2007. My first show in Trinidad was October 2007 with my band for QRCs. It used to call it the Trinidad Tobago Steel Band Jazz Fest. Right. And I said, we go get them rules. I did the arrangement for the Three Horns. And we start, we bought. And I didn't ask the ladies and gentlemen, there's a tune you may or may not know. Because who plays that live? Yeah. Who playing that life? They don't hear that again. And by the time people go, oh Lord, oh Lord, but and you know what happened? Rain started for a bucket of drop outside. Oh, it was central bar. And people couldn't get to the car. Everybody stands up in the lobby. I say, Like, we're gonna play. And we started, oh Lord, oh Lord. Because they don't make songs like that on your room.
Corie:No, no, no, no. That's why I tell you before we start, I'm coming on your road as well as you're because it's improving their experience on your road. And thanks for you know let's take a little jam session at the end. At the end of the show, I somehow appreciate it. Thank you very much. It's good to have Fatty Mob men here for the change.