Élan Parlé of Trinidad and Tobago releases free to download “Jazzalypso” CD

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

‘Tis the season folks. Christmas has come mighty early. Calypso Fusion band Élan Parlé out of Trinidad and Tobago has released free-to-download tracks, one a day over the last ten days, from the long-awaited CD Jazzalypso.

Since the CD was recorded in 2009, band leader and keyboardist Michael Low Chew Tung aka Ming sent his Facebook Friends like me a few teasers that Jazzalypso’s release was imminent.

All of a sudden or ‘outta da blue’ like his song from Caribbean Renaissance (2003) says, Ming uploaded the tracks to Soundcloud and shared the good news with daily postings on his Facebook Profile. Confounded about why he would do such a thing, producer Nigel Campbell of Production One Ltd. expressed his disappointment in a Facebook Comment “…that this is not a commodity to be purchased by listeners so that its worth can be validated.” In response, Ming writes in his submission to the Woodshed that “…the bigger problem [is of] the closure of the major radio stations promoting jazz and world music in Trinidad. There is no place for the music to be played. Didn’t seem much point releasing new music. That position is still the same today.” Resigned to the fate of Jazz in Trinidad, Ming adds, “What’s the point, except that we’ve already recorded…and we felt that the audience should get a chance to hear it.

Campbell might have understood this and suggested that Ming pull the tracks from Soundcloud eventually because, as he put it, “It’s still a product that can earn money.”

Ming’s view on the idea of giving away the music free to anyone to listen and download is that hopefully “…they will share it with friends, who will in turn share it with their friends and so on.”

“Kaiso Love,” a take off from Clive Zanda’s KaisoJazz classic, “Fancy Sailor,” is one of those sublime anthems that will awaken the spirit, so poignant and stomach-churning it is. Starting off as a ditty, “Kaiso Love” pulses to a bass-led bridge that the leader crosses to mount an extensive elaboration of the theme that carries the listener on an anticlimactic road march chip. This device is also explicit in “Santiman,” – an arrangement of a sans humanite war song theme – a barn burner if ever there was one. Not too far behind on the applause meter is the title track itself.

One of the greatest challenges a leader encounters in writing an album is ensuring the musical package is coherent in some way. Judging in part by the song titles here, the impression is that Ming is on a search for a character to embody his compositions. In so doing, the he applies unique motifs to the Calypso element in each song.

Writing in to the Woodshed, Ming’s explanation was that the “…album was meant to be more compositional than improvisational, meaning it wasn’t based on specific chords or progressions or odd time signatures but on strong melodic concept.”

Thus, Jazzalypso’s nine tracks, though Calypso-Jazz heavy, are embellished with a smattering of straight ahead swing, zouk, latin and funk thrown in for good measure.

“N’orleans” not demonstrates the leader’s due respect for the straight ahead swing fundamentals of Classic Jazz, but seeks to coalesce the spirits of Trinidad with New Orleans’. The sonic vibrations of “Selafrika” are to this writer an acknowledgement of the Franco-heritage Trinidad shares with so many of the predominantly English-speaking countries of the Caribbean all of which keep strong cultural, even familial ties, with the French Departments. To the writer, Sean Friday, it is a look to Africa as the maternal music of all Caribbean forms. “Jaiso,” the one studio track on the CD, serves up the “rice and beans” of our Spanish-speaking neighbours, sprinkled as it were, with condiments concocted of a traditional latin lilt. The Jaco Pastorius inspired “E-Jaco-Lation” and “Friday’s Groove,” while allowing the bassist to come to the fore, is at once a welcome pander to the forty-year old funk component of Black music.

The Calypso in Ming’s Calypso-Jazz is so lyrical as to fool the brain into believing that his instrumentations are right out of the popular song book of classic Trinidadian Kaiso. It is as though you know the songs, the lyrics too, which you wouldn’t if you are listening to, say, Jazzalypso for the first time.

Ming neither attacks nor belts blatantly. But never is he the sedative one might need to drift away for there is always enough verve to keep up the interest.

This man is the consummate team player who is never one to take and keep the spotlight. His forte is more one of stating the melody and developing the theme then letting the rhythm carry the composition with a balanced musicality that drummer Richard Joseph and Sean Friday must be appreciative of. No wonder they have stuck with him all these years, Joseph from (Elan Parle, 2000), Friday from (Caribbean Renaissance, 2003). This selflessness is clear not only on Jazzalypso but in Elan Parle’s live performances as well. Indeed, the plan behind Jazzalypso was to go with the trio setting, to reproduce the live sound without the luxury of added instrumentation, according to Ming.

Jazzalypso is the 6th recording by this Trinidad based Caribbean Jazz group Élan Parlé. Unlike the previous five, Jazzalypso (parlemusic) was recorded live, all in one take.

For Ming, the bigger picture is that his band will be “…fortunate to attract some more performance…or licensing opportunities [and that] “ultimately people will listen to the band.”

In my mind’s eye, I could hear Ming’s dream, expressed like this: “One never knows where these things will come from.”

If Ming were writing this, he would say, “Enjoy”