Etienne Charles
CREOLE ORCHESTRA
(Culture Shock Music)
★★★★

THERE’S a tremendous Trini-percussive verve to Port of Spain-born trumpeter Etienne Charles’s new album, Creole Orchestra. Recorded in New York City, this 21-piece outfit swing and stomp their way through 13 tracks, from The Mighty Sparrow’s Ten to One is Murder and Joe Henderson’s Shade of Jade to Jimmy Forrest’s Night Train.

Fused elements of calypso, soca, big band swing and enticing vocals like Colorado River Song by Rene Marie make up 76 minutes of marvellously spirited music with fiery soloists like altoist Brian Hogans, trombonist Corey Wilcox and pianist Sullivan Fortner.

The Caribbean truly comes to the Apple to rejoice and celebrate all through this record, full of hefty jazz yet seeping with Trinidadian juice and fire. Just listen to Centerpiece, Obed Calvaire’s drums on Think Twice or Charles’s horn on Holy City. Your feet won’t stop as your ears imbibe this rampaging album.

Jason Anick/Jason Yeager
SANCTUARY
(Sunnyside Records)
★★★★★

THE quest for sanctuary for all humans is at the heart of this album by violinist Jason Anick and pianist Jason Yeager, joined on diverse tracks by some powerful bandmates.

Two of these, Persecution and Farewell, featuring Palestinian cellist Naseem Alatrash, directly tell of “people fleeing injustice, war, poverty and violence.” Yeager’s empathetic piano shares the soul of both, while Billy Buss’s flugelhorn is rapturous on Ephemory.

Anick’s violin is beautifully, lyrically poised on the band’s version of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude as the musicians move out of and beyond category, while Nearness of Now is the adapted Nearness of You, given now-times dynamism by Greg Loughman’s plangent bass and Jason Palmer’s trumpet.

This is a powerfully relevant album, making music a messenger of its times, none more so than on the Wayne Shorter tune Lost, where saxophonist Edmar Colon blows like a human voice crying for safety.

Elliott Sharp/Sally Gates/Tashi Dorji
ERE GUITAR
(Intakt Records)
★★★★

THE extraordinarily unified guitar sounds of US virtuoso Elliott Sharp, New Zealander Sally Gates and Tashi Dorji from Bhutan span the cosmos.

“Improvisation as a practice,” says Dorji, much influenced by Sheffield guitarist Derek Bailey, “is always shifting, becoming and disappearing.” Never the same twice — and no conglomeration of sounds could illustrate that adage more than those found on this record.

The sound is elemental. Hear closely the track called Array — it could be an electric storm, or it could be a palaver of concerned individuals discussing the climate crisis, as in Addressing the Convention. Like the mystery of sound, it is anything the listeners want it to be.

Impossible for me to separate its creators’ soundscapes, this is truly a small ensemble of fused artistry, electric to its core. A trio of now-times troubadours giving their sounds to their listeners as words on a page. Hearkening is knowing.