Si­mon Lee

With none of the hype or fan­fare as­so­ci­at­ed with celebri­ty mu­sic artistes, two men who are con­trib­u­tors to and cre­ators of some of the best sounds in world mu­sic slipped through Port-of-Spain last week to join the Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic Ex­plor­er on a voy­age down the coasts of Venezuela, the Guyanas, Suri­name, Brazil and Ar­genti­na.

The T&T Guardian was fast and for­tu­nate enough to pull off an on-the-wing in­ter­view with Ja­cob Edgar, founder and pres­i­dent of the Cum­ban­cha la­bel and one of the Cum­ban­cha artistes, singer/song­writer Tri­ni-born Cana­di­an res­i­dent Drew Gon­salves.

San Fran­cis­co-born Ja­cob Edgar is one of those rare in­di­vid­u­als who has made a suc­cess­ful ca­reer out of his pas­sions– for trav­el and roots mu­sic.

In his mul­ti­ple roles as head of Cum­ban­cha, mu­sic re­searcher for Pu­tu­mayo, host of TV se­ries Mu­sic Voy­ager and guest speak­er on Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic Ex­pe­di­tions, Ja­cob trav­els fre­quent­ly, in his con­tin­u­ing search for ex­cep­tion­al mu­sic.

Af­ter an MA in eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy at UCLA, he joined the fledg­ling world mu­sic la­bel Pu­tu­mayo as lead mu­sic re­searcher and tal­ent scout, a po­si­tion he still holds. Pu­tu­mayo, through its se­ries of com­pi­la­tions, was re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing world mu­sic ac­ces­si­ble to a glob­al au­di­ence ea­ger for au­then­tic sounds.

In 2006, want­i­ng to con­cen­trate on artiste de­vel­op­ment, Edgar found­ed the Cum­ban­cha la­bel.

Cum­ban­cha (Afro-Cuban slang for "an im­promp­tu gath­er­ing or par­ty," which sounds very close to the Tri­ni lime) launched with Wati­na, an al­bum which has since been vot­ed "the Best World Mu­sic al­bum of all time." Wati­na brought to­geth­er the Be­lizean Gar­i­fu­na spokesman, cul­tur­al ac­tivist and for­mer Pun­ta Rock star Andy Pala­cio and the mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional Gar­i­fu­na Col­lec­tive on an al­bum orig­i­nal­ly pro­duced by the Be­lizean arranger/mu­si­cian/Stone­tree Records founder Ivan Du­ran. The project was close to Edgar's heart–re­viv­ing Caribbean folk­loric and roots mu­sic by us­ing mod­ern arrange­ments, tra­di­tion­al as well as elec­tric in­stru­men­ta­tion to take the mu­sic "in new cre­ative di­rec­tions."

Edgar had been cap­ti­vat­ed by the mu­sic of the Gar­i­fu­na (Black Caribs ex­iled from St Vin­cent by the British in 1797, who sub­se­quent­ly set­tled on the coast of Hon­duras, Be­lize and Ecuador) when re­search­ing in Cos­ta Ri­ca.

He li­censed songs from Andy Pala­cio for Pu­tu­mayo af­ter hear­ing him on tour in Cana­da. He laugh­ing­ly ad­mits to play­ing conch shell on Wati­na, which he ex­clu­sive­ly li­censed from Stone­tree, to give it the ben­e­fit of the mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion his Pu­tu­mayo/Cum­ban­cha net­works of­fered.

Edgar cap­i­talis­es on con­tacts he's made in the mu­sic in­dus­try, as guest speak­er on Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic Ex­plor­er voy­ages and, since 2009, as host of the TV se­ries Mu­sic Voy­ager. It was a part­nered voy­age with Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al and a meet­ing with one of Amnesty's di­rec­tors that re­sult­ed in his sign­ing the amaz­ing Sier­ra Leone Refugee All Stars, sur­vivors (some of them am­putees) of just one of the hor­ren­dous civ­il wars which have plagued West Africa in re­cent years.

Edgar's en­thu­si­asm for the up­com­ing cruise down the South Amer­i­can coast­line was in­fec­tious. He rhap­sodised about Belem, hotspot of har­ra­da–Brazil­ian surf mu­sic–and carim­bo "Coun­try mu­sic goes tech­no," a Brazil­ian equiv­a­lent of the blis­ter­ing­ly ex­u­ber­ant Afro-Colom­bian fu­sion cham­pe­ta.

Among oth­er hotspots he's vis­it­ed re­cent­ly he high­light­ed Sao Tome and Principe, is­lands off the coast of West Africa, which share com­mon colo­nial his­to­ries with the Caribbean, as does an­oth­er Cre­ole en­clave, Re­union Is­land, home to weath­er re­porter/singer Yael Trulles, whose mix of Re­union tra­di­tion­al mu­sic "with a zouk swing" he's a fan of.

Be­sides Drew Gon­salves, who has found an ide­al niche as a Cum­banchero, Edgar may ex­tend his T&T reper­toire with an al­bum from Ca­lyp­so Rose next year; not en­tire­ly sur­pris­ing­ly, as Rose has right­ful­ly been el­e­vat­ed to the rank of World Mu­sic Di­va, join­ing such lu­mi­nar­ies as the late greats Miri­am Make­ba, Celia Cruz and Ce­saria Evo­ra.

Edgar comes across as a benev­o­lent cham­pi­on of the best in mu­sic, one who's pre­pared to sup­port and de­vel­op tal­ent wher­ev­er he finds it.

"I have suc­cess­ful artistes, but there are oth­ers who re­quire sup­port. I've been try­ing to cre­ate a brand for me, which is to be a con­duit for oth­ers to be­come as pas­sion­ate about the mu­sic of the world as I am. My ul­ti­mate goal is to make peo­ple look at their world and re­alise that mu­sic will help them un­der­stand it bet­ter."

Ca­lyp­so from Cana­da

Un­der­stand­ing his Caribbean world and roots is cen­tral to Gon­salves' mu­sic. Nephew of lo­cal pro­duc­er/mu­si­cian John­ny, Gon­salves is founder and leader of the Toron­to-based Kobo Town band, whose sec­ond al­bum Jumbie in the Juke­box , with its eclec­tic mix of clas­sic kaiso, roots reg­gae and Caribbean folk "run through a 21st-cen­tu­ry fil­ter" has been gar­ner­ing rave re­views both state­side and in the world mu­sic press.

Born in Trinidad to a Tri­ni fa­ther and French-Cana­di­an moth­er, he left the is­land abrupt­ly with his moth­er in 1989 at 13, when his par­ents sep­a­rat­ed, and has been based in Cana­da since. Like many of his peers in Trinidad of the 1980 (in­clud­ing the Ro­jas broth­ers, with whom he played briefly), for him ca­lyp­so and so­ca were mere­ly a faint back­drop to the heavy met­al and hard rock he was in­to.

Al­though Kitch­en­er lived up the road from him in Diego Mar­tin, "I wasn't in­ter­est­ed."

"I dis­cov­ered kaiso in Cana­da," he re­calls and the dis­cov­ery was a trans­for­ma­tive ex­pe­ri­ence in the process of re­solv­ing iden­ti­ty is­sues pre­cip­i­tat­ed by his sud­den de­par­ture from his birth­place.

"I had no con­tact for a while. It was an awk­ward age to move to a new coun­try and I had a hard time ad­just­ing."

As a reclu­sive ado­les­cent he be­gan read­ing Caribbean his­to­ry and was knocked out when a Grena­di­an friend gave him some tapes pro­duced by the Peo­ple's Cul­tur­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T. "Those kaiso songs told the sto­ry of T&T like noth­ing else."

He was al­so deeply im­pressed by "the clev­er­ness of the singers, their sense of hu­mour" and be­gan col­lect­ing sec­ond-hand al­bums by Li­on, Ter­ror and Growl­ing Tiger, while ad­mit­ting that Mighty Spoil­er is his es­pe­cial horsey.

His first trip back home when he was 18, was an epiphany.

"My fa­ther took me to Kitch­en­er's Re­vue...I was blown away by the clev­er­ness and wit of these ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and their in­ter­play with the au­di­ence...from that point on, ca­lyp­so was al­ways on my mind."

As the lyrics of Kaiso News­cast, the open­ing track on Jumbie in the Juke­box, put it:

"If I had the choice I would choose/To live back when ca­lyp­so brought the news...

"Kaiso don't use jar­gon or dou­ble­s­peak/To put the truth be­yond your reach/

"No more big words to bus' your brain/Even the weath­er­man would be talk­ing plain...

"And we don't need no pic­ture from out­er space/To tell we what go­ing on in front we face...Kaiso bet­ter than Fox News or CNN/Be­cause ca­lyp­so don't pre­tend/To in­form with­out com­ment/Or sep­a­rate fact from ar­gu­ment...."

While study­ing clas­si­cal gui­tar and vis­it­ing the ca­lyp­so tents on every trip back home (he al­so took cu­a­tro lessons from Robert Munro) Gon­salves start­ed writ­ing his own ca­lyp­soes.

In 2004 he formed Kobo Town, a band named for the now van­ished area on Port-of-Spain's wa­ter­front which was the cen­tre of kalen­da, the stick­fight­ing and singing cul­ture, a ma­jor source of ear­ly kaiso.

Jumbie in the Juke­box, re­leased ear­li­er this year, is the re­sult of a four-year col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ivan Du­ran of Stone­tree Records in Be­lize, where some of the record­ing was done.

Gon­salves can thank Edgar for the ini­tial in­tro­duc­tion, which has launched him as a com­ing Cum­ban­cha star. Du­ran and Gon­salves share a com­mon in­ter­est in pay­ing trib­ute to the mu­si­cal her­itage of the Caribbean by tak­ing it in­to the fu­ture, main­tain­ing the spir­it (and spir­its) with a liv­ing and evolv­ing tra­di­tion.

Gon­salves men­tions Ja­maican men­to, Bar­ba­di­an tuk and Guade­lou­pean gwo ka as for­ma­tive in­flu­ences along with Cuban son mon­tuno and its great­est ex­po­nent, El Ciego Mar­avil­loso �Ar­se­nio Ro­driguez.

Jumbie in the Juke­box has drawn com­par­isons with British Two Tone band The Spe­cials, Neil Young, Spar­row and even Be­la­fonte. But in truth and fact, it's orig­i­nal, like all good mu­sic.

Gon­salves jok­ing­ly refers to his mu­sic as "bas­tardised ca­lyp­so"–but it's true to his life ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing both "in­side and out" of Trinidad. His lyrics cer­tain­ly com­bine ver­bal wit with tren­chant so­cial com­men­tary; you won't hear any of the froth of con­tem­po­rary so­ca, but you will be stirred to dance –and think–and laugh.

For Edgar, watch­ing au­di­ence re­sponse to Kobo Town, "The re­sponse has been un­ex­pect­ed­ly good in Eu­rope. They're amaz­ing to watch live with their mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional ap­peal. Drew has the rhythm of the spo­ken word when he sings."

By tap­ping in­to the Caribbean's mul­ti­ple her­itage with a con­tem­po­rary root­ed ex­pres­sion, Kobo Town's re­cep­tion in the wider world proves both the beau­ty and rel­e­vance of what we have in the re­gion but have ne­glect­ed in favour of fick­le fash­ions and the mi­rage of com­mer­cial suc­cess.

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