Nigel A Camp­bell

A re­view of Theron Shaw: Gum­bo Caribe

Theron Shaw is well known in lo­cal mu­sic cir­cles as the go-to man for gui­tar sup­port rang­ing from jazz to ca­lyp­so.

His two pre­vi­ous re­leas­es sig­nalled a will­ing­ness to en­gage with na­tive cul­tur­al mores and tack­le Caribbean Jazz not on­ly as a way to "trop­i­calise" har­mon­i­cal­ly com­plex orig­i­nal mu­sic, but as a way to val­i­date and val­orise ca­lyp­soes, eth­nic mu­sic and folk songs in a sur­pris­ing­ly new con­text.

With his third re­lease on CD, Gum­bo Caribe, Shaw al­most ex­clu­sive­ly utilis­es the tal­ents of a cadre of Boston-based BerkLee Col­lege of Mu­sic fac­ul­ty and alum­ni to ex­pand the the­mat­ic in­flu­ences be­yond the bor­der.

Shaw says: "Gum­bo Caribe rep­re­sents a mix of styles and in­flu­ences that I've been nur­tur­ing and de­vel­op­ing for a num­ber of years. You will hear in­flu­ences from the French Caribbean via the men­nde and mazur­ka (ma­zouk), a Brazil­ian tex­tured par­tido al­to, and, of course, my own twists of ca­lyp­so and folk rhythms."

Those mu­si­cians in­clude Trinidad-born pro­fes­sor of mu­sic, Ron Reid, who acts as pro­duc­er and earns an al­bum artist cred­it, along with dy­nam­ic drum­mer Har­vey Wirht orig­i­nal­ly from Suri­name. Reid has honed his skill of pulling su­perla­tive per­for­mances out of mu­si­cians–last year, that was on dis­play at his One Night On­ly con­cert at All Saints Church Hall with lo­cal jazz tal­ent–and on this al­bum, the chal­leng­ing va­ri­ety of moods are ad­e­quate­ly han­dled. Wirht leads by ex­am­ple to mas­ter­ful­ly in­ter­pret the var­ied rhythms that are ex­plored on this al­bum. The chal­lenge, if there is one at all, of play­ing live with mu­si­cians "out­side the box" is recog­nised by the lis­ten­er as the new aes­thet­ics of jazz: just play...well!

The nine tunes on this al­bum in­clude five orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions that ex­plore those "styles and in­flu­ences" Shaw speaks of in a way that sug­gests that the growth and ex­plo­ration from his many years on the cir­cuit here in Trinidad and re­gion­al­ly were pro­duc­tive. In the con­text of T&T, that is a plus. In the last year, we are for­tu­nate to have seen the launch of a hand­ful of jazz CDs here, and Gum­bo Caribe pos­i­tive­ly im­pacts that sta­tis­tic.

Ka Dans, Char­lot­teville Jig and Ju­bie's Dance, as their ti­tles im­ply force the lis­ten­er to dance. Not sim­ply to chip and wine, but to dance the rhythms of the isles. Ka Dans us­es the Mar­tini­quan men­nde rhythm, and opens the CD with de­clar­a­tive im­pact sug­gest­ing that the mu­sic here is not the usu­al Caribbean Jazz "smooth jazz run through."

Witht han­dles the cre­ole mazur­ka drum­ming on Ju­bie's Dance–a tune ded­i­cat­ed to his grand­moth­er Jube­li­na "Ju­bie" Shaw–with great �lan. Again, those French-Caribbean rhythms which are not present in much Trinidad mu­sic, pro­vides a coun­ter­point to the fa­mil­iar, and a ba­sis for wider en­gage­ment for jazz au­di­ences here.

Shaw is the mas­ter of the jazz cov­er of tra­di­tion­al lo­cal folk mu­sic. On pre­vi­ous CDs he showed his hand at re­mind­ing lis­ten­ers of the beau­ty of the cre­ole canon, and on this al­bum, he does the same with a rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of Man­goes (Man­go Rose, Man­go Vert) on so­lo gui­tar. With­out com­pet­ing sounds, this tune al­so show­cas­es an im­proved tech­nique. The late com­pos­er Olive Walke would be proud. Spar­row's No Mon­ey, No Love is a tip of the hat to straight jazz com­plete with cool jazz horn arrange­ments.

A stand­out track is An­dre Tanker's Smokey Joe fea­tur­ing ca­lyp­so stal­wart Valenti­no vo­cal­is­ing the lyrics that drip with pathos, the song of an un­lucky dream­er who lives for Car­ni­val even when he is on his last dol­lar. Sim­ple ac­com­pa­ni­ment with the ny­lon string Godin Mul­ti­ac al­lows those lyrics to ring clear­ly and plain­tive­ly.

The ju­bi­la­tion of Caribbean mu­sic and the ease of per­for­mance, though mut­ed to stol­id per­fec­tion here, are hall­marks of a kind of beau­ty that Theron Shaw con­tin­ues in his ca­reer with this CD. We should all be be­hold­ers.

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MORE IN­FO

Theron Shaw launch­es Gum­bo Caribe on Au­gust 2 at Veni Mang� Restau­rant, Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook.

Time: 7 pm to 9.30 pm

There will be CDs avail­able for pur­chase. Ad­mis­sion is free but there will be a cash bar avail­able.

For more in­fo, vis­it The Theron Shaw Project on Face­book.