The Caribbean islands are alive with music. Music can be heard at all hours of the day and night!
Musical traditions influencing Caribbean music include African religious and folk music, pop and jazz music from Europe, the music of South America and the USA and some European religious music too. From these, Caribbean musicians developed new styles which have become popular all over the world.
Calypso
The island of Trinidad is the home of Calypso .
Calypso singers (Calypsonians) always comment on the news or political events through their music.
Cricket is very important in the Caribbean . When Brian Lara (a famous Cricketer for the West Indies ) first broke the record for the most runs made by one man in a test match - a calypso song was composed in his honour.
Some people say that the whole history of Trinidad has been told through Calypso. But it's not just old news. Calypsonians are modern day storytellers too.
Reggae
Reggae began as a dance craze in Kingston, Jamaica during the 1970s.
Music was needed to match the movements of the dance. Musicians combined a folk music style called mento with other musical styles, like rhythm and blues and bebop.
This new Reggae music became very popular outside Jamaica and the Caribbean islands. Soon, London became an important centre for Reggae music.
Courtney took up the tenor saxophone because he wanted to play in Reggae bands. Some years later, he recorded an album in Jamaica with reggae producer Gussie Clark.
Courtney called the album Closer to Home
Ska
During the second world war, Swing bands became popular in Jamaica, and many Caribbean musicians played jazz alongside other musical styles. During the 1950s, fast R & B numbers from the United States became popular in Jamaica. Musicians explored new ways of playing the accompaniment (or backing) , emphasising the offbeats in a new and unusual way.
Watch video - Courtney meets the Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin
Watch video - Courtney and Ernest perform Eastern Standard Time
Over this, talented players, like the trombonist Don Drummond, improvised solos. The new music was called Ska after the sound of guitars playing on the offbeats.
DJs would talk or 'toast' over the up-tempo Ska rhythms. Millie Small's Ska number My Boy Lollipop reached number one in the British charts.
Rock Steady
It is said that one very hot summer in Jamaica, dancers found it tiring to keep with the fast beat of Ska music.
To help out, the musicians slowed the tempo of the ska numbers. This proved a bonus for bass players, who took opportunities to invent interesting bass lines. This laid-back style of music became known as Rock Steady.
Desmond Decker had a popular hit in Britain with his Rock Steady number The Israelites
The Caribbean islands are home to important musical styles influencing the development of popular music and jazz.
It is important that pupils get to know something of the diversity of the Caribbean islands, and their astonishingly rich musical traditions, ranging from Salsa to Soca.
European and African musical traditions combined in the islands, European melodies and structures fusing with rhythms rooted in African traditions.
Courtney was brought up on calypso, ska and reggae played on the family's Blue Spot radiogram. In addition to R&B and jazz numbers, traditional Jamaican folk songs were sometimes given a ska interpretation.
Watch the video - Introducing the Blue Spot Radiogram
- Find out about, and sing, some popular Jamaican folksongs
- Create a simple ska accompaniment
- Create a ska or reggae backing to a Jamaican folksong
Watch the video - Ernest Ranglin plays the well-known jazz standard ‘Take the A Train’
- Compare performances by American Swing Bands from the USA.
Calypso
Calypso developed in Trinidad from West African work songs and nineteenth century French and English popular melodies.
Like griots or jalis in West Africa, calypsonians spread news and gossip, mixed with witty comments. 'Oratorical calypso' explores language in ingenious ways, performing verbal acrobatics with polysyllabic words:
From abolition to ninety-eight Calypso was still sung in its crude state From French to English it was then translated By Norman Le Blanc who became celebrated Then it was rendered grammatically In oration, poetry and history
Lord Invader
During Carnival, competitions are held, where skilled calypsonians test each others' skills to the limit. During the nineteen fifties, calypsonians reflected on the experiences of Caribbeans living in Britain. Subjects included homesickness, the London underground, difficult landlords and the cold weather!
Cricket is taken very seriously in Trinidad, and expert calypsonians put their own spin on events. In 1950, the West Indian team beat the English team at Lords for the first time. This event was commemorated in Lord Beginner's Victory Test Match.
Ska
Many of the musicians responsible for creating Ska and Reggae were jazz musicians. Quite a number came from the Alpha College for Boys, founded as a Catholic orphanage in 1893. Here, boys learned a variety of military band instruments alongside musical theory and notation.
During the nineteen forties, many skilled players learned to play jazz, and joined swing bands, playing for American forces stationed in the islands. Jazz musicians like the trombonist, Don Drummond, and the guitarist, Ernest Raglin, did much to develop Ska .
Although the new style, characterised by its heavily accented offbeat, reflected New Orleans R & B (See Sound System ), jazz influences were equally important, and instrumental line-ups incorporated saxophones and brass. Don Drummond's Skatalites established the musical style beyond the islands, and Ranglin had a number one hit in Britain and number two in the USA with My Boy Lollipop.
Reggae
In 1990, Courtney visited Jamaica to record Closer to Home , a Reggae-based album, with the producer Gussie Clark. Reggae was named after a new dance craze popular around Kingston .
The music to accompany this combined the laid-back rock steady tempo with the 'shuffle' of mento.
Mento singing resembles calypso, and is accompanied by a wide variety of instruments, including bongos, guitar and kalimba.
Musicians and music producers drew on the new Reggae style to spread a message of freedom, brotherhood and a return to Africa .
Bob Marley grew up in the tough Trenchtown district of West Kingston. His early musical influences included Jamaican mento and Gospel. Marley's music and lyrics caught the imagination of young people across continents. At the One Love concert in 1978, Marley demonstrated against civil unrest by bringing together the two opposing Jamaican political leaders.
British reggae bands emerged during the 1970s, and British reggae producers and musicians developed their own distinctive sound. Innovative bands included Matumb and Aswad , and the highly inventive Jah Shaka were known for heavy 'dub' reggae with imaginative sound effects.