Jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles wants to explain why his 2024 album, Creole Orchestra – one of five nominees for the US National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for Outstanding Jazz Album – is dedicated to arrangers. They are the unsung heroes of every music project, he says.
Though based in the US, Etienne – himself also an arranger, composer, trumpeter and assistant professor of studio music and jazz – said he wanted to “remind Trinidad and Tobago that we are from a culture of arrangers. I wanted to highlight that.”
Arrangers, he said, are the first ones to work on a project, but “the last person whose name is called.”
He’s grateful, as a Trinidadian, for the award nomination, he said, adding that the NAACP Awards have been “lifting” artistes up for many years. The awards are given for outstanding performances in over 40 categories in film, television, theatre, music and literature.
Charles felt honoured to be nominated alongside American artistes like jazz singer Samara Joy, saxophonist Javon Jackson and the late poet and writer Nikki Giovanni, as well as saxophonist and songwriter Kirk Whalum and pianist Matthew Whitaker.
Also, he said, “As a Trinidadian, it could not come at a better time, because it is Carnival, which is naturally a celebration.” The awards are presented in late February. Carnival this year is March 3 and 4.
This is not his first nomination. He was the producer and songwriter on the winning 2018 album Petite Afrique by Somi.
But the news of being nominated as an artiste was still “setting in,” he said in a phone interview on January 22.
Charles discussed his feelings about the nomination, the return of brass music to soca music and its recordings, and the need to train a new generation of brass players.
Creole Orchestra fulfilled his dream of creating a big-band album, he said.
“It is an album that is dear to my heart. It took years of work. I started writing for a big band in 2010 or 11. I think my first big-band concert was in 2011. It took a while, and it was also a very expensive project, as it is a lot of people in the studio.”
[caption id="attachment_1135396" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Etienne Charles at the launch of his Riddim, Brass and Mas Carnival 2025 band on December 19, 2024 . The band will portray Folklore. - Photo by Daniel Prentice[/caption]
He wanted the album to show jazz audiences a number of things, among them that “big-band” music could easily mean swing – but also calypso.
“When I was growing up there were always these large brass bands playing calypso. I wanted to bring that, into what we say is the big-band vernacular.”
In the 1950s, big bands headed by famed jazz musicians such as pianist and composer Duke Ellington and pianist and organist Count Basie played calypsoes at the end of their sets, Charles said.
“I led off the album with a calypso, where out the gate, people know that is what I am about.
“Also I wanted to use it to showcase different musical styles so we did Poison, which is a hip-hop tune.
