Interviewed by Maya Trotz for jouvay.com. December, 2006.

Etienne Charles
Cayman Islands, 2006

This interview was done in December 2006. A quick note to Etienne on facebook in November 2007, revealed the following update: "updates......well i had my debut at MoMA with my band culture shock project on august 12. we did a concert entitled 'folklore tales'' in which i premiered a suite of music inspired by the west indian folklore characters. it was a huge success and we broke the attendance record for the event. over 800 people were in the audience. it was a blast. just got back from playing the trinidad & tobago steelpan & jazz festival with the same group. cd sales are ok. i played with the count basie orchestra last night at the blue note here in nyc. did a concert with paquito d'rivera in october. my next gig with my group is at dizzy's club in jazz at lincoln center jan 15-19 2008."

Jouvay.com: Here we are with Etienne Charles, the trumpeter, pan player from the west of Trinidad and Tobago. Hello Etienne.

Etienne Charles: Hello Maya, Hello Jouvay.com, Hello world.

JC: Let's go back to Trinidad and Tobago. Which instrument did you start with?

Etienne Charles: I played a recorder in primary school at Bishop Anstey Junior School and then I started playing pan and trumpet when I was at Fatima College. I decided to pursue it as a degree and went to Florida State University, but when I was in lower and upper 6th I spent the summers in Boston in a five week program at Berklee College of Music. That solidified my mindset on being a professional musician.

JC: How did the Berklee training happen?

EC: I had taken the SATs and my scores went to four schools, including Berklee. They sent me a package saying that they had a summer program and they offered me a scholarship to go and do it. I got to study with Lin Biviano and Tiger Okoshi , two trumpet pedagogues. That was fun. I ended up at Florida State and studied with the great pianist Marcus Roberts and four years later now I am at Julliard.

JC: When you were applying to Berklee did you have to send them samples of your music?

EC: No. You just applied and went. It was more of a summer camp and it was very intensive.

JC: You were already playing trumpet by then.

EC: I was always a trumpeter. I only played pan in Phase II pan group.

JC: Which is not anything small.

EC: That's when I really got to work with Boogsie. I had aways really studied his music from small, but I really got to work with the legend, the genius that is Boogsie then. I really got to hear Trini music a certain way.

JC: Your father was also in Phase II?

EC: Yes, he played second pan and I played tenor, but we never played together.

JC: And Boogsie is on your CD that just came out?

EC: Yeah Boogsie is on my record called Culture Shok. He's on my calypso called "Old School". I got to bring together three great legends in addition to some other great musicians. Ralph Macdonald in the mix, Marcus Roberts on piano, Boogsie Sharpe on pan, Vincent Gardner on trombone- he's on the Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis. Pam Laws on vocals, Leon Anderson on drums, Rodney Jordan on bass. Dave Stuart on tenor saxaphone. The core is Leon, Rodney, Marcus, myself and Vincent. Boogsie is on the calypso, Ralph is on the calypso and the shango tune.

JC: Ralph?

Etienne Charles: Ralph Macdonald is a legend. A great songwriter. He wrote tunes like "Just The Two of Us", "Where is the Love", "Calypso Break Down" in addition to many more. A percussionist currently on tour with Jimmy Buffett. He also worked with Harry Belafonte. He has worked with everybody in the msuic business. His sole goal has been to keep Trinidadian music in the popular music of the world. He is not even born in Trinidad. He was born in Harlem and his father is a Trini. He decided to keep the Trini tradition going in music. I met him in Connecticut when I was playing with Roberta Flack (me and Arturo). He lives there, came to the show and we went out and ate some food and ever since we have been in touch. We did the Barbados jazz festival together. Six months later I have an album with Ralph Macdonald.

Jouvay.Com: You are on a fast projection here. Just finished undergrad. CD is finished.

EC: Painfull process, but it worked out and I am happy.

JC: All this is going to be on etiennecharles.com?

EC: All of this will be on etiennecharles.com. Just like jouvay.com.

JC: Was the CD an impormptu thing in the studio or you had written eveything?

EC: This is a funny story, my CD project acually started as a DIS, Directed Independent Study, with Marcus Roberts. He first asked what my goals were.

JC: What semester was that?

EC: This was my final semester that just finished (Spring 2006). I said, "I want to write a set of songs." I did and he said they were good. After I wrote them I said I wanted to record them. He wanted to know if I wanted to do it as a really serious project. I said, "Yes, let us do it as a record because I want to learn the process." We set the date, booked the musicians and did it.

JC: This was at the university?

EC: At Les Steven's studio in Tallahasee where Marcus records all of his albums as well. It was a blast.

JC: Does this happen to alot of students?

EC: You can take a DIS and have it very easy or you can take it and have it very difficult. Lucky for me I now have an album that can sell in stores and that I can use for promotions and help promote Trinidadian music.

JC: Or your music.

EC: I am really trying to help promote Trinidadian music. Certain aspects are falling off and I am trying to bring them back up because it is a part of what I feel is my history and is why I play music.

JC: It was not only your dad who played music right?

EC: My father's father was a cuatro and guitar player. That's why I play cuatro. His name was Ralph Charles and when we gained independencee he was commissioned by the government of Trinidad and Tobago to form a band to commerorate the independence. Clement Monlouis, my great grandfather, was a master builder from Martinique and when he moved to Trinidad he formed the first string band in Mayaro. I only found out the string band part a few months ago. I always knew he had a love for it, strumming on his banjo.

JC: So the string band is coming on the next CD?

EC: We'll see. Still trying to deal with this CD.

JC: I've only heard the first three that are on your myspace page.

EC: You'll get to hear the rest very soon.

JC: As a student at FSU you pioneered a jazz club.

EC: We started the FSU Jazz Society because alot of the other groups in schoool get to do what they want in school. It was more of a funding thing that worked out pretty well. I hope it is still functioning.

JC: They should just follow your model to finish with a CD. You want to do alot of jazz education in the Caribbean?

EC: Not just jazz education, but more of a rounded musical education so that West Indians can compete with a knowledge of where the music came from and where it is going. As a Caribbean people we seem to be going in one direction with music. I feel the world is moving faster than we seem to be with what we can do with our resources and fire. Caribbean people hav alot of energy, spice - look and any carnival in the Caribbean, how many other people in the world jump and dance for a whole month? I think we should channel that energy to find a way to get more music in schools in the Caribbean, in clubs in the Caribbean. There is more energy from a live show than from a tape.

JC: What is the jazz scene like in Trinidad.

Etienne Charles: It depends on what you mean by jazz. There's a Caribbean flair to it and there is Pan Jazz and there's Caisojazz. People like Clive Zander who wrote a great tune called "Fancy Sailor", Boogsie Sharpe and we had some greats like Andre Tanker, rest in peace. It can always improve and expand.

JC: In terms of venues, how is that promoted down there?

EC: In Trinidad there are two major jazz festivals. One in Trinidad and one in Tobago. There's the Steelpan and Jazz festival which was formerly Pan Royal and the San Fernando Jazz Festival on San Fernando Hill. I've done the Steelpan Jazz Festival with Ray Holman which was a fun show. (Plymouth Jazz Festival; Trinidad Steelpan and Jazz Festival)

JC: He's in Seattle right?

EC: He teaches alot in the US. There are not that many opportunities to teach mucic in Trinidad. I had him as a Spanish teacher at Fatima. I wish I could have had him as a music teacher.

JC: Fatima had a big music program?

EC: No, they had a piano and a choir. It was not a scene where we were picking up a large amount of information in school on music. You had no musical training after second form. Most of my real hunger came from that time.

JC: So, how you learned to play the trumpet?

EC: I took lessons from a place called the Brass Institute in Trinidad which I think also has a branch in Tobago. We had a little 10 piece band and we went to Venezuela on tour. We played alot of old Trinidadian arranged music. We did alot of Watti Watkins, Art Decoto, Franki Francis which I consider to be our classical music. Alot of Trinidadians cannot even recognize a Frankie Francis chart as oppoed to a Wattie Watkins. Whereas everybody in the states knows Duke Ellington or Count Bassie because they are their musical forefathers. We don't really know who our musical forefathers are in Trinidad. We know the singers like Roaring Lion, Lord Melody, or Lord Kitchener, but the actual musicians who made the songs we don't know. Jazz is a great form of music and it has influenced calypso, but I really want Trinidadians to know where calypso came from and where it can go in addition to the soca.

JC: So, your website is going to have this information?

EC: My website will have information on where to get the CD's, tour dates, updates on where I have been and all of that.

JC: What you were just saying is really important and should be up there.

EC: That is my long term goal because that takes time. You are trying to add a view to a society. They need to hear the music to talk about it. Radio stations need to play our music more than anything else. Vintage calypso is lost in the arform in Trinidad and I hear more of it in Brooklyn.

JC: I hear on Point Alive, Iwer's station.

Etienne Charles: You need to know where you come from to know where you are going. They are redoing the older songs, but that is not as prevalent as them taking melodies and putting new lyrics to them. We are not drawing anything new for ourselves. To me that is not very helpful to advance musical form. Everybody knows that pan comes from Trinidad.

JC: You won an award when you were 13.

EC: I got the Provincial cup when I was 13, 15 and when I graduated. That was fun. Awards come and go. They help people to see what other people are doing. As an inidviudal it tells me I have more to do.

JC: At FSU...

Etienne Charles: At FSU I got the scholarship which they give to one student. I got to win the national trumpet competition in the states and came second in the international one which was in Bangkok.

JC: So Culture Shok...

EC: It's a collection of thoughts, ideas, musical statements. It goes across a broad range of styles in a musical tradition. It fuses African riddims with minor blues. I also have a calypso on there called "Old School" featuring Len Boogsie Sharpe. Leon Andersn, Ronny Jordan, myself on trumpet. I also play cuatro on that track to pay homage to my grandfather.

JC: How long you took to record it?

EC: Two nights. Marcus Roberts teaches piano and jazz. So I just got the locals together and it was a blast. I went to Trinidad to record Boogsie and went to Connecticut to record Ralph.

JC: You are at Julliard now and can't go to carnival for two days?

EC: We're in rehearsal because we go to Quatar. This will be my sixth carnival away from home so feel very sorry for me.

JC: At least you sent a song.

EC: I will be missing another carnival and hopefully in 2008 i will be there.

JC: Thanks alot. Anything else?

Etienne Charles: Thank you very much for having this interview and thank you very much for having me on jouvay.com. Buy the CD, come and check it out. If you get a chance. It's on sale at etiennecharles.com.

Jouvay.com: We'kll check it out. Thanks.

Thanks to Arturo Tappin and Patrice Benn for inviting us to this event.

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