Three Island Songbirds
Trinidadian singers define success for jazz in the islands Charmaine Forde
Vaughnette Bigford
slands in the Caribbean have been fertile spaces for the evolution of global talent. Caribbean music has played a major role in the development of popular music worldwide, and the building blocks of those island music industries must be the singers and musicians who make all this music. Female singers of pedigree have been spotted in these islands and have used their skill to carve out careers in the world, with varying success. Tony Award winner Heather Headley from Trinidad, and Barbados-bred superstar Rihanna easily come to mind as artists who were incubated in the islands to grow and succeed in the rest of the world. Peculiar to Trinidad and Tobago is the yearning to be something different. The idea of being a globally popular soca singer has a grip on many female singers there, but there is an equally persistent belief that singing genres outside of the circumscribed diaspora Carnival circuit would pay greater dividends in the long run. As an aside, Calypso Rose’s sixdecade career in calypso with accolades still accruing, however, is noticeably not seen as a signpost for modern success for some, but there are others who see her career as inspiration. Caribbean songbirds using jazz as a musical template for a kind of recognition that looks beyond the archipelago have a history dating back to the beginning of Windrush Generation in the UK — Myrna Hague from Jamaica
and Mona Baptiste from Trinidad are examples — that continues with those more recent journeys of exile, in the 20th century throughout the Americas and beyond. Exile was a commercial necessity for many, tenacity of spirit in that environment was the de facto modus operandi. The profiles of three singers from Trinidad — Charmaine Forde, Vaughnette Bigford and LeAndra — coming from three different career starting points make a case study of modern singers who still aim for the golden ring of making it in the larger world of recorded jazz vocalists now dominated by women. For example, in the Grammy Award category of Best Jazz Vocal Performance/ Jazz Vocal Album, 75% of the awards since 1977 have been won by women. The three singers’ stories chart an interesting pattern of the ups and downs in the music industry and describe what potential looks like from a Caribbean perspective. Jazz guitar great Pat Metheny once said that, “a great quality about jazz is that it seems to encourage people to bring the things that are unique to their own background to the music.” Singing jazz — whether as a fall-back choice, because of life-changing events, or as an economically viable option in the islands — has defined these three women. Their personal stories have shaped how they sing jazz and now, audiences everywhere will perceive their success.
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LeAndra
The classic: Charmaine Forde
B
ack in 2018, when Charmaine Forde returned to Trinidad after a storied career in the United States, fans of local popular music from the late 1970s to early 80s rejoiced. First winning wide acclaim on local radio, Forde was once the darling of the local impresario set seeking talent to make the leap outwards, when American record companies were doing business with artists from the islands. Hers is a story that needs to be told within the context of a legacy of singers from the Caribbean who have focused on the live music industry as a goal for success, as opposed to the highly profitable recording careers favoured by a more recent crop of pop singers. Born in Port of Spain, Forde grew up in the neighbourhood of Gonzales, where the influence of family played an important role in defining her craft and her sound. Her elder sister, a fan of jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson, had her records on constant rotation in the Forde household. That inspiration melded with Forde’s natural talent to forge a vocal timbre that resonates even today with a mix of the phrasing of Wilson and the power and tone of Shirley Bassey. Singing in church and school while growing up brought Forde to the attention of kaisojazz innovator and teacher Scofield Pilgrim, who put her in touch — and, critically, on stage — with
Read more online at https://magazine.jazz.tt Jazz in the Islands. March 2023 33