Back in 2015, French label Heavenly Sweetness released Kouté Jazz, a compilation that redrew the boundaries of jazz. Before Kouté Jazz, these albums—and the musicians who made them—were little known outside of Martinique and Guadeloupe, the regions where they were made. The compilation was released in collaboration with Digger’s Digest, the rare vinyl site run by Julien Achard, owner of Paris shop Shelter Records and co-owner of the label BeauMonde with Nico Skliris and Robert Benjamin. “The first time I heard a Caribbean jazz tune, it was the incredible ‘Ouelele’ by Marius Cultier on the comp Ouelele: Another Collection Of Modern Afro Rhythms,” Achard says. “That was the start of a quest to find more and more music from these two little French Islands in the Caribbean sea. There was almost no info on the internet, no YouTube sound clips. To discover music, you basically had to own the records.”
Achard soon discovered that the story of jazz in the French West Indies goes deep. As far back as the 1940s, musicians like clarinetists Alexandre Stellio and Hurard Coppet and trombonist/guitarist Al Lirvat were introducing beguine-infused jazz to America and Europe. As Martinican poet, singer, and painter Roland Brival—whom Achard cites as another artist responsible for piquing his interest in the music—wrote in the liner notes for the 2001 re-issue of his 1980 LP Créole Gypsy: “Antilleans (French West Indians) carried a lot of music in their bags, but the French didn’t realize at the time that the missing link between the U.S. and France was the Antilles!” It was in the late 1970s and early ‘80s that a new generation of French Caribbean jazz players reached deeper into the rhythms of their homeland.
Born out of slavery in the 17th century, the seven rhythms of Guadeloupe’s gwoka drumming found their way to vinyl in the ‘60s through percussionist Marcel Lollia, aka Vélo, followed closely by Guy Conquette, aka Guy Konket. “Vélo was really one of the greatest Maître tambouyé [gwoka master players],” says Achard. “At the time of his two albums, gwoka was still discredited by the higher social class in Guadeloupe.”
One of the musicians on Kouté Jazz inspired by Vélo was Guadeloupe trumpeter Edmony Krater. “[Vélo] carried on the tradition and would organize large events in the streets of Point-a-Pitre to honor our drum,” he explained in the liner notes to the 2016 reissue of his 1988 album Tijan Pou Velo. “We consider him to be the leader of this entire cultural movement to which I also belong.”
That movement reached a peak in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, when French West Indies musicians fused cutting-edge jazz—from free to fusion—with the traditional rhythms of their islands (gwoka in Guadeloupe and bèlè in Martinique). “In the late ‘60 and ‘70s, there were three major labels in Guadeloupe and Martinique releasing great jazz, biguine, and Latin music: Debs, Aux Ondes Célini, and Hit Parade. But it remained very academic,” says Achard. “Kouté Jazz highlighted a younger generation of musicians who wanted to modernize and enhance their jazz with a unique aesthetic.”
Guadeloupean guitarist Gerard Lockel is widely regarded as the founding father of “Gwo-ka Modènn,” the revolutionary new music that brought ancient rhythms into a bold new future. “He could be thought of as an equivalent of Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra for his unique artistic approach,” says Achard. “But most importantly, he theorized the ‘Gwoka Modèn’ as the resistance movement, both political and aesthetic, to the unique post-colonial way of thinking.”
Recorded when Lockel moved from Paris back to Guadeloupe, his rare-as-hen’s-teeth 1976 album Gro Ka Modên blended gwoka and avant-garde jazz. At the same time, musicians from neighboring Martinique were also looking to modernize their ancient musical traditions by fusing them with jazz. In the words of Jacques Denis in the liner notes for Kouté Jazz, musician and flutist Eugène Mona “wove subtle links between jazz and bèlè to refashion the music of his coastal hills of his native Martinique.” He had received his first hand-made bamboo flute in the 1960s from Max Cilla, who dedicated his life to resurrecting the instrument played by his ancestors. And though he was less popular than Mona, fellow Martinican musician Edmond Mondésir is arguably a more important figure in the story. “Edmond Mondésir is a pillar of bèlè music in Martinique, both as a defender of the authenticity of this music and an actor in its modernization, while respecting the integrity of the bèlè spirit,” says Achard.
These modernists inspired a whole generation of French West Indies jazz artists whom Achard learned about first as a collector, then as a compiler and reissuer. “Guadeloupe and Martinique are very small islands,” he says. “Once you meet the right people, it opens the door.”
We asked Achard to dig into some favorites from this incredible era of jazz.
Edmony Krater
Tijan pou velo
This rootsy yet modern spiritual album from Edmony Krater—recorded with his group Zepiss in 1988—“is certainly in my top five in Guadeloupean music,” says Achard. “I found it in my local flea market in 2003 and fell in love with it.” Dedicated to Krater’s hero Vélo, Tijan Pou Velo came with extensive liner notes from the trumpeter that provided a window into the traditions of Gwoka. “We were always looking for ways to strengthen our identity,” he wrote. “The Ka sound holds not just spiritual values, but political ones for us as well.” Upholding gwoka traditions while pushing the music forward, Krater listened far and wide to find inspiration for this fusion masterpiece, hearing the future in artists such as Don Cherry, The Last Poets, Peter Tosh, and Osibisa.
Zepiss
Natibel
Vinyl LP
The 1984 debut from Zepiss was recorded shortly after Edmony Krater arrived in Paris from Guadeloupe, where he had worked in theater and fashion as well as music. Away from his homeland, he was even more determined to create his own contemporary version of gwoka, and assembled a band with guitarist/percussionist and arranger Eddy Lebouin from the group Gwakasonné. The album was a natural successor to the gwoka modèn of Gérard Lockel, with the folkloric gwoka drumming on “Refleksyon 2” complemented by a rudimentary drum machine, and the infectious bass lines of Rico Toto. Edmony Krater remains as prolific as ever, and his recent albums released on Heavenly Sweetness, as well as those with the group Beliz on BeauMonde, are equally essential.
Bèlènou
Emosyon tambou-a
Vinyl LP
“Edmond Mondésir is a musician, philosopher, and cultural activist who has been fighting since the 1970s for Martinicans to be proud of their cultural identity and to reclaim it,” says Achard. Like Gerard Lockel’s modernization of gwoka and, to a lesser degree, Eugène Mona’s refashioning of Martinican music, drummer and vocalist Mondésir used bélé in its contemporary form as a source of pride in its ancient traditions. He did so with his group Bèlènou, founded with Leon Bertide, a fellow activist in the agricultural strike of 1974. Deep, minimal, and spiritual, Emosyon Tambou-a (Emotion of the Drum) was released in 1990 on their own label Asé Pléré An Nou Lité before being reissued by BeauMonde in 2019. “This deep album is still really overlooked today even by Caribbean jazz collectors,” says Achard.
Max Cilla
La flûte des mornes vol . 1
Vinyl LP
In the mid 1960s Max Cilla moved to the coastal hills to craft his own bamboo flutes, turning a rough piece of wood into an instrument with the most beautiful rootsy sound. After moving to Paris in 1967, Cilla was invited to perform with Archie Shepp at Chat qui Pêche at the height of the avant-garde saxophonist’s powers; Cilla went on to become a regular at the famous Latin Quarter jazz club. Of this 1981 album for the Artistes Producers Indépendants Associés label, reissued by Bongo Joe, Cilla explained: “I have always been drawn more to Latin rhythms than to North American ones.” Album opener “La Flûte Des Mornes” sets the tone, a soaring spiritually charged Latin jazz number with Cilla’s celestial flute augmented by Georges-Edouard Nouel’s piano, and six percussionists including Sully Cally from Fabriano Fuzion. The equally deep “Crepuscule Tropical” was chosen for Kouté Jazz. “When I met Max Cilla to clear his track, he came to the meeting with his traditional flute and started to play—it was an amazing encounter,” says Achard. “Max is a true unsung musician, a real wise man preserving the ancestral tradition.”
Gwakasonné
Vwayajé
2 x Vinyl LP
As a young trumpeter in the early 1980s, Edmony Krater was a founding member of Gwakasonné, the artistic and political group headed by multi-instrumentalist Robert Oumaou. Mixing the drum rhythms of Guadeloupe (gwoka, boula, and maké) with spiritual jazz and space age jazz fusion using traditional drums and rhythm boxes, synths, electric guitar, flute, and trumpet, Gwakasonné was Guadeloupe’s most radical and forward-looking group of the era. “This is a superb compilation from 2019 by the Canadian label Seance Centre,” says Achard. “It gathers the three albums of this progressive gwoka group—tracks from their 1984 self-titled debut plus two subsequent self-released albums, Témwen and Moun from 1987 and 1989.” As related in the liner notes, the group’s music was “prescient in its borderless explorations of protest folk, electronics, ambient atmosphere, music from the African diaspora, and spiritual jazz.”
Erick Cosaque
Chinal Ka
2 x Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
“This is a great compilation on Heavenly Sweetness by another important gwoka activist and one of the true keepers of this culture,” says Achard. Erick Cosaque was introduced to gwoka at the young age of five, when he witnessed the ancestral power of Vélo and fellow drummers at communal gatherings. Soon after meeting the great Guy Konket and hearing his album La Gwadaloup Medal, Cosaque joined three bands at the heart of the gwoka renaissance. But it was after moving to Paris in 1973 that he made the music featured on this compilation with his group Voltages 8, including the brooding fusion of “Guadeloupe Ile De Mes Amours” from the album Cosaque 1978. With his next band, X7 Nouvelle Dimension, Cosaque pushed the boundaries of gwoka fusion even further on albums like 1983’s Yien KI Ca, which included the gwoka funk bomb “Dé Ti Mo Pawol Cwéol.” He set up his own label, Erick Cosaque Production, in 1992 and continued advancing the sonic possibilities of the gwoka, as heard on the boogie rap of “Zombie Dance” from the album Embawgo.
Fabriano Fuzion
Cosmik Syndika
Vinyl LP
It was while studying at the Université De Vincennes near Paris at the turn of the 1980s that Fabriano Fuzion brought together the band responsible for this Guadeloupe spiritual jazz fusion masterpiece, which was recorded in 1982 for the short-lived French label Safran. Ever since he was young, Fuzion had moved between Guadeloupe and Paris, playing for various bands and traveling to a festival in Tehran where he met jazz greats Max Roach and Gary Bartz. But it wasn’t until 1982 that he formed his own band, made up of the French West Indies players featured here. “This album remains one of the most accomplished and refined modern jazz album by French Caribbean musicians,” says Achard. “They even toured in the US back in 1984. Definitely superb spiritual jazz, perfectly incorporating the gwoka tradition.”
José Manclière
Doubout pou gadé
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
José Manclière earned his stripes in the beguine fusion group Les Kombass de Henri Debs, founded by the musician, producer, and owner of Disques Debs—one of the most important French West Indies labels for beguine, zouk, and compas music. For this privately pressed album, reissued by BeauMonde in 2019, Manclière brought together some of Guadeloupe’s finest contemporary jazz players for an experimental DIY fusion outing. “Produced by Pierre-Edouard Décimus, founder of famous zouk band Kassav, it really sounds crazy,” says Achard. “Something like if Weather Report landed in Guadeloupe!”
