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Etienne Charles Brilliant New Face in Jazz

August 25, 2013 12:26 PM

Jazz artist and trumpet player, Etienne Charles, is a bright light on the jazz scene. In his 20s, he has already issued three CDs to critical and popular acclaim under his label, Shock Music. His ancestry is a mix of cross-cultural influences that inform his music: French Caribbean, Spanish, African, and Venezuelan.

Charles uses his ethnic origins, blending Caribbean, African, and Haitian styles. He has also been exposed to Motown and R & B music through his parents. His new release, Créole Soul, is a jazz interpretation of all these genres. But at the core of it is a Créole sensibility.

His gift for transforming various types of music into a jazz-idiom format has led him to work with a wide array of talent: Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, and Len Sharpe, a steel-pan player.

Charles majored in music at Florida State where he met Marcus Roberts, a premier jazz pianist. Roberts advised him to achieve authenticity he needed to begin with his roots, "Créole music, as "the only way to go forward."

On Créole Soul, he pays homage to Caribbean and American artists Bob Marley and Thelonious Monk. The result is a mélange of piquant flavors the listener can ease into.

Charles is also the leader of his own jazz group, composed of saxophones, piano, bass, and drums. Guest artists contribute to the sound also. He sums up the essence of Créole Soul as ". . . soul music that is Créole at heart."