Mini-Jazz - Haiti Music Video

Gypsies de Petion Ville was founded in 1972 by two well-known musicians, Robert Martino and Pierrot Al Khal. These two were best known in playing Konpa music due to their unique talents coupled with creativity. In fact, Robert Martino started playing guitar and went public with his music, when he was about 16 years of age. He performed in various bands before creating one of its own bands, Gypsies de Petion Ville. However, he did not stop at that. He created more bands as time went by and as he met other talented persons in the music industry.

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The Mini-Jazz movement, which originated in the Port-au-Prince neighborhoods of Haiti, like Petionville, was a natural outgrowth of Haiti's pop dance music, Konpa. Or Compas, Compa, Kompa, depending on which spelling you prefer. The Mini-Jazz movement took off during the mid- to late sixties. Neighborhood Mini-Jazz bands sprouted like mushrooms, and a nexus of them both collaborated and competed with one another. Among the up-and-coming Mini-Jazz groups was Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour. Translated it means The Fantastics of Carrefour.

Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour produced a classic style of Mini-Jazz-influenced Konpa music. But they distinguished themselves through their unique style of drumming. Drummers of bands like Les Ambassadeurs or Les Shleu Shleu developed their own kind of patterning, and Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour's drummer was no exception. The manner in which Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour's drummer laid down the beat grounded the musicians, making them a musically tighter unit. In turn, Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour's tight playing allowed the sax player to weave sinewy melodic lines without losing the beat.

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Les Loup Noires is a multi talented group of individuals whose music is still sweet to the ear of the listener. In fact, the audience has grown and is still growing in Haiti, Paris and New York as well as U.S.A in general. The group is best known for its compositions of Compas genre of music. Under the leadership of Henri Pigniat, the group also composed songs of Jazz style, a style that made their music unique and sweet to listen to by many of their audience. It should be noted that the different combinations of the talents of the group members propelled the group to higher heights of success for a long time.

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Les Ambassadeurs (LA) have been among a group of pioneer bands that began the Mini- Jazz music style in Haiti. Mini-Jazz evolved between 1964-1969, basing itself on the simple stylings of rock and roll bands from 1960-1964, before Britain's Beatles revolutionized the genré.

The new-style Kompa bands comprised an electric-lead and -rhythm guitars, electric bass, and polyrhythmic percussion instruments, defining Mini-Jazz. Frequently, the inclusion of a saxophone held down the melodic line. The Mini-Jazz movement took root in Port-au-Prince and its surrounding neighborhoods, led by innovative musician Shleu Shleu. The most noteworthy neighborhood bands, which grew to prominence along with LA, included Les Loups Noirs, Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour, Tabou Combo, Fréres Dé Jean, Les Difficiles, and Bossa Combo. They led the Mini-Jazz movement and other Caribbean countries soon followed suit.

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Jean-Robert Hariss of Mini-Jazz group, D.P. Express, lost his life to a long-standing illness in 2008. He began his music career with the group in the latter part of the 60s, known back then as Les Difficiles de Pétion-Ville, part of the exploding Mini-Jazz movement. The movement began in neighborhoods surrounding Port-au-Prince in the mid-sixties.

Known affectionately as Porky to his family, friends, and other musicians, Jean-Robert Hariss earned critical acclaim as an outstanding electric bassist. As a leader at the forefront of Mini-Jazz, he helped to revolutionize the Kompa genre, Haiti's pop-dance music. A talented arranger and song-lyricist, he co-produced the 1980 major-hit single "David".

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Accolade de New York is a compas band that changed its group line-up from album to album, with a many as 12 group members and as few as six. Their first album La Foi, released in 1980, showed a cover photo of eleven priestly figures with large, white crucifixes superimposed on their religious garments. It made record buyers sit up and take notice. What were they all about?

On this debut LP, they added chants to the typical compas instrument mix. On tracks you hear alto and tenor saxes, trombone, guitar and bass guitar, congas, bongos, and other percussion instruments. Accolade de New York recorded eight releases over the 18 years they were together, using the LP format for all except their last release Koze Kredi, which they released as a CD in 1997.

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