Sax Player - Haiti Music Video

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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Kompa music to Haitians is like rock music to Americans. Inherent to the culture, a reflection of its spirit, and an embedded part of everyday life, heard everywhere. The Kompa genré began around 60 years ago in Haiti, its slow-paced meringue rhythms distinct from the Dominican Republic's faster-paced merengue. Played mainly in a minor key, Kompa lovers define it as jazz-influenced, pulsating, serpentine, and Créole-flavored.

Nemours Jean-Baptiste , a Haitian sax player, created Kompa, a blend of calypso and meringue influences, and an off-shoot of the Dominican Republic's merengue. Key to understanding Kompa is an awareness of the Haitian people's history of suffering. Haiti has endured 32 coup d'etats, devastating poverty, and frequent natural disasters, 2010's earthquake the most recent national crisis. Music writer, Vanessa Francklin, sums up the character of Kompa, saying, "this is the music of a people that has long suffered and still suffers."

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