Various Artists – Vintage Caribbean Music
L’Orchestra Antillais – Serpent Maigre
[Both links require Spotify. feel free to comment with a better way of sharing music, as I’ll be doing that a bit from now on]
I’ve been listening to a lot of jazz recently. Particularly pre-1950s. And as part of this, I’ve stumbled upon biguine, a type of jazz that originated in Martinique. It influenced Now Orleans jazz and sounds somewhat similar though with a lot more eerie fiddle. Listen to Serpent Maigre (link above) and look for Quand Meme on the VA album too. Great stuff.
biggin’ the biguine
Indeed.
It was obviously pretty huge in Martinique and then seems to have made it (not very far) to help New Orleans out.
I know that a lot of later jazz classics are closely linked with France (Coltrane, Davis et al all did seminal albums there) but I never knew there was French involvement so early on. Of course, it makes sense because New Orleans has such important French heritage…. Still, listening to this I feel like I found a big piece of the puzzle of my understanding of jazz.
It’s also very danceable.