The Ceremonial Tuk     
Each time there are more tuk bands in Barbados, during the Crop Over festival. The origins of these percussionists groups go back to the XVII century. Later, they used to play in ceremonies and excursions organized by those European societies that were friendly with native tribes.

Now, the instruments use by a tuk band are: bass, drum or kettledrum, flute or whistle, and triangle. At first sight they look musically limited, but they have great versatility and a wide songs repertory, going from classic music pieces to black spirituals, passing through the last musical hits. But those songs with Caribbean savor are the best. Thanks to the efforts of the calypso singer Wayne Poonka Willcock and his group Ruk-a-Tuk International, tuk music is experiencing a come back to the scenes in the many musical festivals that take place in the Caribbean.

The Beguine Music
Many say that the first, authentic music from Martinique and Guadeloupe is the beguine. Between the 1930’s and 1950’s, the beguine, with bolero rhythm, was the favorite of the orchestras. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the beguine suffered important changes, due to the new musical tendencies brought by immigrants. The Haitians contributed to this music with the kadans (cadence), a subtle mixture of different musical accents, syncopated rhythms and a sound very much like the small jazz orchestras from Haiti, with coppers, bass, guitars, drums and small bells.

In the 1980’s appeared the zouk, with roots in the kadans, and that was not a short live mode. The zouk music quickly becomes a world-class phenomenon, passing through the Caribbean borders to invade Africa, America and Europe. The Kassav group, from Guadeloupe, was the pioneer of this new music.

The success of Kassav and other groups, took the music of the French Caribbean islands to the international music market, besides giving other groups of the region a model to copy. In this group, female voices have great importance, which was missing for a long time.

The island of Dominica has been for a long time, under the musical and cultural influence of the two islands between which is located: Martinique and Guadeloupe (where French and Creole are spoken). However, though  music is similar to those of these islands, in Dominica has its own identity.
The soukous, Dominica’s music, has a dynamic rhythm, with bass and guitars. The most important groups are Windward Caribbean Kulture (WCK), specialized in bouyoun, an eclectic mixture of cadence-lypso (a fusion of calypso and kadans), and traditional jing ping.

Fusion Jazz
Jazz, an artistic Afro American expression, has find in the Caribbean a good place to mix with other music. Each year are celebrated in this region, more than thirty jazz festivals. Local musicians, for years, have been experimenting all kinds of fusions, from the traditional jazz bands of New Orleans to the Caribbean savor sounds.

If you go to one of these festivals, you’ll have the luck of listening to some of the greatest talents coming from the Little Antilles, like: Arthur Francois, from St. Lucia, who plays a jazz fusion of zouk music; saxophonist Arturo Tappin, from Barbados, that has mixed jazz and reggae; the master Ken Philmore, from Trinidad, that delights with his steel pan jazz; Nicholas Brancker, from Barbados and his funk/jazz, and David Rudder and Clive Xanda, both from Trinidad, playing jazz inspired from calypso music.

Parang, a Christmas tradition with Spanish and African roots
Christmas days in Trinidad will be so different if parang wouldn’t exist (Spanish word that comes from “parar”), it is a musical tradition with Spanish and African roots. During Christmas days, musicians playing violins, mandolins, guitars, maracas and African drums go house to house playing songs that have their roots in the Christmas carol that Spanish colonists use to sing during the XVIII and XIX centuries. Some of these styles are: aguinaldo, galeron and paseo.

Calypso
“A calypso singer is the one that not only speaks for the people but make the people speak, he expresses the people feelings”
MIGHTY CHALKDUST,
Professor in Trinidad

MUSIC FESTIVAL THROUGH THE YEAR
Music is every day more important to the Caribbean society. Besides the traditional calypso contests that are celebrated during the carnival we should add a long list of music festivals. Here the most important:

January: Barbados Jazz Festival; St. Croix Blues Festival; St. Barths Music Festival (classic, folk, jazz).
March: St. Patrick’s Day Festival, in St. Croix.
April: Holders Season, in Barbados (opera).
May: St. Lucia Jazz Festival; Big Drum Festival, in Union island; Gospel Fes, in Barbados; Curacao Jazz Festival; Curacao Merengue Festival; Rapso Month, in Trinidad; Spice Jazz Festival, in Granada.
June: St. Kitts Music Festival; Aruba Jazz and Latin American Music Festival.
July: BVI Summer Festival (Calypso).
August: Curacao Salsa Festival; Pic-o-De-Crop Calypso Finals, in Barbados.
October: St. Croix Jazz and Caribbean Music Festival; Antigua Jazz Festival; World Creole Music Festival, in Dominica.
November: Curacao Golden Artists Music Festival; International Jazz Festival, in Martinique (every two years); Guadeloupe Creole Music Festival.
December: St. Lucia Country Music Festival; Carriacou Parang Festival, in Granada. 

Ringbang
More than a type of music, ringbang is a way of life. It includes all the Caribbean styles, and makes a new sound where rhythm is more important than melody.