Lo­cal fans of trum­peter Eti­enne Charles have to wait un­til No­vem­ber to hear him live in con­cert. Charles will play at Queen's Hall on No­vem­ber 20, when he will show­case se­lec­tions from his lat­est re­lease, San Jose Suite.

San Jose Suite is his sixth full-length re­lease and is avail­able from to­mor­row, June 10. Com­posed by Charles, the am­bi­tious ten-part suite ex­plores the his­to­ries, cul­tures and mu­si­cal tra­di­tions of three West­ern set­tle­ments that share a name: San Jose, Cos­ta Ri­ca; San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia; and Charles' na­tive St Joseph, Trinidad (known as San Jose dur­ing the era of Span­ish coloni­sa­tion).

In the process, it il­lu­mi­nates shared pasts of colo­nial con­quest in the Amer­i­c­as and the re­silience of com­mu­ni­ties that have de­vel­oped as a re­sult.

Hav­ing be­gun his re­search in De­cem­ber 2014, Charles trav­elled to each lo­cale in 2015 and spent time with towns­peo­ple, lo­cal his­to­ri­ans, and sto­ry­tellers. He ob­served and par­tic­i­pat­ed in rit­u­als, and jammed with lo­cal mu­si­cians in the in­dige­nous and African di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties.

Both pop­u­la­tions' re­la­tion­ship to–and in­flu­ence on mu­sic proved to be of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est. "In each city, there was the pres­ence of con­quest, re­sis­tance and com­mu­ni­ty," Charles said.

"And yet, each pop­u­la­tion's re­la­tion­ship with con­quest made the pres­ence of re­sis­tance stronger and cre­at­ed an in­creased sense of com­mu­ni­ty and cul­ture. Mu­sic is a ma­jor part of that."

Per­form­ing along­side Charles on San Jose Suite are Bri­an Hogans (al­to sax­o­phone), Alex Wintz (gui­tar), Vic­tor Gould (pi­ano, Fend­er Rhodes, or­gan), Ben Williams (bass), and John Davis (drums).

The record al­so fea­tures spo­ken word con­tri­bu­tions by Dr Har­ry Ed­wards, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of So­ci­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and founder of the Olympic Project for Hu­man Rights–who was in­stru­men­tal in the 1960s re­sis­tance at San Jose State Uni­ver­si­ty (both as a stu­dent and then as a pro­fes­sor) that led to the de­seg­re­ga­tion of the cam­pus.

San Jose Suite was com­mis­sioned through a Cham­ber Mu­sic Amer­i­ca New Jazz Works Grant, fund­ed by the Doris Duke Char­i­ta­ble Foun­da­tion. It is be­ing re­leased via Cul­ture Shock Mu­sic.

Charles' pre­vi­ous al­bum, Cre­ole Soul, reached num­ber one on the Jazz­Week Ra­dio Chart for three con­sec­u­tive weeks, was called "ex­cel­lent" by The New York Times, and was hailed by Jazz Times as "per­son­al, cere­bral, spir­i­tu­al and joy­ful in its cre­ative ex­plo­ration of the roots of mu­sic and of a man."

Down­Beat raved, "Charles' trum­pet play­ing re­tains its sub­lime el­e­gance, es­pe­cial­ly in the way he un­rav­els his im­pro­vi­sa­tions in a sooth­ing, al­most blus­tery man­ner."

A 2015 Guggen­heim Fel­low in the Cre­ative Arts, the as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of Jazz Trum­pet and teacher/schol­ar at Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty, Charles has been called "a dar­ing im­pro­vis­er" by Jazz Times while Ben Ratliff of The New York Times called him "one of the more am­bi­tious soloists and com­posers."

Charles stud­ied un­der pi­ano vir­tu­oso Mar­cus Roberts at Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty and Mark Gould, for­mer prin­ci­pal trum­peter of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera, at Juil­liard. He was al­so men­tored by Ja­maican reg­gae and jazz lu­mi­nary Mon­ty Alexan­der and the late, mul­ti­ple Gram­my Award-win­ning, Trinida­di­an-Amer­i­can per­cus­sion­ist/song­writer Ralph Mac­Don­ald.

�2 MORE IN­FO: San Jose Suite by Eti­enne Charles is avail­able for pre­order at eti­en­necharles.com, as well as on iTunes and Ama­zon. The CD is al­so avail­able at pop­u­lar out­lets across T&T in­clud­ing Cleve's One Stop Mu­sic Shop, Fred­er­ick Street, and Pa­per Based, Ho­tel Nor­mandie, St Ann's.