My name is An­to­nio Mitchell and I blow jazz trum­pet. I cur­rent­ly live Mor­vant. But I'm born and grown in Bel­mont. Grow­ing up was kin­da tough so, look­ing for bet­ter­ment, I got a place by my moms. I come from a big fam­i­ly, but very scat­tered. If life was bet­ter in Amer­i­ca, that par­tic­u­lar rel­a­tive went for that. But we keep in con­tact. I'm Pen­te­costal since I was very lit­tle. God give you a gift of play­ing mu­sic so you have to find time to go to church and give it back to him. Could be Catholic church, Pen­te­costal, the main thing is you go and give thanks to the same God all of us wor­ship­ping.

It must have had a Cre­ator. When you look at the ocean and moun­tains, life couldn't just ex­plode out of nowhere. I know sci­ence is show­ing is that it had a Big Bang but I just can't agree with that, from my own wis­dom and un­der­stand­ing. I be­lieve God just breathes the breath of life in­to you. And you have to get up on a morn­ing and make a life for your­self. If you choose to make the world a bet­ter place, or a bad place, that's up to you. I don't have a pet now, be­cause I live on an apart­ment but, if I was liv­ing that dream of house and pick­et fence, I must have a dog, too! That is man' best friend! Peo­ple all around the world find our di­alect and our ac­cent to be unique and amaz­ing. And we don't find it to be amaz­ing!

I start­ed mu­sic about four, five years ago. It was a plan to start a youth or­ches­tra. But it dis­band­ed. But we got to keep our in­stru­ments. But I re­al­ly start­ed play­ing with the Holis­tic Mu­sic School Band. Jazz isn't pop­u­lar in Trinidad but, when I went New York, I went to Dizzy's Jazz Club and saw Nabat&ea­cute; Isles and his quar­tet. He was to­tal­ly amaz­ing. I'm a big fan of Eti­enne Charles. He makes me want to as­pire to his lengths! Eti­enne fus­es jazz with kaiso from our home soil. Just like how you would give Anya her props for win­ning Project Run­way, you have to cel­e­brate every as­pect where peo­ple make Trinidad proud. I love small band jazz. You turn around, watch the drum­mer, watch the key­boardist, you-all tight! The mes­sage of the mu­sic gets to au­di­ence bet­ter. They can see the com­mu­ni­ca­tion, feel what's go­ing on. Jazz is a feel­ing mu­sic but it is al­so a men­tal mu­sic. I think Trinida­di­ans can feel it and un­der­stand it. They just have to em­brace it now. You have to ap­proach jazz but, when you ap­proach it, it ap­proach­es you.

When you get to the lev­el where you're re­al­ly good and get a lot of gigs, your fam­i­ly doesn't see much of you. It's hard, but I think it's man­age­able. I want a fam­i­ly even­tu­al­ly. I love the mu­sic but, to me, it's not for me: it's an of­fer­ing. You want peo­ple to take time off and come and sit down and lis­ten. It's not boast­ing. It's for peo­ple to love. I have re­spect for all in­stru­ments but the trum­pet is a very com­mand­ing in­stru­ment. It fills an en­tire hall. I think a mu­si­cian can make a liv­ing in Trinidad, if the gov­ern­ment could see there was some­thing to come out of mu­sic. You could show the gen­er­a­tion com­ing up, "Hey, you don't al­ways have to be a doc­tor or a car­pen­ter! There's dance, singing, lots of oth­er things you can do be­sides doc­tor­ing to have a ful­fill­ing life" .

I've nev­er played in a so­ca band and I don't think I ever will, even to pay the bills. For me, it's about go­ing up on­stage with friends, three or four of you all play­ing and watch­ing each oth­er and en­joy­ing each oth­er and the mu­sic. Then the crowd starts to feel the mu­sic with you, too. I don't think play­ing in a so­ca band gives me that ful­fil­ment. You in an­oth­er coun­try and see­ing Car­ni­val on TV, you know you're a Tri­ni. We have a free­dom and a com­fort for one an­oth­er no­body else has. When you leave Trinidad, that is what you miss most. Trinidad & To­ba­go means a lot to me. We have our ups and downs, whether is pol­i­tics, whether is crime, it's still my home­land.

• Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com