The Player: Etienne Charles

“Music always reminds me of my earliest experiences as a toddler listening with my mother,” says Charles. “She’d play music every day when she got home from work. Music brings people from completely different walks of life together. It has healing powers and can transport people back in time, into the future and out of their present state/feeling. It’s allowed me to see the world, learn so much about people, my history, family and much more.”

Charles grew up on the island of Trinidad in a family steeped in the island’s musical heritage: “Both of my mother’s grandfathers were musicians: Clement Monlouis (a multi-instrumentalist on banjo, violin, guitar, cuatro) and Zephrine Mendez (cuatro). My paternal grandfather, Ralph Charles (guitar, cuatro) was also a musician, as well as my father (steelpan).”

Charles’ brothers, uncles and cousins were also musicians.

“My first instrument was a recorder at the age of four when my sister started playing it in our primary school where we had a group music class. But when I started playing the trumpet I had private lessons.”

He went on to play with the National Youth Orchestra of Trinidad & Tobago & the Brass Institute. I wondered which trumpet players Charles was listening to at this point in time.

“Lennox ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe, Louis Armstrong, Errol Ince, and pianist Winifred Atwell. Music in Trinidad is everywhere: steel bands, orisha drumming, church music, chutney, as well as calypso and soca at carnival time. Steel bands practice all year round, but they grow to huge bands for carnival with upwards of 120 musicians playing.

“Chutney music is electrifying with some saucy grooves. There’s also a fusion we know as Chutney Soca. Calypso and Soca are the styles most people know from Trinidad. They evolve yearly to communicate events, history and ideas while making people dance. There is also Parang, a Christmas tradition where small bands singing, playing cuatros, guitars, mandolins, box bass and maracas go from house to house playing Afro-Venezuelan folk music. So I had a load of music to feed off.”

Charles also played in a Trinidadian rock band called Orange Sky, before going on to study at Florida State University, where apart from studying trumpet, he also took an independent study in composition with Marcus Roberts. Charles subsequently followed this with a masters at Juilliard, where as well as studying trumpet: “I took a great arranging course with Rich de Rosa,” he explains.

We move on to instruments. “My first trumpet was given to me by my Uncle Peter. It was a Besson. Then came an old Holton, again from my uncle, and he took back the Besson. When I was at FSU, I had borrowed a horn from a grad student, a beautiful Lawler Custom from 1991. It played like butter! I begged him to sell it to me, but he wouldn’t. I nagged him for years and he wouldn’t budge. Then right at the beginning of lockdown he sent me a message saying he was selling a couple of horns. So I asked if he still had the Lawler, and he did! So almost 20 years after I fell in love with that horn, it was finally mine. I spent the whole of lockdown practicing on it daily to get accustomed. That’s the horn I played on my album Live in San Francisco.”

Charles also owns a Yamaha MkII: “The Yamaha was the first trumpet that I bought (thanks to my mother) in 2003 at the ITG conference in Fort Worth, Texas. At one point it needed some repair, so the shop in Michigan gave me a ‘loaner’ to use for a few days. An old Buescher Aristocrat. I fell in love with it and bought it. I put on a new lead pipe and eventually a new bell.”

Charles has played this horn on numerous recordings including Creole Soul, San Jose Suite and his first two SFJazz Collective recordings. Charles also owns a Yamaha long bell custom piccolo trumpet.

“My flugelhorn is also a Yamaha. A model they designed with Jeremy Pelt years ago. I’m not sure they made many of them. I was lucky enough to find this one at a Yamaha display at the National Trumpet Competition a few years back. Let’s just say [Yamaha trumpet designer] Bob Malone is a legend! I decided to strip the lacquer off and it plays like a dream. Josh Landress did the lacquer strip, it softened the bite of the horn and made it super warm.”

And now I’m curious as to which mouthpieces Charles chooses to use.

“I play a Bach 3C with a pre-fire Warburton 6 backbone. I use it because it’s warm, but I can still get bite with the 6 backbone. It was given to me by my teacher Chris Jaudes at Juilliard, as he wanted me to switch to smaller equipment than my Monette B2 mouthpiece. With my flugel I use a Yamaha 13 mouthpiece.” Does Charles use any pedals? “I used a pedal rig when I played with Miles’ electric band. It’s fun and a whole scene, but requires lots of trouble shooting, extra luggage and way longer soundchecks!”

Then, as if to summarise:“The trumpet offers me the ability to be bold, brash and daring, while at the same time being gentle and subtle. I love its versatility.”