"Jumbies are spirits - good, evil and otherwise - who inhabit the tales of Caribbean folklore. Called by different names on different islands, they perform a variety of roles. When I was a child growing up in Trinidad, the jumbie was a type of boogie man; it was used to frighten us and to keep us out of harm’s way. Jumbies are also employed as comedic devices in stories meant to pass the time, and for me and many others, they reflect the lingering sense of mystery about the natural world and all of the hidden forces that influence its course.
This album envisions a jukebox inhabited by one of these spirits, prompting it to send forth sounds from the various golden eras of West Indian music (filtered by the jumbie’s refining tastes, of course): from the cowbell accompanied chants of the late nineteenth century to the brooding minor key melodies of the 1930s; from the bright monophonic horns of the Post-War years to the rolling bass grooves of the early 1970s. And over this collision of sound comes a cacophony of voices - stories, images, ideas, remembrances - all seeking a way out through the circuitry of the haunted machine.
Jumbie in the Jukebox is the fruit of a meandering musical odyssey that passed back and forth between studios, living rooms and front porches in Port-of-Spain, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and the small town of Benque Viejo in Belize. Many ideas were gathered along the way and it has taken quite some time to sort through them, as the source of their inspiration - our scattered musical patrimony - is so vast and deep.
So while these songs offer a record of my own reflection and observation, I hope they may also serve as a small but heartfelt tribute to those spirits - both remembered and forgotten - who have gone before us and whose songs and sounds have never lost their power to enchant and engage."
