The Shake Keane riff: genius of Vincentian jazz musician
Riff: The Shake Keane Story by Philip Nanton -
Shake Keane is another musical genius, hardly known in his native Caribbean. He died in Norway in 1997, undeservedly unrecognised by most of us, because, like so many of our other impressive artists, musicians, writers and performers of the last century who strutted across the international stage, contributing to the new era of music and entertainment, he lived a life that was hard to keep track of.
I only knew his name because I came across the ground-breaking Joe Harriot Quintet music of the 1960s in a friend’s hot LP collection in London. If you were there almost anytime in the last 50 years and were interested in music, you would know about Harriott, the Jamaica-born alto saxophone player, composer and bandleader who pioneered free jazz with Shake Keane, the band’s virtuoso trumpeter and flugelhorn player whose adventurous improvisation contributed hugely to the waves m