Roland Prince was born in St. John’s, Antigua on August 27th, 1946 and in his early twenties moved to New York City where he played with notables such as Art Blakey, Stanley Turrentine, Gloria Lynne and Elvin Jones, gaining world wide recognition as one of the greatest jazz guitarists of his time. He made hundreds of recordings with great jazz artists; Roy Haynes, James Moody, Shirley Scott, Clark Terry, Johnny Hartman, Jack DeJohnette and Elvin Jones, to name a few. He also made three LPs on the Vanguard label as a leader (Color Visions, Free Spirit & Summit Meeting). He appeared many times on PBS (Soul T.V.) with people such as Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis. He played music for a Derrick Walcott play performed in Central Park, N.Y.C. with Debbie Allen and Madge St. Claire called Ti-Jean and His Brothers. He played in the orchestra and acted along with Taj Mahal in the show Indigo that was written and produced by Salome Bey for CBC-TV in Toronto, Canada.He received the Charlie Christian Scholarship from Rutgers University where he studied. He also taught as a music teacher at that university. While on tours that brought him to Boston he would stop by the Berkley School of Music and lecture as a guest professor. Between 1971 and 1973 he taught at Jazzmobile, NYC and was the youngest instructor ever to have taught there.After his fifteen-year sojourn in New York, he returned home to Antigua where he formed a band called Lukuya. He traveled with this band twice to the Barbados Jazz Festival, once in 1985 and again in 1987. He traveled with Monty Alexander to the West Berlin Jazz Festival in 1988. After five years he disbanded Lukuya and began working as a piano soloist until he formed a new band in 1994 called the Roland Prince Quartet. It is with this band that he traveled to Martinique in 1996 for the Carrefour Mondial de la Guitare and made his last two cd recordings, Song of Roland and Musical Odyssey 2001. In November, 2004 he traveled with the band to The Tranquility Jazz Festival in Anguilla. Most recently the Roland Prince Quartet sojourned to Toronto between September 25th and the 29th, 2007 to represent Antigua and Barbuda in Caribbean Tourism Organization Week where they performed at Dundas Square, the Media Marketplace Luncheon and the Governor's Room at the Liberty Grand in the CNE Building. On November 1st, 2007 (Independence Day) Roland was honored by the nation of Antigua and Barbuda by being awarded the medal of Officer of the Most Precious Order of Princely Heritage.Roland now plays the piano and guitar with equal virtuosity, leaving audiences in amazement. He sings as well, offering strong harmonic support to the lead vocalist in the band. He writes a lot of the material that is played and recorded by the band.He has been arranging music since he was a teenager, working with steel bands during the Carnival season. More recently he has been an important factor in the success of Calypso Val, contributing his innovative arrangements to some of her most popular songs. In the past few years it has been a winning combination, which promises much for the future.Calypso Val was born in Harlem on the isle of Manhattan and came up in a traditional jazz style. During her earlier years she was singer/songwriter, accompanying herself on the guitar and performing folk/jazz forms of music. She first came to Antigua in 1976 with the NATRA (National Association of Television and Radio Artists) Convention and became interested in Caribbean music. She felt that foreign influences would add to the originality of her songs, so she began to associate with some of the members of the Halcyon Steel Band and frequented the island every few months.In 1978 she moved to Antigua permanently and in 1984 she became a full- fledged calypsonian. She has entered the calypso arena for the last twenty years, but her contribution during the Carnival of 2000 (Our Own Destiny) has been her greatest success, winning her massive popularity, the second runner up position in the Calypso Queen Competition, Most Improved Calypsonian and the ZDK Bacchanal 1100 Award for “the most meaningful calypso for the year 2000â€.Again in 2001 she secured the position of second runner up in the Calypso Queen Competition, was one of the finalists in the Party Monarch Competition and was a serious Road March contender with her extremely popular tune, Laptop.In spite of her success as a calypsonian, a lot of people feel that her real forte is jazz. She, however, believes she is a singer capable of any genre. Singing jazz in the band is a year round occupation, while singing calypso tends to be seasonal. She has also made many reggae recordings, several of which have reached number one on the local reggae charts. She writes songs prolifically and is an important contributor to the band’s repertoire.Jaggar Martin was born in Antigua and joined the National Orchestra while he was still in school. It was there that he learned how to read music and play the trombone. As he grew older he took up the bass and by his early twenties was the arranger in the winning combination of himself along with the writer Shelley Tobitt, producing some of King Short Shirt’s greatest hits at the height of his career. He played bass and sometimes guitar in Short Shirt’s band Ghetto Vibes until he formed his own band in the early eighties called The Right Combination. This band backed up a lot of the calypsonians in the tent and played for many of the Calypso Monarch Finals in Antigua.He built Rockersville Studio and began recording many of the more successful artists in Antigua as well as dedicating himself to recording the junior calypsonians. He formed another band called The Fungi Band and they have been active for over a decade in the Carnival Shows. All through the years he has been arranging calypsos for some of Antigua’s foremost calypsonians and the more popular steel bands.He joined the Roland Prince Quartet in 1995 and wrote a very popular fusion song named Key Changes, which was included on the album, Song of Roland. During the instrumental sets he plays trombone with Calypso Val on the bass and when she begins to sing he starts to play the bass.Blakey Phillip is a native born Antiguan and as a youth started going around the pan yard so that he became a proficient player and joined the Halcyon Steel Band when he was still a boy. Since then he has grown to be one of the soloists in the band playing the lead pan. The Halcyon Steel Band is one of the top bands in Antigua, winning Panorama on many occasions and with this band Blakey has toured all over Europe and the Caribbean. He is very active in preserving the art form of playing the pan by participating in programs designed to continue the tradition through teaching the children.He joined the Roland Prince Quartet in 1999 as a drummer and his sensitive response to improvisation has gotten him the reputation of being a tasty player. His innovative solos and the alacrity of his punctuations when trading fours, causes excitement in most jazz aficionados. He also plays groove music such as funk, calypso and reggae with a lot of fire and is an important addition to the band's style and sound. To check out our CDs
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