Samaroo Jets – Movie Soundtracks Caribbean Style

Review

Here’s a happy outcome of last year’s MIDEM in Cannes, when the Italian label CAM had a booth near the adventurous Sanch studio from Curepe. A selection of popular movie themes was selected from the CAM catalogue, and are performed here by one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most accomplished steel orchestras — the Samaroo Jets, the family group headed by pannist Jit Samaroo, who also arranges for the legendary Amoco Renegades orchestra. The Samaroos are a small, chamber-size group who can turn in polished and stylish readings of popular classics as well as most other genres. Here Bacalov’s Il Postino turns into a calypso, Sondheim’s Stavisky becomes a bossa-nova, and Morricone’s La Cage aux Folles finds new life above a reggae beat. The result is an easy-going, easy-listening 49 minutes which make you wonder if all these movie composers were really Trinidadians. [JT – Caribbean Beat]