Mini-jazz

Mini-jazz
Stylistic origins	Jazz, méringue-compas
Cultural origins	Mid 1960's, Haiti
Typical instruments	Drum, tanbou, conga, cowbell, guitars, keyboards, horn section, modern synthesizer, bass
Regional scenes
Haiti, French West Indies, Dominica, France, North America, Brazil

Music of Haiti
General topics
Related articles
Genres
Cadence Kompa Gospel Hip hop Kontradans Méringue Mini-jazz Mizik rasin Rabòday Rara Rara tech Rock Twoubadou Vodou drumming Zouk
Media and performance
Music awards	Haitian Music Award
Music festivals	Carnival Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem	La Dessalinienne
Regional music
Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Aruba and the Dutch Antilles Bahamas Barbados Bermuda Bonaire Cayman Islands Cuba Curaçao Dominica Dominican Republic French Guiana Grenada Guadeloupe Guyana Jamaica Louisiana Martinique Montserrat Panama Puerto Rico St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Vincent and Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Virgin Islands

Mini-jazz (Haitian Creole: mini-djaz) is a reduced méringue-compas band format of the mid-60s characterized by the rock band formula of two guitars, one bass, and drum-conga-cowbell; some use an alto sax or a full horn section, while others use a keyboard, accordion or lead guitar.

Origin

The 1915-34 US occupation introduced jazz music to Haiti. Local music bands were sometimes called jazz in comparison to the American big band jazz. The word "jazz" has become the equivalent of band or orchestra. The mini-jazz movement started in the mid-1960s, when small bands called mini-djaz (which grew out of Haiti’s light rock and roll bands of the early 1960s that were called yeye bands) played compas featuring paired electric guitars, electric bass, drumset and other percussion, often with a saxophone. This trend, launched by Shleu Shleu after 1965, came to include a number of groups from Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods, especially the suburb of Pétionville. Tabou Combo, Les Difficiles, Les Loups Noirs, Frères DéJean, Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour, Bossa Combo and Les Ambassadeurs (among others) formed the core of this middle-class popular music movement. By 1970, popular mini-jazz groups such as Tabou Combo and Original Shleu Shleu were touring throughout North American cities with musicians of the Haitian diaspora, establishing a mini-jazz scene most notably in Miami (Magnum Band) and New York City (Gypsies de Queens).