Following our celebration of the Caribbean poet and trumpeter Shake Keane in Man of Words and Music Part I (broadcast National Windrush Day 2021), and Part II featuring Keane’s biographer Philip Nanton with Henry Lowther and Dave Green, we are delighted to bring you Part III the final instalment for the EFG London Jazz Festival featuring a live performance by the Rowland Sutherland Quartet with a mighty line up of Robert Mitchel (piano), Dudley Phillips (bass), Rod Young (drums) and Rowland Sutherland (flutes). Fellow Vincentian Sutherland will present new compositions and arrangements for the event.

Shake, né Ellsworth McGranahan was born on the island of St Vincent, West Indies, in 1927, his love of words and literature would earn him the soubriquet ‘Shake’ after the great William Shakespeare. In 1952 Shake arrived in London like many others following on the heels of other Caribbean migrants who arrived on the Empire Windrush in 22 June 1948. Unlike many of the migrants who came to the Britain, he was already a published poet, well read, read music, played the trumpet, and spoke French. These assets made it easier for Shake to gain employment as a freelance broadcaster for the BBC’s Caribbean Voices. On the recommendation of the bassist Coleridge Goode Shake was invited to join the Joe Harriot Quintet. The quintet would go on to produce the ground-breaking ‘Abstract’ and ‘Freeform’ music.