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24-638: Compas is a Haitian musical genre. Compas or COMPAS may also refer to: Compas The word "compas" means "measure" or "rhythm" in Spanish, and one of the most distinctive characteristics of compas is the consistent pulsating tanbou beat, a trait common to many styles of Caribbean music . Compas Direct (which is a trademark registered in the United States by Nemours Jean-Baptiste’s heirs Dr Yves Nemours Jean-Baptiste and Mrs. Yvrose Jean-Baptiste) translates as direct beat . In Creole , it

48-602: A dominance on the Caribbean and many places in European and South American music scenes. The band Tabou Combo , perhaps one of the most legendary compas ensembles, took the musical style to greater heights when they toured countries like Senegal and Japan during their world tours. Their performances in Panama enamored the population, earning them the title of "Official Panamanian Band". The band's impact on local Panamanian music

72-484: A full horn section, others use a keyboard or accordion. This trend, launched by Shleu-Shleu after 1965, came to include a number of groups from Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods, especially the suburb of Pétion-Ville . Les Corvington, Tabou Combo, Les Difficiles, Les Loups Noirs, Les Frères DéJean, Les Fantaisistes de Carrefour, Bossa Combo and Les Ambassadeurs (among others) formed the core of this middle-class popular music movement. These young musicians were critical in

96-539: A prominent Haitian saxophone player and the originator of cadence rampa, recorded three LPs with French Antilles producers, two with Celini disques in Guadeloupe and one with "Balthazar" in Martinique. Haitian compas or cadence bands were asked to integrate Antillean musicians. Consequently, the leading Les Guais Troubadours with influential singer Louis Lahens, along with other bands, played a very important role in

120-642: A strong distinguishable feature of the méringue. Nemours Jean-Baptiste presented his Ensemble Aux Calebasses in 1955 (named after the club Aux Calebasses located at Carrefour, a western neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, where the band used to perform on weekends). At the beginning, Ensemble ‘Aux Callebasses‘ Of Nemours Jean-Baptiste played rhythms such as Cuba's guaracha and cha-cha-chá as well as Haiti's Bannann Pouyak, Grenn Moudong, and méringue lente. In 1957, Nemours Jean-Baptiste created compas, which has its roots in Haitian traditional méringue and

144-661: Is danced in pairs. Sometimes partners dance holding each other tightly and romantically; in this case often most of the moves are made at the hips. With the Kwaze le 8 Contredanse from southern Haiti, the compas is part of Haitian culture. During the 1970s and 1980s, it was very successful in the Caribbean and contributed to the influence of Zouk in the French West Indies. Nevertheless, Zouk and its rhythm are still mainly influenced by Mazouk and Biguine from Martinique, as well as by Gwoka from Guadeloupe, traditional music from

168-499: Is officially spelled as konpa , but it is most popularly spelled with an "m" in place of the "n" (as in kompa ) even though it is considered a botched spelling translation that resulted from a phonetic misunderstanding between French and Haitian Creole, the latter with a newly standardized orthography which has only been established since 1979 that contains no m-sounding consonants before b’s and p’s unlike in French. During and after

192-643: Is the talented Tito Paris dança ma mi Criola (1994), one of the most popular songs of all time in Cabo Verde; this CD contained music close to Haiti Tabou Combo, Caribbean Sextet, Tropicana and French Antilles Kassav', etc. Cape Verdean artists were exposed to zouk and compas in the US and France. Acculturation has been aided by the growth of overseas communities (especially in New England) whose population now exceeds that of Cape Verde itself (about 300,000). Today,

216-555: The Vodou traditional rhythms . Its popularity took off likely due to the genre's ability to improvise and hold the rhythm section steady and the facility with which dancers could absorb, feel and express the new rhythm. Nemours Jean-Baptiste incorporated a lot of brass and, in 1958, the first electric guitar in Haitian urban dance music. Compas is sung in Creole, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Nemours' popularity grew in and out of

240-543: The 1960s to the 1980s, Haitian artists and groups such as Claudette & Ti Pierre, Tabou Combo and especially Gesner Henry a.k.a. Coupé Cloué and the Dominican group Exile One were very popular in Africa. In addition, the French West Indies group Kassav' and other West Indian musicians, whose main music is Zouk, have toured Cabo Island on various occasions. Many Cape Verdean artists play zouk and compas. A good example

264-484: The Caribbean, specifically the French Antilles of Martinique and Guadeloupe around 1962, from where it spread to Dominica . From the 60s to the 70s, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique were replete with cadence bands like Selecta, La Perfecta, Les Aiglons , Grammacks , Exile One , Les Vikings de Guadeloupe, and Abel Zenon et son combo. Cadence music is characterized by a constant uptempo rhythm, hence

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288-532: The French Antilles. In the 1960s, the coladeira emerged as a livelier counterpart to the morna. The coladeira is played in fast double time, accompanying informal pop-style couple dances. Its main influences seem to be obscure folk processional music of the same name, commercial African American music, the morna and, above all, modern French Caribbean pop music. Most often it is played by a modern dance band, i.e. with drums, bass, electric guitars, etc. From

312-467: The US occupation, the word "jazz" has become synonymous with music bands in Haiti. So the mini-jazz is a reduced méringue-compas band. The movement started in the mid-1960s when young, small neighborhood bands played compas featuring paired electric guitars , electric bass, drum set-conga- timbales and two cowbells, one for the timbales and the other to be played with the floor tom; some use an alto sax or

336-563: The band. This is why hits like "Ti Carole" and "Chagrin D'amour", featured by known Dominican stars Luis Miguel and others, are also sung in Spanish. In the early 1960s Nemours and the Sicot Brothers from Haiti frequently toured the Caribbean, especially Curaçao, Aruba, Saint Lucia, Dominica and mostly the French Islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe to spread the seed of the méringue-compas and cadence rampa . Webert Sicot ,

360-470: The biguine is the interplay between the clarinet and trombone, both solo and as a duet, which can still be heard today throughout Antilles music, from the most traditional forms like cadence or the pop sounds of today's zouk. The Sicot brothers, Maestro Webert Sicot and composer Raymond Sicot, are well regarded in the Caribbean for their rigorous harmonic skills. They introduced the méringue-cadence to

384-506: The country. The band's clean horn section was remarkable, and the band featured méringue tunes that gained instant popularity. For example, in Martinique , several music groups such as Ensemble Abricot, Les Djoubap, Combo Jazz, Georges Plonquitte (fr) (Vini Dance Compas Direct) won over the public with the many tunes or compositions of Nemours. Later, Nemours became a favorite of Dominican president Joaquín Balaguer , who often contracted

408-726: The creation of new techniques that contribute to the fanciness of the style. Although Raymond Gaspard (Nemours) had already started it in the 1950s, guitar players such as Michel Corvington (Les Corvington), Henry Celestin (founder of Les Difficiles de Pétion Ville), Robert Martino (Les Difficiles/Gypsies/Scorpio/Topvice...), Dadou Pasket (Tabou combo/Magnum Band), Jean Claude Jean (Tabou Combo/Super Star...), Serge Rosenthal (Shleu-Shleu), Hans Felix, (Les Ambassadeurs/ Volo Volo de Boston ), Ricardo/Tiplum (Les Ambassadeurs), Claude Marcellin (Les Difficiles/D.P. Express/Zèklè...), Police Nozile (Les Frères Déjean/D.P. Express...) and many more have created intricate, mostly rhythmic guitar styles that constitute

432-401: The dance biguine was popular among the islands' dance orchestras. Its popularity abroad died relatively quickly, but it lasted as a major force in popular music in Martinique and Guadeloupe until Haitian cadence and compas took over in the 1950s. In the later part of the 20th century, biguine musicians like clarinet virtuoso Michel Godzom helped revolutionize the genre. The signature sound of

456-454: The new generation of Cape Verdean artists play a rhythm close to "Zouk love" and Konpa. Cadence rampa Cadence rampa ( Haitian Creole : kadans ranpa , [kadãs ɣãpa] ), or simply kadans , is a dance music and modern méringue popularized in the Caribbean by the virtuoso Haitian sax player Webert Sicot in the early 1960s. Cadence rampa was one of the sources of cadence-lypso . Cadence and compas are two names for

480-444: The same Haitian modern méringue. Cadence rampa literally means rampart rhythm . Webert Sicot left Nemours Jean-Baptiste 's compas band and called his music cadence to differentiate it from compas especially when he took it abroad, and so the rivalry between Sicot and Nemours created these names. Sicot created a new rhythm, cadence rampa , to counter compas, but it was only in a spirit of competition. The rhythm of cadence rampa

504-441: The schooling of Antilleans to the méringue-compas or cadence rampa music style. Almost all existing Haitian compas bands have toured these islands that have since adopted the music and the dance of the méringue. From 1968 to the 1970s prominent bands like Bossa Combo, Volo Volo de Boston , Les Shleu-Shleu, Les Ambassadeurs, Les Vikings, Les Fantaisistes, Les Loups Noirs, Les Frères Dejean, Les Difficiles, and Les Gypsies have exerted

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528-480: Was crowned king. Another band, Orchestre Septentrional D'Haïti (or the Northern Orchestra of Haiti), was also popular during this time period and cemented the style of large orchestras as part of the northern signature of compas. The dance-style that accompanied compas in 1957, is a two-step dance called carré (square) introduced by Nemours Jean-Baptiste in 1962. As a méringue, a ballroom dance, compas

552-513: Was identical to compas except for the addition of the second drum that sounded on every fourth beat. In the 1930s several biguine artists from Martinique and Guadeloupe moved to France , where they achieved great popularity in Paris, especially in the wake of the colonial exhibition in 1931. Early stars like Alexandre Stellio and Sam Castandet became popular in Paris . Between the 1930s and 1950s,

576-601: Was so profound that to this day, Panamanians still consider compas (or what they call "reggae haitiano") part of their national music. Throughout the seventies, Tabou Combo remained on the Paris Hits Parade for weeks with their New York City album, and held performances attended by thousands in New York's Central Park. During the '80s, popular artist Gesner Henry, alias Coupé Cloué and his band Trio Select, successively toured West Africa and left sweet memories. He

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