Monty Maxwell, guitarist, composer, steel pan arranger, and jazz and blues musician, was born in the southern town of Vieux Fort, St. Lucia. He grew up next to a pan yard or steel band shed, so from an early age he was constantly suffused in music and musicianship. Unsurprisingly, he credits the steel band as his initiation into the world of music and George Shine, the steel band leader of his next-door steel band, as his first musical role model.
Monty’s formal initiation into music began at the Vieux Fort Secondary School where, under the tutelage of a Trinidadian pan instructor and a British music tutor, he studied classical music for two years, with the steel pan and piano as the instruments of instruction.
Although still in his teenage years, Monty was thrust into steel pan arrangement, when, upon the departure of the Trinidadian pan instructor, he was designated as the arranger of Halcyon Days Steel Orchestra. Monty admits that the thing in music that gives him the greatest pleasure is arranging music for a steel pan orchestra.
Not surprising, with Monty as arranger, Vieux Fort’s Hanco Steels Orchestra won second place in the national panorama competition for two consecutive years. Many who attended panorama 2001 asserted that Hanco was the clear winner. That year the judges second place Hanco decision was met with plenty of boos.
The artist developed an interest in jazz and blues after listening to St. Lucian artists Luther Francois, Emerson Nurse and their colleagues performing at Vieux Fort’s Halcyon Days Hotel turned Club Med, turned Coconut Bay Resort and Spa. Soon after, at the age of sixteen, he took up the guitar and taught himself how to play. Since that time the guitar has remained Monty’s instrument of choice, and understandably there has been no regrets because the consensus is that Monty Maxwell is among the top two or three guitarists the island has produced.
Monty admits that his early jazz and blues influences were Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Joe Pass, B.B. King, Eric Gale, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Christian, Grant Greene, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour etc., all of whom he first heard from listening to the VOA (Voice of America) Jazz Radio Hour hosted by Willis Connover on Radio St. Lucia.
Considered Vieux Fort’s most renowned musical exponent, Monty Maxwell is among the founding members of Survival and Karma, two of the island’s best and most popular bands of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Indeed, Monty Maxwell is a pioneer in the St. Lucia music industry. He has collaborated with a number of artists on several memorable recording projects where he played lead guitar and helped with arrangement and composition. Some of the more notable of these projects include the pan album, Lucian Steel, by Allison Marquis; the calypso album, Mr. Consistency, by Jeff “Pelay” Elva; the award winning reggae album, Freedom, by Sylvester “Itoobaa” Peter; and the hit reggae single, Let’s Start a Revolution, by Mervin Wilkinson.
Since the inception of the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, Monty has been one of the fixtures of the event, and has performed with various groups including Third Eye, Monty Maxwell and Friends, Alison Marquis and Monty Maxwell, Kalbas, and G Strings (Monty Maxwell and Harvey Millar). He has performed at venues around the island including Jazz on the Square, Jazz on the Pier, Jazz on the Beach, Jazz in the South, Soufriere Creole Jazz, Fond D’or Jazz, Tea Time Jazz, and Jazz Fianle in Vieux Fort. In fact, the name Monty Maxwell, along with a small group of names that include Ronald ‘Boo” Hinkson, Luther Francois, Barbara Cadet, Allison Marquis, and Emerson Nurse, has become synonymous with the St. Lucia Jazz Festival.
Perhaps the highpoint of Monty’s St. Lucia Jazz Festival engagements came in 2010 when Trois M, which featured the three M’s of Monty Maxwell, Allison Marquis, and Harvey Miller, headlined a jazz performance at the Gaiety in Rodney Bay, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival venue reserved for quintessential jazz performers. The act, which also included Berkeley University trained saxophonist, Neil “Toots” Franklyn, and Europe based professional percussionist, Lennox Biscette, was indeed a treat as these talented musicians delivered a special blend of jazz and blues flavored with St. Lucian folk and other Caribbean rhythms, the likes of which few had heard before.
Besides the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, Monty has performed and represented St. Lucia and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) at several regional and international musical events, including Festival Anse D’arlet and Cemac Jazz Festival in Martinique; the Grande Parvois Boat Show in La Rochelle, France; and the Alcon Pharmaceutical Convention Concert in Aruba.
In 2012, Monty released Shine, his long awaited and much anticipated album, which, coming at a mature stage of his musical career, can be viewed as the culmination of his musical strivings. Indeed, the album is nothing less than a mapping of his musical influences and the fusing of Caribbean rhythms and St. Lucian folk with jazz and blues. It features Blues (Derek’s Blues, Traffic Jam Blues, Blue Soap), Smooth Contemporary Jazz (Don’t Stop This Grove, Morning Shadows, Little Suede Shoes), Reggae with a Jazz treatment (Wake Up and Live), Calypso-Jazz (Shine), and a jazz treatment of St. Lucian folk with a beguine rhythm (Madam Lan Gros). The title track is a tribute to St. Lucian pan pioneer, George “Shine” Thomas, and as elsewhere in the album, pan features prominently in the song. However, above all, Shine is a manifestation of a virtuoso and versatile guitarist who have mastered styles ranging from George Benson, West Montgomery, Lee Mack Ritenour, Grant Green, Eric Clapton and BB King, yet whose own unique, blues-flavored style comes through in the guitar-blues coloring of many of the tracks on the album.
Some say art is more about the artist than the subject matter of the art. Well, Shine It is truly an embodiment of Monty’s personality and experiences; in it the artist never strays far from his roots. The musicians and vocalists who collaborated with him on the project were mostly from his hometown and members of his Survivals band, with whom he grew up playing and discovering music together. The album is dedicated to his grandmother, Josephine Soomer, and to George “Shine” Thomas, two of his earliest musical influences. His grandmother who was of East Indian heritage was always singing traditional Indian and St. Lucian folk songs. Madam Lan Gros, the third track on the album, was one of the folk songs she sang that stuck with Monty to this day. So growing up the artist was faced with a situation where inside the home he was awashed with his grandmothers singing, and outside he was inundated with the pan music of his next door neighbor, George “Shine” Thomas.
Standing over six feet tall, Monty speaks in a calm, relaxed, unhurried baritone voice that exudes self-confidence. He is composed, unperturbed, easy going, yet he is non-hesitant and always seems sure of where he wants to go and how to get there. He never seems to rush the brush, he lets things come naturally to him, as if everything happens in its own time, and when something hasn’t happened, it simply means its time hasn’t arrived. These personality traits are mirrored in Shine. The fusion of Caribbean rhythms and St. Lucian folk with jazz and blues is delivered with a vintage Monty Maxwell sound or panache that is rounded, groovy, danceable, definite, confident, meaty and satisfying. A sound you can hug, embrace, bottle and take home. A sound and groove that is fun, relaxed, easy going. A sound that you cannot help but move to.
In this exciting and ubiquitous 2023 St. Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival, in a lineup that includes Papa Vader, Barbara Cadet, Avot Sevis, Monty Maxwell will be teaming up with the likes of Mervin Wilkinson, Neil “Toots” Franklyn, and others, under the banner of Kalbas, to perform on Monday 1 May at VFCSS Jazz, an event to raise funds for the Vieux Fort Comprehensive Secondary School’s 60th Anniversary.