There were many musicians from Martinique and Guadalupe living in Paris between the wars, in part because France had conscripted men from its Caribbean colonies during World War I who stayed on afterwards but also because a craze for music from the colonies attracted colonial musicians looking for work. The Creole element of this music has many parallels to early jazz (there was, of course, a big Creole influence in New Orleans) and also Brazilian samba, incorporating exciting rhythms, improvisation, and repeating themes and variations into a vibrant musical stew. We’ll look at some of the big proponents of this music such as Alexandre Stellio (1885-1939) and Eugène DeLouche (1909-75), and also how Cole Porter took his impressions of what he probably heard during his Paris years and morphed it into “Begin The Beguine” (although this song captures an exotic rhythm, that rhythm is closer to the rhumba than the biguine!). We’ll also look at the Martinique dance bands’ interpretation of American jazz and popular song, showing how there’s a strange circular connection to all this music!