In a landmark return to live performance after twenty years, Jamaican guitar maestro Seretse Small took the stage at Herbie Miller Presents Jazz Night on February 26th. The event, held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, marked not merely a comeback but the strategic launch of an ambitious artistic campaign to position Jamaican jazz on the global awards landscape.
During his absence from performing, Small dedicated himself to educational pursuits, notably founding the Avant Academy of Music and Griot Music. A Hall of Fame inductee (2012) and a revered figure in music education for four decades, Small has long been celebrated for synthesizing Caribbean musical traditions with North American jazz.
The concert served as the debut of his innovative ‘Afro-Jamaican Jazz’ sound—a centerpiece of his forthcoming album, ‘By the Rivers.’ This project is a deliberate effort to transcend Jamaica’s iconic reggae identity and establish a distinct presence in international jazz categories, including the Grammys.
Drawing inspiration from the mid-20th century fusion that created Afro-Cuban jazz, Small is methodically blending Jamaica’s African-rooted rhythms—from reggae’s ‘one drop’ to traditional folk patterns—with jazz’s improvisational vocabulary. His goal is to create a new, recognized dialect within jazz, much as Cuban pioneers did decades ago.
A graduate of the Jamaica School of Music and Berklee College of Music, and a former touring musician for Grammy-winner Sean Paul, Small now shifts focus from mentorship and institution-building to defining his artistic legacy: securing a respected space for Jamaican innovation in the global jazz conversation.