Frankie McIntosh and the Art of the Soca Arranger

Frankie McIntosh and the Art of the Soca Arranger tells a story of Caribbean music in the diaspora through the eyes and ears of pioneering soca arranger Frankie McIntosh. Soca music, an offspring of older Trinidadian calypso, emerged in the late 1970s and today is recognized worldwide as one of the English-speaking Caribbean’s most distinctive styles of popular vocal music. As a counterpoint to the traditional scholarly focus on calypso and soca singers, this work explores the instrumental dimensions of the art form through the life and music of one of the most celebrated soca arrangers and keyboardists of all time.The Art of the Soca Arranger places Frankie McIntosh at the center of several overlapping narratives of immigration and musical diaspora. There is Frankie’s personal voyage from St. Vincent to Brooklyn and his efforts to hammer out a career in music while raising a family in his newly adopted home. His immigrant tale is intertwined with his musical journey, from popular Caribbean dance bands through formal studies in Western classical music and jazz to his work as a gigging jazz pianist and calypso/soca arranger. Along the way he embraced the varied musics of New York’s African American and West Indian communities, working with such iconic calypsonians as the Mighty Sparrow, Lord Kitchner, Calypso Rose, and Alston Becket. His story provides a unique lens for viewing Brooklyn Carnival music, and brings into sharp focus the borough’s rise to prominence as the transnational hub of the soca music industry in the 1980s.