Eight recordings of authentic Calypso are included in this album.
There is a popular misconception that the Calypso is a member of
bearing that name.
Actually, Calypso is a sort of profession, native to the island of Trinidad.
It reposes in the ability of an in. dividual to compose, extemporaneously, both lyric and music relating to a suggested theme or event-frequently of topical interest.
In Trindad, it amounts to a sport that takes the form of hotly-contested tournaments that may run for days.
The music, frequently identified carelessly as rhumba, is in fact pure Trinidadian.
The general approach to the lyric, however, resembles closely that of the pre-Eliza-bethan minstrel of England.
These are the songs of the people who practice voodoo and Shango, and their music is imbued with the dizzy melancholy and the sudden ascending surges of their esoteric cults.