Lévé Lévé – Les Trimalcos, 1970

🇲🇶🎺🎷🦅🐦 Just under a year ago, Léon Sainte-Rose, Martinique’s historic independence activist, passed away. His activism earned him a stint in prison in the early 60s, and his activism then shifted to the cultural arena. He founded Les Trimalcos, whose first album, Lévé Lévé, was released in 1970. The arrangements are as Latin as you could wish, whether biguine, cadence, merengue or rumba, thanks to a percussive brass section and some memorable organ choruses. After the title track, which asserts the use of Creole, Andréa is certainly one of the immediate successes of the band’s first album. Les Trimalcos – short for three Martinican emblems, the Trigonocéphale, the Malfini and the Colibri – would only release two albums, and by the end of the decade, Léon Sainte- Rose would create his reference band, Palantché.