Shake Keane

In the 1940s, with his mother Dorcas working to raise six children, the teenager joined one of the island's leading bands, Ted Lawrence and His Silvertone Orchestra.

[2] He worked on BBC Radio's Caribbean Voices programme,[3] reading poetry and interviewing fellow writers and musicians.

Harriott's group was the first in Europe, and one of the first worldwide, to play free jazz, and Keane contributed mightily to the band's artistic success, thanks to his fleet and powerful improvisatory skills on trumpet and flugelhorn.

He became featured soloist with the Kurt Edelhagen Radio Orchestra, and also joined the pre-eminent European jazz ensemble of the 1960s, The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band.

[7] Keane's musical career was set aside in the early 1970s, as he returned to St Vincent in 1972 to take up a government position as director of culture,[4] remaining in the post until 1975.

[7] He did not return full-time to music until 1989, when he rejoined Michael Garrick and his old band mates Coleridge Goode and Bobby Orr for a tour in honour of Joe Harriott.

In 1991, Keane appeared in a BBC Arena documentary with the Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, filmed by Anthony Wall.

[7] Thanks to an old friend and colleague from the BBC in the 1950s, Erik Bye, Keane established a regular pattern of work in Norway from 1991 to his death.