With Island Dreamer: III of III, Bahamian trumpeter and composer Giveton Gelin makes an ambitious statement about where he comes from, what he has inherited, and the kind of artist he intends to become. It is a record built around jazz, but its imagination stretches well beyond conventional jazz boundaries, drawing the Caribbean, personal memory, grief and resilience into the same musical narrative.
Born and raised in The Bahamas and later educated at Juilliard, Gelin has developed under the influence of musicians including Roy Hargrove and Wynton Marsalis while maintaining an explicit interest in tracing jazz back through its ancestry. The larger Island Dreamer project has been presented in The Bahamas as more than an album: the Central Bank of The Bahamas hosted an exhibition and world-premiere event incorporating photography, a songbook and Gelin’s work with young musicians through the Island Dreamer Academy.
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The record is heavily concerned with living heritage, with “Blue Hole,” for example, being inspired by the famous underwater sinkholes of The Bahamas. Gelin uses trumpet and layered percussion to translate the idea of descending below the water’s surface into music. The vibrant “Moun Lakay” derives its title from the Haitian Creole associated with home and homeland, fitting naturally beside the album’s broader exploration of Gelin’s Haitian-Bahamian roots.
The emotional center may be “I Solemnly Swear to Live,” featuring virtuoso pianist Jon Batiste on piano. The arrangement stripped down to trumpet and piano alone, and Gelin has explained the piece as a deeply personal vow to live intentionally. Gelin’s treatment of Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” is equally riveting, taking a globally recognizable pop song and folding it into his own Caribbean story.
The album closes with “Fighting Spirit Blues,” which at 8:12, is perhaps the album’s most thematically developed piece. The number sustains its energy throughout the entire runtime, proving to be one of the more challenging performances on the record, and ending on a strong note.
Island Dreamer: III of III is a powerful declaration of identity. Its real subject is continuity between generations, islands, genres, sorrow and survival. Gelin does not simply pay tribute to his roots; he asks what those roots can grow into. It’s an unusually personal kind of contemporary jazz project in which virtuosity matters, but the story behind the notes matters just as much.