Biguine
A rhythm-centric style of music that originated in Saint-Pierre, Martinique. It fuses bélé and French ballroom dance steps with African rhythms. Two main types of French antillean biguine can be identified based on the instrumentation in contemporary musical practice, called the drum biguine and the orchestrated biguine.
The drum biguine, or bidgin bélé in Creole, comes from a series of bélé dances performed since early colonial times by the slaves who inhabited the great sugar plantations. Musically, the bidgin bélé can be distinguished from the orchestrated biguine in the following ways: its instrumentation (cylindrical single-membraned bélé drum and the tibwa rhythm sticks); the call-and-response singing style; the soloist’s improvisation; and the nasal voice quality.
The orchestrated biguine has a signature sound in the interplay between the clarinet and trombone, both as a solo and as a duet. 1800s–1950s.