Happy New Year! May 2012 be about two thousand and twelve
times as productive, peaceful, stress-free, prosperous, lucky and serendipitous
as 2011! And may you travel many many
interesting musical pathways.
To take you on your way into the new year the Washerman’s Dog shares a set of
wonderfully upbeat musical blandishments and sweetmeats for your New Year’s Eve
dancing party. Even if dancing means little more than tapping your fingers on
the arm of the easy chair as you sip a warm single malt.
The Skatalites are
to ska and reggae what the Beatles
were to pop music and Hank Williams
to country. Both definition and
inspiration. Super studio band that backed everyone from Anton Ellis to Bob Marley
and Toots and Maytals they laid the
basic soundtrack of 1960s Jamaica and what subsequently became known as reggae (and its many progeny).
In the story of The
Skatalites are buried happy and sad lessons of poverty, passion and
institutionalisation. The group’s key
members, Thomas McCook (sax), Johnnie ‘Dizzy’ Moore (trumpet), Lester Sterling (alto sax) and the
mercurial and tragic figure, Don
Drummond (trombone) came together at the Alpha Cottage School for Boys, a
nicely named church run institute for trouble-seeking and trouble-wielding
boys. Rather than flash blades or use their fists, a Catholic priest got them
blowing into brass instruments, little realising that these discarded bits of
humanity would go on to revolutionise a nation’s music and secure a rarefied
and respected niche on the global scene.
| The Skatalites |
Starting out, the unlikely lads played in Kingston hotels
and were soon joined by the seminal pianist Jackie Mittoo and Lloyd
Knibbs on drums. At the same time,
the initial studios were opening up and the group found themselves to be in
demand as everyone’s favourite back-up band.
In 1964, they began referring to themselves as The Skatalites, In between recording for others they criss crossed
Jamaica playing their own gigs to a rapidly growing audience.
So important and omnipresent was the group that it is hard
to know where their music started and other artists’ ended. Since they played
on thousands of records that were released by countless other acts and
musicians they often did not get the credit.
But their sound and drive and energy and ‘magic’ was what made the song
a hit. In this way, their influence and
importance to creating and defining their ‘musical moment’ far exceeds that of
the Beatles and Hank
Williams. They were everywhere, in every studio, backing every act and
playing every weekend. They were making up a sound and an entire genre as they went.
| Don Drummond |
The musicality of The
Skatalites is simply delightful.
The horn playing is masterful but unassuming and laidback. Just like everyone’s
idea of a Jamaican beach. The licks are
groovy and grabbed from any corner of the musical universe. Witness the direct
‘sampling’ of the Mexicali trumpets from Johnny
Cash’s smash hit, Ring of Fire,
on Music is My Occupation. Central to
the beat and soul of the sound was the tremendous trombone work of Don Drummond. Surely one of the best slide
trombone players ever but also one of
the most troubled. His time as a delinquent and institutionalised (and
brutalised) inmate of Alpha Cottage, affected his mental health. With the band
barely a year old, he murdered his wife and the band’s vocalist and was reinstitutionalised in an Asylum. He died there in 1969. The Skatalites dissolved in 1965 but reformed in the early 80s and
continue to play to adoring and hip crowds around the world even today.
These recordings are from their prime and short life as a
band between 1964 and 1965. Infectious,
joyous and wonderous music.
Bye bye 2011!!!
Track
Listing:
01 Guns Of Navarone
02 Eastern Standard Time
03 Garden Of Love
04 Latin Goes To Ska
05 (Music Is My) Occupation
06 Street Corner
07 Musical Storeroom
08 Green Island
09 Corner Stone
10 Musical Communication
11 Doctor Dekker
12 Feeling Fine
13 Don De Lion
14 Lucky Seven
15 Stampede
16 Silver Dollar
17 University Goes Ska
18 Knock Out Punch
19 Cool Smoke
20 Around The World
21 Alley Pang
22 Good News
23 Thoroughfare
24 Mesopotamia
25 Dragon Weapon
Listen here.