Electronic Music in Jamaica

Songs & tracks

Every song the chapter names, in the order the text names them, each with the sentence that introduces it, set as printed.

• 001

  Forward March

  Derrick Morgan

  Like the forms highlife in sub-Saharan Africa and soul in Afro-America, the mood of lighthearted abandon in such ska songs as Derrick Morgan’s “Forward March” and Jimmy Cliff’s “Miss Jamaica” was powered by a wave of national pride and sociopolitical commitment and optimism.

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 002

  Miss Jamaica

  Jimmy Cliff

  Like the forms highlife in sub-Saharan Africa and soul in Afro-America, the mood of lighthearted abandon in such ska songs as Derrick Morgan’s “Forward March” and Jimmy Cliff’s “Miss Jamaica” was powered by a wave of national pride and sociopolitical commitment and optimism.

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 003

  Fidel Castro

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 004

  Exodus

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 005

  King Solomon

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 006

  Addis Ababa

  Ska instrumental (Don Drummond / Tommy McCook / Roland Alphonso / Johnny Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 007

  Distant Drums

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 008

  Yogi Man

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 009

  South China Sea

  Ska instrumental (Drummond / McCook / Alphonso / Moore circle)

  But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orchestrated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxophonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Exodus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,” and “South China Sea.”

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 010

  Take It Easy

  Hopeton Lewis

  The earliest song in this style is often considered to be Hopeton Lewis’s “Take It Easy,” and there are varying accounts of the catalysts for the musical change.

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 011

  Do the Reggay

  Toots and the Maytals

  Toots and the Maytals’s “Do the Reggay,” Lee Perry’s “People Funny Boy,” and Larry Marshall’s “Nanny Goat” are three songs most frequently credited with inspiring the slower tempo.

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 012

  People Funny Boy

  Lee “Scratch” Perry

  Toots and the Maytals’s “Do the Reggay,” Lee Perry’s “People Funny Boy,” and Larry Marshall’s “Nanny Goat” are three songs most frequently credited with inspiring the slower tempo.

  song Open ↗ YouTube
• 013

  Nanny Goat

  Larry Marshall

  Toots and the Maytals’s “Do the Reggay,” Lee Perry’s “People Funny Boy,” and Larry Marshall’s “Nanny Goat” are three songs most frequently credited with inspiring the slower tempo.

  song Open ↗ YouTube

Albums, compilations & series

Albums, compilations and series, again in the order the chapter names them.

• 014

  Pet Sounds

  The Beach Boys

  Spector’s work in turn inspired Beach Boy Brian Wilson and a series of engineers (including Larry Levine at Gold Star and Chuck Britz at Western Recorders in Hollywood) in the creation of the Beach Boys’ influential 1966 recording Pet Sounds. In jazz, Teo Macero (who had himself been trained in twentieth-century composition) helped expand the role of the studio in jazz from the purely documentary to the creative while working with Miles Davis on the latter’s jazz-rock fusion music between 1968 and 1975.

  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 015

  Synchronisms No. 1

  Mario Davidovsky

  Conversely, the Jamaican practice of deejays toasting over prerecorded music fits into a body of work composed for electronics and live musicians that in its broadest sense encompasses everything from pieces like Mario Davidowsky’s Synchronisms No. 1 (composed for live flautist and tape) to karaoke singing.

  album Open ↗ YouTube