July 2009

Even before the independence of Jamaica, the unique musical proclivities of the island enclave got set to tape. With Byron Lee and his Dragonaires, Prince Buster and the Blues Busters afforded the opportunity to get into a studio, prefigure ska and rock steady while still incorporating enough US based soul and RnB to remain tangentially tied to its antecedents, the resulting sides had the potentiality to affect the world’s musical culture. While out of that aforementioned triumvirate of groups, the Blues Busters might now be the least known, at the time of the duo’s - Lloyd Campbell and Phillip James – recordings, the two singer’s output reached the furthest and deepest into the States.

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Counted amongst the short lived Skatalites, Tommy McCook may have become an even stronger player after his foray in that band. But beginning as a teenager, McCook toured JA as a jazzbo, working out his chops for some vacationing foreigners. Regardless of his background and how he arrived at his talent isn’t the point. It’s what the tenor man was able to do with it that matters. And on the countless recordings that he took part in during his forty plus years of work serve as an outline to the development of not just this player, but the music industry in Jamaica. That could be said for a number of folks, but none remain as well known and respected as this man here.

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How this got pressed during the sixties is a mystery.

There’s a misty air about the work from Nor Cal’s Groundation. And while that might be a pervasive feature out of any musical work from the foggy coast over there, the band represents one of only two viable international reggae acts from the States – the other being John Brown’s Body, who could simply be thought of as the East Coast forbearer to this ensemble. That coastal difference, though, don’t provide for too much sonic differentiation. The bands aren’t identical, of course, but in each group’s pursuit of whatever the intangible JA sound is, both ride rough shod over their influences, bringing in some more soul and jazz than those originators may have intended.

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Despite not having any full length albums in the books until 1986 or so, Cocoa Tea (or Coco Tea or Coco T) had been recording on and off since about the age of 14 in 1974. That twelve years in-between his first single - "Searching in the Hills" – and the first full length, for the most part, wasn’t filled with music, though. Instead after that single, Cocoa Tea (Calvin Scott) worked a variety of jobs including doing a bit of time as a fisherman. But eventually, with traveling sound systems presenting an entertaining prospect, Cocoa Tea picked up the mic again.

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