In reading about the earliest moments in ska’s recorded history, there are endless references to how politics and self identity played into the music’s formation and its eventual codification. But in getting through whatever literature you might have picked up, it seems that for the most part, the Skatalites are made out to be one of only a few ensembles working in the late fifties and early sixties.

That’s not the case. And while it can’t be anyone’s stated intention to disenfranchise groups that in subsequent years have seemingly disappeared, Carlos Malcom’s situation remains a bizarre one to be sure.

Living in Panama with his family during the forties allowed Malcom – his father led a jazz and Afro-Cuban related ensemble – to take in a variety of different musics during his formative years. Since Jamaican music can be construed as a confluence of island rhythms and American music, Malcom’s background wound up being roughly what it would have been if he’d grown up in Jamaica where he’d eventually move during the fifties.

As the Alpha Boys School was cranking out players that would comprise the first wave of ska performers, Malcom found a home in a pre-ska Don Drummond led jazz group. Credited as one of the main creative forces in the Skatalites, Drummond no doubt held substantial sway over Malcom’s development as a player and his musical tastes. It’s pretty evident in Malcom’s recordings. And while Drummond would go on to renown, mostly for being the dead Skatalite, his musical contributions to the island’s scene can’t be overstated.

Malcom’s on the other hand need to be so as to be heard over the din concerning the Skatalites.

Being tapped to head up an ensemble to perform at various functions organized around Jamaican independence, Malcom gathered together a clutch of players as equally skilled as the Skatalites. These names are all pretty much lost to time, but in hearing Carlos Malcolm and his Afro-Jamaican Rhythms’ The Sound of the Soil, issued in 1962, it becomes pretty clear that there was more than a single band helping to solidify the genre.

There’s no more syncopation in these songs than represented over the course of the Skatalites catalog. And in fact some of the songs could easily be mistaken for efforts by that better known group. But Malcom was a composer as much as a performer. So the arrangements and horn voicings of the songs here are a bit different than other early sixties’ ska fare.

The choruses on “Head Shrinker” are all group affairs with some interesting call and response playing interspersed for good measure. Seeing as this was a distinctly composed music coupled with the fact that Malcom’s group was playing around the island at such an early date has led some folks to believe the band leader was the first person to write down and notate Jamaican ska. Whether or not that’s true, the fact that Malcom’s received credit for such an important historical piece of the music’s history is a reaffirmation of his talent. And a needed one at that.