There’re so many reasons to love JA music. The nation's history being as unique as any other country’s has a bit to do with that. But what’s more important than the struggles its people dealt with is how they were dealt with. Unrest was the pervasive state of things during huge portions of the seventies down there on that island. Things haven’t really be reconciled. But out of the turmoil sprung a succession of musical statements that worked not just lyrically to free people, but to free music from previous expectations.

I’ve figured here before that the reason hip hop has developed over time – and perhaps even fallen back on some ideas from JA music more recently – is due to the way that sound systems functioned at parties in JA. That’s obviously a debatable point. But part of what resulted from those dances was a conception of the album in drastically different terms then anywhere else in the world.

Surely, long playing albums remained features for either a singer, a group of instrumentalists or eventually producers. But the showcase album was able to include a bit of all that and still remain a cohesive listen. And during the seventies’ pretty much every vocal group was recorded and chopped up to create one of these discs.

The Uniques’ history is as convoluted as the history of any nation or art movement. Innumerable singers came and went during the group’s tenure in JA between the late sixties and seventies. On occasion, the line up shifted due to death, as was the case with Slim Smith. But sometimes folks like Cornell Campbell just got big enough to go it alone.

By the late seventies it’s kind of difficult to figure out who’s even singing on its albums. Of course, we should be able to figure that Smith is absent considering his demise earlier in the decade. Either way, the group’s Showcase finds the reconstituted trio accompanied by the Aggrovators and produced by Bunny Lee.

Seeing as this is a showcase disc, each of the album’s six cuts features a vocal version for a few minutes and then is followed by an instrumental passage just as long. For whatever reason, the organization of discs like this are wholly satisfying seeing as a huge number of vocal cuts, even from this late date in JA music, seem to expire too quickly. Getting a chance to hear some extended versions is well worth seeking the disc out.

And while the lyrical stuff here isn’t any different than any other rootsy fair from the era, it’s interesting to note the inclusion of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” While an unshakable classic, there’s no real reason for the song’s transference to JA – you know apart from the protest/freedom element related over the song’s duration.

Covered by innumerable groups – including the Heptones – the song takes on a unique swagger under the watch of the Uniques. This group isn’t more capable of singing those simple lines, but there’s an immediacy in this version that’s lacking on others. There’s no proper explanation as to why. But sometimes things just ARE and we must abide.