altissimo
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A lot of the musicians involved in the development of ska and reggae had a thorough musical education at the Alpha Boys School and someof them were jazz afficinados - fans of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane - but opportunities to play jazz were slim except for playing at dances for rich tourists in the ballrooms of posh hotels.
Ska evolved as a Jamaican alternative to the kind of Fats Domino style New Orleans rhythm and blues that had gone out of fashion in the USA and was getting harder to find. So local entrepeneurs decided to fill the gap in the market and recruit some of the musicians from the dance bands to record in a similar style., But the offbeat got emphasised and ska was the result, a fusion of RnB, rastafarian drumming and mento. Eventually the tempo cooled down and rocksteady and reggae evolved.
People think that ska and reggae are easy to play 'cos it's only got 3 chords, but getting the feel right is very difficult - the rhythmic intricacies are too subtle to be transcribable, it's more about body language.
What's truly astonishing is the sheer amount of music that came out of no more than a dozen studios in Kingston in the 60's and 70's and continues to pour out of the island to this day
Ska evolved as a Jamaican alternative to the kind of Fats Domino style New Orleans rhythm and blues that had gone out of fashion in the USA and was getting harder to find. So local entrepeneurs decided to fill the gap in the market and recruit some of the musicians from the dance bands to record in a similar style., But the offbeat got emphasised and ska was the result, a fusion of RnB, rastafarian drumming and mento. Eventually the tempo cooled down and rocksteady and reggae evolved.
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What's truly astonishing is the sheer amount of music that came out of no more than a dozen studios in Kingston in the 60's and 70's and continues to pour out of the island to this day