Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, live sessions and more!
Start Your Free Trial

JazzTimes

Home > Features > Jazz to Ska Mania

Jazz to Ska Mania

Updated By Christopher Porter
Monty Alexander and Ernest Ranglin
Detail from 1961 LP All Star Top Hits on the Coxsone label
Duke Ellington snaps his fingers to Count Ossie (seated, left) and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari
Jamaica All Stars circa 1947 or 1948
Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alexander in Kingston, Jamaica, January 2004
Ernest Ranglin is seated behind saxophonist-bandleader Eric Deans, in the late '40s or early '50s
A flyer for an "Xmas Bonanza" concert
Don Drummond
Jah Jerry Haynes
Johnny "Dizzy" Moore
Late 50's all star band

You don’t drive so much as duck and weave in Kingston. Like much of the city, many streets in Jamaica’s capital need fixing, and the combination of potholes, narrow paths and seemingly random traffic patterns can make for a wild ride. The horn is your best friend.

Pianist Monty Alexander, 60, and guitarist Ernest Ranglin, 72, are sitting side by side in our van. Neither one seems particularly happy about being in Kingston today. It’s an intense place. Touring the city brings up many good memories for these two friends, but Alexander and Ranglin see the harsh economic realities that plague the cultural center of Jamaica and their thoughts turn bittersweet.

Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music's best journalists and critics.
Originally Published

Related Posts

Inside the Barry Harris Method

As one of Dr. Barry Harris’ weekly New York City jazz workshops was getting under way on a Tuesday night in December, a friendly stranger gave me some advice: “Leave your ego behind.”

For years I had heard about these public sessions where anyone with $15, regardless of ability or previous experience, could spend six hours with the bebop piano legend. After seeing Harris play two exhilarating sets at London’s Pizza Express Jazz Club last August before an adoring crowd, many of whom had attended his master class earlier that day, I realized that I, a New Yorker and jazz pianist, needed to visit the workshop and report on the experience.

Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.


To access this content, you must purchase JazzTimes Membership.

Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane: Evidence

It’s not quite the Lost Ark of the Covenant, but for some time researchers had been aware of the possibility of a long-lost recording featuring Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. In the December 26, 1957, issue of Down Beat there was notice that stated, “Willis Conover and the Voice of America were scheduled to invade Carnegie Hall late in November” to broadcast a jazz concert. Voice of America, the U.S. government shortwave-radio service that broadcasts news and music overseas, would sometimes feature concert recordings that were not aired in the U.S.

In 1996, while doing research for my book John Coltrane: His Life and Music, I found an advertisement in the New York Amsterdam News (a venerable black newspaper) that listed that VOA concert. With the date now in hand-Friday, November 29, 1957-I contacted the Library of Congress, which owns all the VOA tapes. Unfortunately, the LOC had no record of a VOA recording made at Carnegie Hall on 11/29/57, but staffers allowed that as they continued to organize and catalog this huge collection, it might indeed turn up-if it was there at all.

Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.


To access this content, you must purchase JazzTimes Membership.

JazzTimes Newsletter

America's jazz resource, delivered to your inbox

Sign Up for Our Free Newsletter