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Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use the word "reggae", effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as "rudie blues", then "ska", later "blue beat", and "rock steady". It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
Barrington Ainsworth Levy is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall artist.
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles.
Mento is a style of Jamaican folk music that predates and has greatly influenced ska and reggae music. It is a fusion of African rhythmic elements and European elements, which reached his peak popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums, and the rhumba box — a large mbira in the shape of a box that can be sat on while played. The rhumba box carries the bass part of the music.
Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin played guitar on many early ska recordings and helped create the rhythmic guitar style that defined the form. Ranglin has worked with Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Alexander, Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Eric Deans Orchestra. He is noted for a chordal and rhythmic approach that blends jazz, mento and reggae with percussive guitar solos incorporating rhythm 'n' blues and jazz inflections.
There are several subgenres of reggae music including various predecessors to the form.
Lorenzo Aitken, better known by the stage name Laurel Aitken, was an influential Caribbean singer and one of the pioneers of Jamaican ska music. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of Ska".
Lynn Taitt was a guitarist born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, who later moved to Jamaica and became a pioneer of rocksteady music.
Jazz Jamaica is a jazz/reggae music group formed by musician Gary Crosby in London in 1991.
Winston Grennan was a Jamaican drummer, famous for session work from 1962 to 1973 in Jamaica as well as later in New York City through the 1970s and 1980s.
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including "Guns of Navarone." They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many other Jamaican artists who recorded during that period, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, on their first single Simmer Down. They reformed in 1983 and have played together ever since.
"Shame and Scandal in the Family", also known as "Shame & Scandal" for short, is a song written by calypso singer Sir Lancelot for the movie I Walked with a Zombie in 1943 and originally titled "Fort Holland Calypso Song". Sir Lancelot issued his recording of it in the late 1940s. The Sir Lancelot version was covered by folksingers Odetta and Burl Ives. In 1962, Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Melody wrote new lyrics for the verses while keeping the melody and the chorus. The Historical Museum of Southern Florida said of Lord Melody's version that "No calypso has been more extensively recorded".
Joseph Abraham Gordon, better known as Lord Tanamo, was a Jamaican-Canadian singer and songwriter best known for his mento and ska work.
Cedric "Im" Brooks was a Jamaican saxophonist and flautist known for his solo recordings and as a member of The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, The Sound Dimensions, Divine Light, The Light of Saba, and The Skatalites.
Oswald "Baba" Brooks was a trumpet player who played jazz in the 1950s with the Eric Dean orchestra and recorded during the 1960s original Jamaican ska era for producers Duke Reid, Sonia Pottinger and her husband Lindon, King Edwards, and Prince Buster.
Jerome "Jah Jerry" Haynes OD was a Jamaican guitarist and former member of The Skatalites.
Stranger Cole, also known as StrangeJah Cole is a Jamaican singer whose long recording career dates from the early days of ska in 1962 through to the present (2019).
Kenneth Lloyd "Ken" Khouri was a pioneering Jamaican record producer and owner of Federal Records, the first recording studio in Jamaica, which was sold to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong record label in 1981. He is credited by reggae historians for the birth of rocksteady in the 1960s. Rocksteady later mixed with Jamaican mento, a genre in which Khouri also had a pioneering role, leading to the creation of reggae music.
Count Lasher was the stage-name of Terence Parkins, a Jamaican singer and songwriter. Born in the mountainous parish of Saint Thomas, Lasher predominately utilized first rural, and then urban mento styles in his music, although in later years he recorded some ska and reggae singles. Successful and prolific in output, Count Lasher remains an overlooked figure in the history of Jamaican music.
Nyabinghi, also Nyahbinghi, Niyabinghi, Niyahbinghi, is the gathering of Rastafari people to celebrate and commemorate key dates significant to Rastafari throughout the year. It is essentially an opportunity for the Rastafari to congregate and engage in praise and worship. For example, on July 23rd of each year, a Nyabinghi is held to celebrate the birth of His Majesty, Emperor Haille Selassi I. During a Nyabinghi celebration men and women have different roles and expectations. Men are expected to remove any hair coverings, whilst women must keep their hair covered. A group of men typically organise themselves in a line or semi-circle and are assigned to beat the drums throughout. The remaining congregation continue to sing well known songs or 'chants', some of which are Hebraic scriptural verses that evidence the divinity of Haile Sellassie. For example, 'I have a little light in I and I'm going to make it shine, Rastafariiii, shine' and 'Holy Mount Zion is a holy place and no sinners can enter there, so let the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, of Rastafari'. Nyabinghi is a Rastafari tradition that promotes Rastafari unity, strengthens the Rastafari spirit with fellowship and raises the conciousnes and presence of Rastafafari in the heart of those in attendance. At some points passages of the bible are read. Rastafari recognise the significance of Jesus Christ, due to Haile Sellassie I fulfilling the teachings and prophecy of scripture.
References
- ↑ Olive Lewin "Rock it Come Over": The Folk Music of Jamaica 2000 Page 80 The first verse is sung by a chosen player: River bank Coverly River to the bank Coverly O yes Coverly One di deh Coverly Take him put him dung de alley After this verse, one stone is removed, and the player must remember the position of ...
- ↑ Lloyd Bradley Bass culture: when reggae was king - Page 98 2000 "Really, it's least surprising that mento, the original Jamaican music form, should come to the fore: Independence Day ... by Shenley Duffus, and trumpeter Baba Brooks' reworking of the old mento standard 'River Bank' into 'Bank to Bank'."
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