Brass Ska
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The horn-section-forward, largely instrumental strain of ska in which a full brass front line, trumpet, trombone and saxophones, carries the melody, the riffs and the solos over the offbeat chop. Arrangements foreground fanfares, unison horn lines and cinematic themes borrowed from film scores and marches, with the rhythm section holding down a fast walking-bass shuffle. Big, bright and celebratory, it turns the dance into a brass showcase. This is ska at its most orchestral and horn-driven.
History
Brass-led ska was the Skatalites' stock in trade: schooled at Kingston's Alpha Boys School, players such as trombonist Don Drummond, saxophonists Roland Alphonso and Tommy McCook, trumpeter Baba Brooks and Lester Sterling built instrumentals around commanding horn lines, from the war-film theme "Guns of Navarone" to "Man in the Street." Byron Lee's Dragonaires packaged a slicker big-band brass ska for stage and export, and the tradition of the horn-forward instrumental fed directly into the ska-jazz revival decades later. Its emphasis on arranged brass gave Jamaican ska much of its enduring, cinematic grandeur.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Guns of Navarone(1965) — The SkatalitesSpotifyYouTube
- Man in the Street(1964) — Don DrummondSpotifyYouTube
- Phoenix City(1965) — Roland AlphonsoSpotifyYouTube
- Eastern Standard Time(1965) — The SkatalitesSpotifyYouTube
- Jamaica Ska(1964) — Byron Lee and the DragonairesSpotifyYouTube
- Confucius(1965) — The SkatalitesSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Heather Augustyn, Ska: An Oral History (2010)
- Lloyd Bradley, Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King (2000)
- David Katz, Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae (2003)