Studio One, one of Jamaica's most influential recording studios and labels, was founded by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd in the 1950s on Brentford Road, Kingston. His first recordings were made in 1963 and for the next 20 years, he would help reshape Jamaican popular music and propel it around the world.
Studios often play an important role in developing a sound and defining a genre. Think of the Funk Brothers at the heart of the Detroit-based soul label Motown Records, or Stax Records with house band Booker T and the MGs. You could also add in there the West Coast loose collective of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, members of which included bass maestro Carol Kaye and country icon Glen Campbell.
What links many of the musicians in these bands is their jazz, and sometimes classical, backgrounds. And Dodd did exactly the same when he set up Studio One. His first house band was the legendary Skatalites, whose line-up featured some of the top jazz musicians on the island including Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, Lloyd Brevitt, Jackie Mitoo, guitar maestro Ernest Ranglin and Lloyd Knibb. The latter musician told World Beat many years ago in Pattaya that he invented the "one drop" rhythm used in reggae whilst working with the band.
A recent compilation from Soul Jazz Records, Studio One Music Lab, reveals the links between Studio One's amazing output of hit records and the boom in imported US music that began in the 1950s, first by radio from US-based stations and then through imported vinyl records. New Orleans, according to the excellent liner notes by Steve Barker, "exercised the most influence on Jamaican musicians due to its irresistible danceability". The jazz scene was also heavily influenced by new trends in the US as well and had been since the era of dance bands in the 1940s.
In 1967, The Skatalites broke up and a new house band was formed, known as The Sound Dimension. Both house bands recorded visiting singers -- everyone from Prince Buster to Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Delroy Wilson, Bunny Wailer and Johnny Nash -- at a steady clip.
You can sample all these great artists on some other compilations but on this one, the musicians who provided the musical backing for others feature on their own tracks, sometimes with their own bands. The tracks, often B sides of singles, range from ska to dub.
Highlights include the ska stomper Glory To Sound by saxophonist Cedric "Im" Brooks ("a devotee of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders" says the liner notes), dub tracks Message From A Dub and Chainey Roots by Dub Specialist and The World Is A Ghetto by Brentford All Stars. Jackie Mitoo's funky keyboards feature on many tracks and to great effect on Lennie Hibbert's Go For Yourself.
Many of the songs show the links between US popular music -- some are covers of US soul and funk hits. Perhaps the most unusual of all is the cover of George Gershwin's Summertime by the blind harmonica player Roy Richards, who was sometimes called the "Jamaican Stevie Wonder".
But the standout for me features the most famous Jamaican jazz musician, guitarist Ernest Ranglin, who was also the resident guitarist at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London in 1964. The final track is Surfin' (Part 2), an early version of a track he released later in 1979. It's a spacious, dreamy track with simple guitar riffs and backing harmonies.
Music Lab is an apt title for a compilation on the amazing and very productive creativity of the musicians, singers, DJs, engineers and producers of Studio One on Brentford Road. It was a crucible, a key part in the development of ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub. The excellent compilation is full of surprises and delights, with not a single dud track. Highly recommended.
Soul Jazz has a huge back catalogue of Studio One releases and has released compilations that include albums on DJs, dub, lovers rock, rocksteady, reggae classics and featured artists like Jackie Mitoo. Well worth checking out.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
