Don Drummond

 

I can't tell the story of Don Drummond…

Many stories have been told ,

and i’m always searching for more of them…

But the stories seems to have so many different

perspectives of Don Drummond..

This man is still a mystery..

 

I wanna tell about his music …

The music i love , and listen to all the time..

I’m so facinated by

the soul in his music ,

the sound that he produce ,

and the technical skills he had ..

 

He is absolutely the best trombonist ,i have ever heard …

He is so clean , and so smooth .

 And the fact that he played the trombone as the front instrument, really caught my attention..

The more i listen , the more i love it.

And my advice to everybody is , try to listen ,

try to really listen….

 

I’m so facinated by the difference of his productions ,

it tells me that he was constantly experimenting

with his music , and had a creative mind.

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Don was a learned musician ,

and did his music by the paper .

He gratuated from the Alpha boys school ,

with a very high level in music.

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A passioned musician on his own , in a time of change…

Radio stations was now playing american music.

And the jamaican musicians tried to imitate

the american popular music.

But they end up doing it in their own way, and invented their own style of music … and they called it “ska”

 

Don’s inspiration came from the american jazz, rhythm and blues, and the latin music from the south,

witch was already popular in the caribbean.

He admirred the american trombonist JJ Johnson.

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Don had ambitions , he wanted to be the best..

a story tell , that he was reading a magazine , about some of the american jazz musicians .

and said :

"i'm good like many of these guys, and better than some" 

 

Some of his productions are in jazz style , probaply some of the early recordings.

Some of them have a kind of african style.

Don did join the rastafarians in the hills ,for a late night jam session.

 

There is a kind of timeline in his music , from the jazz and blues tunes , to some of the later tough ,deep ska beats .

I believe Don developed the jamaican ska in those years.

 

His music is kind of simple , but it is a part of what it is .

Alot of his compositions is build by a melodic bassline , and only a few chords , some of them with only one.

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Stories tell that he never named his compositions ,

the producers did.

Fellow musicians say that he sometimes came up with several compositions , a day.

He was very productive , and have an impressive number of recordings , in the few years he was playing..

 

I made my discography just by listening , and when Don Drummond appear on a song as part of the backing band .. there is offen no doubt , you can hear him..

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 i will try to fill in my words on every track in the discography and when he is featuring..

 

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