The Ska-talites

Jamaicas greatest band of all time...

These musicians was some of the innovators , pioneers and creators of the jamaican music .
The root of some of todays mainstream popular music.

When the music recording started in the late 50’s , there was a lot of different contalations of musicians ,

who played in the studio.
Instrumentals , and backing the vocalists

the music was played by different setups as :

Beverly’s all-stars

Duke Reid’s all-stars

The Studio One Band

Prince Buster’s all-stars

Randy’s all-stars

Drumbago all-stars

Cecil Lloyd’s Group

Karl Bryan’s Orchestra

The City Slickers

Lynn Taitt & the Comets

Baba Brooks Band

Don Drummond Four

Don Drummond’s all-stars

Don Drummond’s Group

Don Drummond & the Greenlanders

And more…

I dont know what was going on at that time , but i think the business men :

 

Doris Albertha Darlington - Darling

Clement “Coxone” Dodd - Coxone

Arthur “Duke” Reid - Treasure isle

Leslie Kong - Beverly’s

Justin “Philip” Yap - Top Deck

Vincent Chin - Randy’s

Prince Buster - Wildbells

was renting recording time at the only studio in Kingston at that time… Federal Studio …
And then picked up the avalible musicians in the area , and of course in a search for the best of them ,

to play on their recording , on their label…

Tommy mccook said that people kept asking , who is playing those furious beats ?

Clement “coxone” Dodd , selected the best of those musicians , and formed The Ska-taltes in 1963…

Band leader
Tommy McCook on saxophone

Rolando Alphonso on saxophone

Don Drummond on trombone

Johnny Moore on trumpet

Lester Sterling on saxophone

Lloyd Brevett on bass

Jerry Haynes on guitar

Lloyd Knibb on drums

Jackie Mittoo on piano

And that band was rocking the downtown clubs as the masters from 1963 to 1965

Tommy McCook was the band’s leader , but Don Drummond was the main composer and arranger , and with out a doubt the most talented musician of them all …

Also the reason why The Ska-talites never were the same , when Don got jailed…

The following years brought alot of reissued records and best of collections ..
Credited as The Ska-talites.

But many of the tunes was played by a lot of different musicians.

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There is a story, that offen painfully comes back to me …
The 1964 worlds fair ..
Jamaica’s own new music style , get's the chance to perform on stage in front of the whole world , and show the music to the world …

At that time The Ska-taltes was at their peak..
But Byron Lee & The Dragonairies was chosen to perform at the event.
Stories tell , that they were chosen because they were more upper class people .
A better image to show the world.
And the The Ska-talites was from the lower class , and they were drinking and smoking ..

What could have happened if The Ska-talites

had been on that stage ?

And it’s also kind of strange , that there are no video recordings of The Ska-talites performing .. ?
the island was aware of the impressive talent of that band…