Jamaica

Traditional Music
Jamaican Maroons of Moore Town - the abeng horn at 0:28 or so, "Sankeys" at 1:50 or so, Maroon drummimg at 2:50

Christmas in the Jamaican Maroon town of Accompong

For more on the Maroons there's a mini-documentary on Isaac Bernard, speaker of Eastern Maroon Kromanti language here
Jamaican Kumina drums

Kumina Show/Party

Revival Singing in St. Ann's Parish

and here with drums:


Mento
Old school Jamaican mento, Theodre Miller on violin

More mento
(with the lead harmonica too quiet...) - Pepper Mento Band

The Jolly Boys are part of the recent mento revival

More Jolly Boys, from their recent album of covers


Reggae Precursors
US saxophonist Louis Jordan

US singer Fats Domino

Skanking to Byron Lee & The Dragonaires at Club Sombrero in Kingston, Jamaica, 1962

Millie Small's 1964 "My Boy Lollipop" - the first international ska hit

The original "My Boy Lollipop," Barbie Gaye's 1956 version
Mento influence in ska: a very young Bob Marley and a pennywhistle in "judge Not" (1962)

And apparently, the mystery singer "Girl Wonder," a female mento singer of the 60s, was in fact the future Rita Marley. Here she is singing "Cutting Wood"

Rocksteady
Ska began to slow down and get a more syncopated bass, spawning rocksteady, like in the Clarendonians' "Rude Boy Gone A Jail"

The "one-drop" bass line in rocksteady, from "No Good Rudie" by Justin Hinds & the Dominoes



Rocksteady could have a hard edge, as in "Shanty Town (007)" by Desmond Decker, with lyrics about the rude boys

Rocksteady became the soundtrack for the rude boys, as in the 1972 crime drama "The Harder They Come," with Jimmy Cliff