In memoriam Style Scott

Dub Syndicate feat. Luciano: "One in a Billion"

RIP Lincoln Valentine "Style" Scott, April 29, 1956 – October 9, 2014.

Monty Alexander at the Detroit Jazz Festival 2015

I met Monty Alexander on Woodward Avenue, DJF 2015.

On Labour Day 2015, Mary and I got a chance to see, hear and meet the legendary jazz pianist Monty Alexander on the streets of Detroit, where he was performing a brilliant combination of jazz, reggae, ska, mento (and more) at the 36th annual Detroit Jazz Festival. He brought the Harlem Kingston Express with him. Officially, the band is a combination of a jazz trio and a reggae quartet but what do these words even mean when all the players are virtuosos, and at the centre is Monty Alexander, who can riff on any note, at any time, and get back into the groove and always have it all make perfect sense?

At a post-show interview in one of the tents lining Woodward Avenue, Monty answered questions posed by Michael G. Nastos from WEMU radio (outta Ypsilanti), and members of the audience. He talked about his musical education (he taught himself how to "play with the piano" from the age of three), about his early influences, about the musicians he performed with, about the record companies he worked with in the 1960s. He had many fascinating stories - like others in the audience, we took some notes. The most important thing he said, I don't I think I'll ever forget.

Monty said that wherever he goes, and he emphasized that this is true for almost any musician raised in Jamaica, they carry with them wherever they go, in their blood, the rhythm of the island - and that rhythm is mento, the folk songs that they grew up singing and playing. This is a significant statement. There's something very powerful about mento music and Monty Alexander knows it. If you listen to mento, you'll hear it too. It is Jamaica. It's the first big musical key to a very musical place.

His repeated refrain, from the main stage and again in the interview tent, was his love for his home island, with such a rich musical heritage. He grew up surrounded by great musicians playing great music. He spoke highly of the legendary Skatalites Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, and the immortal Don Drummond. He really lit up when he spoke about his friend Ernest Ranglin, the great jazz/ska/reggae/mento guitarist with whom he's made so many fantastic records. And when the interviewer called Harry Belafonte's music "calypso", Monty pointed out that most of the songs that Belafonte recorded on his million-selling album Calypso were mentos from Jamaica.

It's a distinction that must be studied to be understood, but it can be summed up (rather obliquely) in the conundrum that mento singers and players in the fifties called their music calypso "to avoid confusion". The tourists loved the music, which they mistook for calypso, and no one corrected them. The confusion persists to this day, and I may be as mixed-up about it as anyone. (More on this conundrum in a future blog post.)

At the Detroit Jazz Festival, Monty Alexander described the thrill of growing up at a time when he was able to see so many famous and influential American jazz artists perform in Kingston. They'd visit Jamaica when they toured the Caribbean and South America. What they were doing inspired him as a young person, a really young person. As a preteen, and early teenager, seeing Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Nat King Cole made him want to emulate them.

By his late teens, he and his family were in America, where he worked in jazz clubs, first in Miami and soon all over the country, constantly playing. He heard, met, and worked with so many of the greats, like Oscar Peterson and Duke Ellington. He spoke with gratitude that he was able to steadily develop and flourish, and he credited the older musicians around him, whose personal references helped him along the way:  e.g. Frank Sinatra, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and many others.

The interviewer, Nastos, briefed us on Monty's recordings on Pablo, Concord, and MPS, particularly mentioning the quality of all MPS output - excellent recordings on ultra-durable vinyl that still retain their magic. Monty told us that Oscar Peterson recommended him to MPS, and the sessions were recorded in the living room of label boss Hans Brunner-Schwer, an intimate and relaxed atmosphere. Someone in the audience asked him about the differences between recording back then and the process today. He loved that question, and his answer was more nuanced than this summation: advancements in recording technology are a complete wonder, but many of today's producers rely too much on technological "tricks". Sometimes that can cost the music its soul. Dedicated musicianship is the best foundation. (Spoken like a true jazz musician.)

Another audience member asked about the Jamaican trumpeter Dizzy Reece. I don't know much about Dizzy Reece, beyond that he attended the Alpha Boys School in Kingston, where so many fantastic Jamaican musicians trained, and that he made a really fine album called Blues in Trinity (1958). I'm not sure I understood Monty's answer 100%, but I think he said that Dizzy was trying to distance himself from his Jamaican heritage at around the same time that American jazz musicians were delving into Caribbean sounds, citing Charlie Parker's version of "Sly Mongoose" (!) Monty Alexander, whatever else he is doing, never turns away from the Caribbean. He celebrates his Jamaican heritage every time he plays. And that is "upfull and right".

By honouring his roots and, as he said, following his parents' advice to "stay out of trouble", Monty Alexander has built a brilliant career spanning more than 50 years of music. Humble, funny, and friendly, he could've talked for hours. He's a font of music history, who remains totally tuned in.

The entire time that Monty played and talked, I sat there smiling from ear to ear, like the other dude in this video:

Monty Alexander: Jamento (Pablo, 1978)

Monty Alexander pon de DJF golf cart, Jefferson Avenue, Detroit.

“Up above my head"

"I hear music in the air..."

I love to explore chains of influence in music, especially by going on "version excursions", tracking a song through different versions over the years, across genres and continents. Jamaican music is all tangled up in such chains of versions - partly, I suppose, because copyright has never been enforced in Jamaica the way it has been in North America, but mainly because the audience for Jamaican music delights in "version" as the audience for jazz delights in standards.

As do I. For me, versions are a great way to learn about music - all kinds of music, because these excursions do not always travel along obvious and predictable lines. Unexpected genres sidle up to each other in surprising ways. It's hard to tell why songs get covered worldwide, over and over, by many different musicians, but they're certainly getting easier to access. Via YouTube, the chains of songs I'll be able to post for you on this site could get quite extensive. If each new version has something interesting to contribute to the musical imagination, it's good for the excursion. So with your indulgence, we can listen and compare.

Now, if we think about it logically, a version excursion should proceed mostly in chronological order, starting with the "original" (or as close to an original as can be found), and then it meanders through dubs and covers, re-voices and remixes. But to be true to the process of musical discovery, I must admit that in most cases I've learned about an original only because of a cover version. Or I've heard and loved the dub version before finding the vocal version. Or I learned to appreciate the album mix only after hearing the remix (or, as one remixer put it, the "re-fix"). And I may as well say that the first version explorations I ever embarked on were searches, back in the 1970s and 80s (i.e. before the internet!) for the originals of the three reggae songs covered by the Clash:  Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves", Toots & the Maytals' "Pressure Drop" and Willi Williams' "Armagideon Time".  (More on all that some other time.)

So on this first version excursion here on Sly Mongoose, I'd like to align the songs for you as I found them - a series of accidental zig-zags. It'll be a reverse-chronological excavation, digging out just a tiny shard of a song. I'm going to focus on a phrase, both lyrical and musical, which I first heard in reggae and dub music, a phrase that originally comes from African-American gospel music. It's a beautiful couplet in its lyric form, and as a song, it has rippled out in all musical directions.

Before I ever noticed that this significant and powerful phrase connects the songs you're about to hear, I was just doing what I do every day, playing the music of my favourite Jamaican (and Jamaica-centric) artists casually and persistently on my home stereo. It's the best!

Let's get to it ~ backwards version excursion ~ go!

Adrian Sherwood

"Dennis Bovine, Parts 1 & 2" 
[NB: violin by Filip Tavares #reggaewithstrings #dubwithstrings]
Becoming A Cliché / Dub Cliché (Real World, 2006)

The song title is obviously a pun on the name of the great British reggae guitarist, bassist, and producer Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell, and the subtitle "(Tribute to Blackbeard)" makes it clear that this is an homage and not a put-down. When you get out the magnifying glass to read the credits in the liner notes, you see that the vocals are credited to Dennis Bovell himself.

"Part 1" opens with a Tarzan yell and the mesmerizing vocal kicks right in, a reggae-inflected rendition of the significant phrase:

"Up above my head, I hear music everywhere
Coming dreader than dread, I feel the rhythm everyday"

When I first heard "Dennis Bovine", I didn't remember the source song ("Music In The Air") and how it's Bovell that's singing it. Not that it was all that hard to track down; I just didn't remember.

Bovell is fairly prolific as a musician and producer. He's released a few albums in his own name, and under the name Blackbeard (the great I Wah Dub, 1980), some of which I used to have on home-recorded cassettes. (!) His work that I know and love the best, and bought on vinyl in the olden days, is his work as a producer with The Pop Group and the Slits, and his bass playing on and co-production of Linton Kwesi Johnson's albums. Such great records!

But before he did any of that, Dennis Bovell played guitar and sang in the late 70s British reggae group Matumbi. He sings lead vocals on "Music In The Air". I was never a big fan of Matumbi; I preferred my reggae rootsier and harder, especially back then. But "Music In The Air" is a really good song.

It was originally released as a 12" single in 1977 on the Matumbi Music Corp. label. I've never seen it. I encountered the song because it was included on the Matumbi album called Seven Seals (Harvest, 1978), which I used to play on college radio back in the 80s. Pictured below in the video is the label of Matumbi's 1979 U.S. release Point of View, which also featured "Music In The Air", this time as the second last track on the album.

Matumbi
"Music In The Air"
Point of View (EMI, 1979)

Up above I head, I hear music in the air 
(I hear music in the air)
Up above I head, I hear music in the air 
(I hear music in the air)
Up above I head, I hear music in the air 
(I hear music in the air)
And it makes I believe
I said it makes I believe
I really do believe
There is a Zion somewhere
I must enter Zion someday

Up above I head, I hear singing in the air 
(I hear singing in the air)
Up above I head, I hear singing in the air 
(I hear singing in the air)
Way up above I head, I-man hear singing in the air 
(I hear singing in the air)
And it makes I believe
I said it makes I believe
That's why I believe
I'll enter Zion someday
I must enter Zion someday

Once I found the source of the phrase in Matumbi, I foolishly thought that I'd come to the "original" version, and I was proud of my accomplishment.

And then one fine night, while hanging out at home with some friends, surrounded by my beloved records, I was playing Adrian Sherwood's Becoming A Cliché, as is my wont. When the song "Dennis Bovine, Part 1" started up, my friend Jim, who's really not a reggae or dub fan, heard that phrase and said: "That's Sister Rosetta Tharpe." He had identified the "original".

Click play for the revelation:

Sister Rosetta Tharpe
"Up Above My Head There Is Music In The Air"
Gospel Train (Mercury, 1956)

What a song! What a voice! What an electric guitar sound! Of course Jim, who is an adept of early rock'n'roll, knew this memorable singer and guitarist that I'd never heard of before. Sister Rosetta Tharpe is one of the largely unsung (!) but vitally important foremothers of popular music.

Quick clicks over to Wikipedia reveal that the original version of "Up Above My Head" is actually a duet that Rosetta did with Marie Knight, back in the 1940s, supposedly before there even was rock'n'roll officially.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight 
"Up Above My Head" 
(Decca, 1949)

Propelling our version excursion onwards, here are four more renditions. Two of them follow the dual lead vocal style of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight, trading repeating lines. "Poor old" Johnnie Ray is paired with Frankie Laine, and 20-year-old Rod "The Mod" Stewart back and forths with Long John Baldry in a rousing version. In 1964, New Orleans trumpeter Al "The Round Mound of Sound" Hirt sings lead and really swings his trumpet solo. And then, Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley includes it in a 1968 gospel medley (of which the link below provides only the 44 seconds when he's actually singing "Music In The Air".

Frankie Laine & Johnnie Ray with Ray Conniff & his Orchestra

Long John Baldry & Rod Stewart

Al Hirt

Elvis Presley

Once you immerse yourself in the glory of this song, you may just start to hear it all over the place... up above your head... in the air. You may soon start to recognize it everywhere:

The Trammps

"Disco Inferno" 

(Atlantic, 1976)

At about 2 minutes, 23 seconds in:

"Up above my head I hear music in the air (I hear music!)

That makes me know there's a party somewhere!"

So sweet! So profane! So 70s! "Satisfaction came in a chain reaction!"

Next stop on this excursion is up in the air, yet-to-be determined as a true version... it has only half the musical phrase, with none of the lyrics, but... could this be a version of "Up Above My Head" too?

Beastie Boys, featuring Santigold
"Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win"
HotSauceCommitteePart Two (Capitol, 2011)

A good version excursion never really ends. Another link in the chain is bound to turn up.

Why Sly Mongoose?

Listen to the story why mongoose fly from Jamaica

Listen to the story why mongoose fly from Jamaica

Mongoose, the newspaper reported

Jumped into bed with the preacher’s daughter

Baptise her with his holy water

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Mongoose went into Bedward’s kitchen

Shook up one of his fattest chicken

That’s the reason he fly from Jamaica

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Mongoose fly from Jamaica

Slide right over down to Cuba

Wouldn’t stop til he reach America

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now the world know your name

Brother mongoose, now the world know your fame

Mongoose told his high brown mama

Go away gal get another papa

I love your sister a whole lot better

Slide mongoose
(Sam Manning version, 1925)

"Sly Mongoose" is a calypso standard, probably of Trinidadian origin.

My favourite version is the first vocal version that was ever recorded.* It’s the Sam Manning single from 1925. Although Sam himself was Trinidadian, his version of the song is firmly set in Jamaica, including a reference to Alexander Bedward "the flying preacher", a historical Jamaican of legendary proportions.

"Sly Mongoose" was first recorded, in an instrumental version featuring piano and violin, by Lionel Belasco (another Trinidadian) and so he held the copyright on the tune. After Sam Manning sang it in 1925, lyric versions began to accumulate, and variations in the lyrics crept in -- sometimes becoming simpler, sometimes more complicated. There's a version from 1935 by the Nassau String Band (Bahamas),  and Lord Invader's 1946 version -- which is also an account of a calypso battle. American jazz performers, such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Parker all recorded their "Sly Mongeese", because he slid over there too.

Original Jamaican music first came to be recorded in the 1950s, when it was called mento, and sometimes calypso ("to avoid confusion" -- because calypso became so popular, especially in the United States, and the mento singers and players wanted to capitalize on that, and not to stress their differences). Many different Jamaican performers have recorded different versions of "Sly Mongoose", a.k.a. "Slide Mongoose". The lyrics differ radically from one version to the next, but none of the genuinely Jamaican versions of "Sly Mongoose" that I’ve heard explicitly mentions Jamaica like Sam Manning does.

I love this song. Mento is an exuberant form, and this song is a particularly rambunctious mento.

Like so much mento and reggae (and calypso too, I suppose), the lyrics evoke a tangible reality but multiple meanings ripple away from the everyday scenario. In this case: a mongoose steals a chicken from a kitchen, but the song simultaneously alludes to all sorts of things that are harder to put your finger on  – religious overtones (holy water!), sexual innuendo (holy water, indeed), allusions to current or not-so-current events (Bedward the preacher), satire of manners (the racial and sexual dynamics of Mongoose’s relations with his “high brown mama”) and characteristically Caribbean surreality like the mongoose flying, or sliding, across the sea, from island to island to the continental USA. Manning’s version of the song (recorded in New York City, like most early calypso) includes America, which is such an important part of the story of Jamaican music.

The Sly Mongoose is a precursor to Bob Marley, an unofficial ambassador for the music, people, and vibe of the Caribbean in general and Jamaica in particular.

That's why "Sly Mongoose" is the theme song and mascot of this music blog.

Reproduction of Okeh Records catalogue, from the liner notes to
Sam Manning Volume 1: Recorded in New York 1924-1927
(Jazz Oracle, 2002)
"#65008 Sly Mongoose/Brown Boy: Both sung by Sam Manning, Accomp. by Cole Mentor Orchestra"

*more on this in future posts 

Welcome to Sly

Welcome to Sly Mongoose, my music blog.

I am a lifelong reggae fan, and this blog will mostly be about reggae and various musical genres related to reggae - including mento (Sly Mongoose is a mento song), Jamaican R&B, American R&B, ska, rocksteady, dancehall, dub and all things dubby, cod reggae, punk rock, and especially, post-punk, which I suppose is my second favourite genre. These are my main areas of interest, the grooves that occupy my brain and dominate my home stereo.

I am a Canadian of European descent, born and bred in Windsor, a small industrial/post-industrial city across the river from Detroit, one of the greatest cities in the world - the place where I saw Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1978, at the age of 15. I have been a serious reggae fan ever since. Bob Marley was my introduction to the music of Jamaica, but over time, I’ve learned that he’s just one (big!) name on an incredibly long list of great musical artists from that small island. 

I’ve never been to Jamaica, or much of anywhere, really. I simply love the music. Jamaican history and culture are fascinating to me, but I’m not an expert. So I encourage input from any possible reader out there. Especially welcome are corrections to any lyrics that I post. (There's already a lot of wrong lyrics on the internet!) As an English grad who loves language and poetry, I'm going to examine song lyrics; it's inevitable. But honestly, I'd appreciate any clarification of cultural idiom or any other relevant facts or stories that anybody might be willing to contribute. If it revelates the music, I want to know about it.

My love of music is broad; my love of Jamaican music is boundless. Posts will mix news and grooves. I’m only an amateur accumulator, more haphazard than a serious music collector ought to be, really, so I don't expect to talk in any detail about vinyl and records and such. Maybe occasionally showing off a particular favourite funky old 45 or record cover - I like LP cover art as much as the next music-nerd or aesthete. LPs are beautiful and I'm glad they're making a come-back, but I like any and all formats for music.

I'm happy to say that most of the songs I've been wanting to write about for Sly Mongoose are already up on YouTube or elsewhere. My posts will always include links so you can hear for yourself whatever I'm trying to say about them. Reading and listening (especially to dub) go together!

I love to DJ because I get to share the music that I love with friends and strangers. Now I'm gonna try to blog about music, because after listening and researching and thinking about it for so long, I think I've got a few interesting ideas and musical observations worth discussing. All I've gotta do is write them down. Stay tuned.

Lyrics to Sly Mongoose, 1925

Sly Mongoose lyrics (Sam Manning version)

Listen to the story why mongoose fly from Jamaica

Listen to the story why mongoose fly from Jamaica

Mongoose, the newspaper reported

Jumped into bed with the preacher’s daughter

Baptise her with his holy water

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Mongoose went into Bedward’s kitchen

Took up one of his fattest chicken

That’s the reason he fly from Jamaica

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Slide mongoose, now your name gone abroad

Mongoose fly from Jamaica

Slide right over down to Cuba

Wouldn’t stop til he reach America

Slide mongoose

Slide mongoose, now the world know your name

Brother mongoose, now the world know your fame

Mongoose told his high brown mama

Go away gal get another papa

I love your sister a whole lot better

Slide mongoose