What's the musical connection between reggae and swing?

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Some of the basic elements of reggae seem awfully close to swing (slowed down). Is this obvious, or on the contrary, am I imagining things? It certainly wouldn't be a surprise.

― A Music Consumer, Sunday, 2 March 2003 23:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

There is sort of a link, vaguely, in that jump blues is one step from swing, which links to R&B, and that was the big source of the early Jamaican proto-reggae like ska and rocksteady. If you listen to Rosco Gordon, for instance (esp. No More Dogging), he's not so far from both poles.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 2 March 2003 23:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

as Martin said. records started to be made in Jamaica when suitable US R'n'B records started to dry up (as music changed in the US), and the soundsystems were basically forced into making their own. the emphasis in the beat started to change slightly after a while though, leading to ska as a specific style, separate to R'n'B...
i don't have enough R'n'B, but on tracks like Barbie Gaye's 'My Boy Lollipop' you can easily see where the ska beat comes from

― michael (michael), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think it has to be more than vague

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

mjemmeson iis way more kowledgeable abt this stuff than me, but i think radio is as important as records: as much as anything, swing evolved as a music for (live) radio, and the caribbean is totally within the ambit of many of the larger US radio stations

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Before ska emerged, swing/big bands traveled throughout the country and were the most popular form of musical entertainment. Some of the same musicians who played in these bands went on to develop and play in ska groups.

― oops (Oops), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

(to mark s's post)
oh definitely, the R'n'B sound was popular via the radio, and consequently what the sound systems played (along with some jazz). but sound systems seemed to have been the main method of music distribution among the poor in Jamaica, rather than radio or records, because of the lack of electricity and money)

also Calypso and Rasta Nyabinghi drumming were sometimes added to the mix at the same time (late 50s/early 60s) (although Rasta lyrical content wasn't recorded until the very late 60s, other than oblique Biblical references)

― michael (michael), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

(also re: radio - this is why some odd things were popular in Jamaica, for example country singers like Jim Reeves and Glen Campbell)

― michael (michael), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

but only "odd" after assumptions abt american racial-divide listening are projected onto black listeners not fromn america: jum reeves is also hugely popular in west africa (where it's records and not radio that carried his voice around)

he's popular bcz jamaican-nigerian ppl liked the sound of his voice and the way he sang (which isn't especially odd, since these are both grebt!!)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

How popular is country music in Jamaica? I get the impression it's really quite popular, particularly 60s/70s stuff, but it doesn't seem to be very well-documented in books / articles about Jamaican music. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Life and Grebt, freedom not yet?)

I recommend Ska Boogie: Jamaican R&B, the Dawn of Ska (Sequel Records). The difference between swinging the beat (with an emphasis on the two and four, a la Rosco Gordon, a Jamaican favorite) and ska-ing it was the difference between Bobby Aitken's "Never Never" and Busters All Stars' "South Virginia," a ska version of the same (Jamaican) tune. It was these session guys (many of them later Skatalites) who were the connection.

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 3 March 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

it's the kind of presence that always gets left OUT of the histories, as the dominant model of the history of popular music is that "black music" and "white music" existed in entirely disconnected cultural-politically spheres and only v.occasionally sparked into one another

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

1,000 volts of holt says yr tree is right there in the middle of the yard except for some reason no one ever sees it and walks around it without noticing that's what they're doing

of course country is considered neither "rude" nor "dread", so it possibly muddies up the stories we prefer to hear

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

... which is bizarre, because country music is packed full of rude (both senses) *and* dread (and other things too, obv).

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 3 March 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

i blame the clash

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 3 March 2003 16:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

... and of course swing and r'n'b share a lot with / spark off country too, blah blah.

Part of the point of this, though, is not to get to an infinitely confusing / useless everything-is-everything else position because the relative unpopularity of late 60s soul with Jamaican audiences was a major factor in the development of a Jamaican recording industry, I understand.

haha search: Champion Doug Veitch.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 3 March 2003 16:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thanks for the interesting responses. I am mostly unfamiliar with Jamaican music before reggae. What I've heard hasn't drawn me in, but I am feeling some historical curiositiy about it.

― A Music Consumer, Monday, 3 March 2003 16:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

That Ska Boogie CD is pretty great. I bought an interesting (bootleg? semi-bootleg?) CD of Jamaican doo-wop recently and that has its stellar moments, too.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 3 March 2003 16:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

New Orleans R&B had a strong influence on ska and early rock steady. Anything out of Orleans certainly swings.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 00:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't know how popular country music is in Jamaica, but there are recordings of Bob Marley doing "this train is bound for glory" (woody guthrie...okok not "country" exackly) and "one cup of coffee" (ernest tubb, methinks). I had a surreal experience once in a bar on the atlantic coast of central america, in a town that was very "caribbean", as opposed to latin american...sitting in a chinese restaurant, chickens running about on the floor, caribbean accents everywhere, and...jim reeves blasting over the tape player. 'course, dancehall reggae took over in the evening, which was cool, too. Anyway, it seemed surprising at the time.

― pauls00, Tuesday, 4 March 2003 01:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

I imagine there's country fans everywhere. I don't know if this counts, but Toots Hibbert's cover of "Country Roads" is classic. (John Denver wrote the song in Minneapolis, which makes it sorta his "Funkytown.")

― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 4 March 2003 05:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

five months pass...

Does anyone else think the beginning of Sun Ra's "Enlightenement" (on Jazz in Silhouette) sounds a lot like very slow reggae (rhythmically, anyway). Therefore: Sun Ra invented reggae.

― Al Andalous, Tuesday, 5 August 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

That should be a "?"

― Al Andalous, Tuesday, 5 August 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Reggae is more than just a single rhythmic characteristic.

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 23 August 2003 07:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

the relative unpopularity of late 60s soul with Jamaican audiences was a major factor in the development of a Jamaican recording industry, I understand

Excuse me? Where did you get the idea that late 60s soul was not popular in Jamaica?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 24 August 2003 14:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't think it was. Early 60s, hell yes, but Jamaicans didn't care much for the stuff that was coming out in the late 60s. That's probably why rocksteady ('67-'68-ish) sounds very similar to early 60s American soul.

― oops (Oops), Sunday, 24 August 2003 16:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

Dick Hebdige to thread!

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 24 August 2003 16:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

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