Dub Not Thy Jazz?
Not since players like Mittoo, Ranglin and Lennie Hibbert has Reggae shown the kind of deep Jazz heritage found in ‘TreeSongs’, the debut alum from Abracadia.
Reggae instrumentals went towards dub instead, made by sound engineers who ran the studios and who didn’t focus so much on the Jazz side because they wanted the main creative role for themselves and their electronic sound effects.
It was assumed that most listeners cannot be bothered with serious music, like more people chuck a pizza in the oven than cook soulfood. Effort.
Dub engineering pioneers like Perry were pushing what serious musicians saw as electronic confectionary for the ears. But to be fair a lot of Jazz in the early dub period (late 60s early 70s) was a bit stuck in traffic looking for an exit from the Bird expressway. Freeform, electronic, super-technical, detuned, harmolodic, lots of experiments. There wasn’t much of a ledge for Reggae to latch onto.
There was just enough of a ledge though, with Miles. It is seldom recognised that early dub took a lot from Miles Davis’ electronic phase, albums like ‘On The Corner’ and ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘Get Up With It’.
The true legends of Dub music are not just engineers like Perry, Tubby and Scientist (the holy trinity of Dub), but musically visionary (soundonary?) musical arrangers like Yabby You and Keith Hudson.
Yabby You is my personal favourite reggae arranger, never better than with the Prophets on ‘Conquering Lion’, very possibly the greatest reggae album of all time (!), or with Michael Prophet on ‘Serious Reasoning’, one of my top three lead vocal reggae albums of all time. He also produced one of the best Dub albums of all time: ‘Beware’, as well as other massive offerings. The organic truth of the music of Yabby You and the Prophets would always outshine the gaudy monotony of the nothing-but-electro-bleepers.
Keith Hudson was different again. A Londoner, like me. Well sophisticated. My ‘aunty’ Liza did BV’s for him, told some good stories. I think Keith Hudson deserves huge credit for bringing so much old blues into reggae. The old Blues number ‘House of the Rising Sun’ goes right back to the 1890s, nobody knows who started it. And Big Bill Broonzy’s ‘Baby Don’t You Tear My Clothes’ goes back to the 1920s or 30s. Both these old blues numbers get a deep roots Dub treatment on Hudson’s legendary ‘Pick A Dub’ album, another of my personal top five Dub picks, along with his majestical ‘Flesh of My Skin’ album.
But as the 70s progressed, most dub failed to find space for the deep soul-diving Freddie Hubbard type of groove that was getting into its stride on the Jazz side, influencing the soul players like Leroy Hutson and the rest. Jamaica’s sound engineers feared that letting in the Jazz would lead to musicianship eclipsing the sound effects.
Because of that, no hot house community of serious Modern Jazz Roots Reggae musicians was encouraged or enabled to thrive in Jamaica in the 70s. The world was deprived of that blessed wonder; instead we had lots of beeps and whirrs as a soundtrack on a roadtrip to an increasingly dystopian unreality, a mechanical taxi ride through mickey-mouseville to plinky plonky town.
I was a serious Rasta in the 70s/80s, and it was easy to foresee today’s youth’s problems. I didn’t like the way things were headed and did my best in the education field for 30 years before now switching back to my strongest hand: the griot’s totem of music and words.
The music on the ‘TreeSongs’ album is a reminder that Jazzy doesn’t have to mean coked up and tense. Jazzy can mean mellow as herbal tea. Not thousands of notes played fast (yawn). That’s not the essence of Jazz at all. This is.
For more on all topics to do with Abracadia and its work, don’t forget to check Abracadia’s weekly spoken word offering at the ‘Bit Of Soul Podcast’. Come and say hi, pass by for a try. Be great to see you there. Just roll up anytime to listen, chill and reason at the lush and refreshing oasis that is Abracadia.
Until such time - In Ubuntu
Remi