Twenty years after the death

Twenty years after the death of its high priest, reggae still informed the vocabulary of music. Reggae had so thoroughly infiltrated pop, rock, hip hop and electronica, we hardly noticed it any more. Still don't.

And if it isn’t in the music itself – the bass lines, off-accent drumming, choppy guitars – then it's in the attitude reggae producers such as Lee Perry, King Tubby, Clement Dodd and others brought to what was possible in a studio. Yes,Bob Marley may be gone -- and Peter and so many more -- but the musical message they brought lives on everywhere.

Well, almost everywhere.

No one seriously expects classical musicians to explore reggae riddum (although there’s no reason why they shouldn’t and the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra had a decent stab at it) and jazz was particularly tardy in tuning in. Certainly down the years there were jazz musicians who tuned to reggae, most notably sax player Oliver Lake who in 1978 (around the time of Bob's Kaya) recorded the track Change One, which had an unmistakable Caribbean influence.

Lake, who co-founded the Black Artists Group in St Louis in 1968 after being inspired by Chicago’s AACM, always had an interest in Caribbean music, but a trip around the islands in '80 confirmed for him there was a rhythmic pulse worth delving into seriously.

He formed Jump Up, a lively jazz-dance band which took off into reggae and back-to-Africa styles. Throughout the early and mid Eighties, Jump Up (in vibrant multi-coloured stage outfits in the manner off the Art Ensemble of Chicago) were something of a sensation and even now their self-titled debut and Plug It albums are worth tracking down.

However Lake also played in the World Saxophone Quartet and other projects which became more successful so Jump Up withered and faded.

Bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma also explored reggae around the same time and UK saxophonist Courtney Pine, who grew up on the stuff, always used it as a springboard.

There have been others too -- London’s Jazz Jamaica was more JA-UK-MOR than jazz however – but surprisingly few.

Most visible has always been guitarist Ernest Ranglin, the man many say invented ska in Coxsone Dodds' Jamaican studio in the late Fifties.

In '59 Ernest Ranglin recorded the young Bob Marley, but his most visible ska hit was My Boy Lollipop with Millie Small in '64.

Ranglin told me ska never had the opportunity to be taken further because the producers wanted to keep hits coming by not messing with the choppy, addictive formula. So he headed to London and Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, and to this day insists he is a jazz musician, but one with a foot in reggae. He toured with Jimmy Cliff in the Seventies and latterly recorded excellent reggae-conscious jazz albums: Below the Bassline from '97 featured pianist Monty Alexander and Memories of Barber Mack from the following year had Sly Dunbar on drums.

Ranglin has the reggae spirit within him.

And so does Alexander, whose Goin' Yard in '01 completed a trilogy of reggae-jazz recordings which began with Stir it Up from '99 where he played Bob songs, and Monty Meets Sly and Robbie. Alexander incorporates nyabinghi rhythms, melodica, the breezy JA-vibe and fat-bottom bass into his jazz-reggae and never sounds anything less than authentic, and unique.

Should any hardcore jazz head doubt Alexander‘s credentials, we need only note the Jamaican-born pianist also played with Milt Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins.

Goin’ Yard, recorded live in Pittsburgh, is at its best when he dug into Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown, and creates epics out Marley's Could You Be Loved and Exodus, the latter opening with him weaving into the melody via the famous theme to the movie of the same name.