Gordon Robinson | From dance hall to dancehall

It’s a widespread misunderstanding that Jamaican popular music originated from Mento.

Mento did predate Ska but its origins are rooted in Africa while Jamaican pop music came straight out of USA’s Jazz and Blues scene. Mento, another byproduct of slavery plus colonialism, that fused music from “home” (Africa) with European influences, came to prominence in the 1940s. Mento’s conception was akin to Patwa’s which resulted when Twi, from Ghana, was inserted into English.

Mento remains a profound Jamaican influence but not necessarily on Jamaican pop music. Mento isn’t Ska. It isn’t Rock Steady. It isn’t Reggae. And, perish the thought, it is NOT calypso. Mento bands, in particular the Jolly Boys, Rhumbakah and Tallawah Bands are still performing while the late, great Stanley Beckford did much to keep the beat alive.

But modern Jamaican pop music’s history was born out of intense competition among 1950s Sound System Operators whose best marketing tool was the “exclusive”. So, for example, Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd, while a farm worker, bought the latest Blues (aka. “Jump Blues”) recordings to bring home. Labels were often scratched off; new titles assigned; and records were played at dances or in Dance Halls as “reel exclusively yours”.

It wasn’t long before Coxsone invested in equipment and started recording his own Blues music which he called “Shufflebeat”. One of the earliest such recordings was Easy Snappin’, written and recorded in 1956 by Theophilus Beckford (with Clue J and the Blues Blasters). Easy Snappin’ ruled the dances until Coxsone finally released it in 1959. Beckford’s seminal piano playing on that record especially his emphasis on the “off-beat” was the seed from which Ska grew.

Coxsone told me that Ska came about because Dance Hall patrons complained Shufflebeat was too slow. So, starting with Beckford’s use of the boogie-woogie piano, New Orleans rhythm and blues style; adding a walking bass line and a guitar chop on the offbeat, voila, it sounded like “ska” so it became Ska. The Skatalites’ leader, Tommy McCook, was a huge New Orleans Jazz fan so horns played an integral role in their sound. Everybody played on the off-beat.

But soon, again according to Coxsone, dancing to Ska became too much exercise. Customers demanded something slower but not too slow. The first Rock Steady song I heard was Hopeton Lewis’ Sounds and Pressure (1966) that still featured a Ska-influenced syncopated rhythm. Then Take it Easy (also Hopeton Lewis) was full frontal Rock Steady. But Keith Scott, who, with Sam Mitchell, arranged and produced both songs at Federal Records, insists Roy Shirley “firsted” them with 1966’s classic Hold Dem produced by legendary Joe Gibbs.

Then, in 1969, Coxsone released a revolutionary song with a killer bass line and unique keyboard. Its beat came somewhere between Ska and Rock Steady but was very different. The song was Nanny Goat by Larry (Marshall) and Alvin (Leslie). There has been plenty squabbling about who coined the name “Reggae” but I’ve no doubt Nanny Goat was the genre’s origin.

The rest is, as they say, history!

Jamaican popular music originated in the Dance Halls and evolved due to patrons’ demands for “new” music not played on radio. Thus the Dance Halls created musical trends. Traditional media grudgingly and belatedly followed.

So I cringe when I hear today’s offerings called “Dancehall” as a genre. There’s no new beat I can discern. Jamaican music has become focused on lyrics shouted aggressively with scant regard for musical accompaniment. No biggie. Artistic expression evolves with the society it mirrors. My sole discomfort is Dancehall, as a genre, is a misnomer.

Since his unfortunate disappearance from Gleaner’s pages, my friend Tony Gambrill has published a monthly series of fascinating newsletters on forgotten Jamaican history. His 90th and 91st issues recalled a long forgotten publication Planters Punch. Tony found the publication in a “bohemian bookshop” in New Orleans but later discovered it was published in Kingston, edited by Herbert G. DeLisser, a former Gleaner Editor and prolific novelist. It was published annually from 1920s to 1940s when DeLisser died.

Tony’s 91st Newsletter includes:

“ Planter’s Punch, Volume 1, Number 7, 1927 , had on its cover a visual of Bournemouth Bath in Kingston with a caption noting its two baths: one freshwater and a second seawater which was surrounded by ‘shark-proof’ netting. The upper section of Bournemouth Bath contained a dance hall overlooking the pools with ‘the latest dance music supplied’.”

Some of Skatalites’ best live performances occurred at Bournemouth’s Dance Hall. Sound system giants like Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat; Duke Reid the Trojan; and King Edwards played Blues and Ska at Dance Halls like Bournemouth, Forrester’s Hall, Success Club, Chocomo Lawn, King’s Lawn, and Jubilee Tile Gardens. Dance Halls were Jamaican music’s lifeblood.

Somehow, starting in late 1970s/early 1980s, Dance Hall music gradually became Dancehall music. Sigh.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com