Conga player Larry McDonald happy to ‘rise to the occasion’

It’s a Thursday night at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, which means jazz, specifically Herbie Miller’s Jazz Night at the Blend Bar and Lounge, and the featured performer is the Kenroy ‘Shortman’ Mullings Quintet. Sitting in the audience is Larry McDonald, who flew into the island to collect the insignia for the Badge of Honour, which is being awarded to him by the Government.

McDonald and Miller, who is also director and curator of the Jamaica Music Museum, go way, way back and have a lot of love for each other and the music, which is a joy to behold. “Is him first carry me into a club,” Miller told The Sunday Gleaner, prompting laughter from both men, something they did a lot. “Larry is mi big brother,” Miller said affectionately of McDonald, who quietly turned 89 years old in June.

A master conga player and percussionist of international renown, McDonald shows what it means to “walk with kings and not lose the common touch”. Miller knows quite well the humility of his friend and sat in on the interview for a couple of minutes.

“Him tell you ‘bout Taj Mahal? Him tell yuh ‘bout Mexico ... Gil Scott-Heron ... the Skatalites ... NY Ska Orchestra?” Miller asked and continued by reeling off a list of legends, including Count Ossie, Tommy McCook, The Wailers, Ernest ‘Ernie’ Ranglin, and Toots and the Maytals, with whom McDonald played during his extraordinary career.

“Ahhh ... Count Ossie,” McDonald said with that faraway look in his eyes and a smile that spoke a thousand memories. “I never missed a Sunday ... because, you see ... by that time a certain person had acquired a car.”

“A VW,” Miller supplied, with that same smile. “And I carried Larry, his three drums, and a female friend of ours.”

They didn’t even try to explain how so many “passengers” fit in that VW every week.

The conversation returned to McDonald’s reason for being in Jamaica. Did he expect to receive the Badge of Honour?

“I was kinda surprised, but I won’t tell a lie ... I won’t say I didn’t think I deserved some kind of recognition, but I wasn’t expecting it. You see, when you are a conga player, you don’t expect very much,” he said simply.

“Tell me how many conga players you know who have been out there a tenth of the time that I have? And I have been out there since 65/66. I am the last man drumming. An American writer did a write-up of me and titled it ‘Last Man Drumming’.”

McDonald is indeed someone to celebrate in a huge way, and there are not-so-quiet rumblings in some quarters that he is worthy of nothing less than an Order of Distinction. He is credited with “helping shape the rhythmic foundation of ska, rocksteady, reggae, and Afro-Jamaican music, and his deep understanding of traditional Jamaican and African percussion has made him one of the country’s foremost cultural ambassadors”.

The octogenarian, who was born in Port Maria, has dedicated his life to preserving, promoting, and elevating Jamaican music and culture. He is ignoring the noise and is expressing his gratitude for the Badge of Honour. He still tours and gives thanks that he’s able to enjoy life to the fullest, doing exactly what he always wanted to do.

“I got jobs because I knew people and people like what I am doing, and I usually stay for a while. To be able to rise to the occasion ... it takes a lot because it’s a rough instrument,” the conga player said.

“I don’t like to look behind me because I look behind me and I don’t see nobody. I realised a long time ago that I may be the last of a breed who is really into this. When I am playing, that is me. When I sit there with my hands on the drum, I am me... until then I am just managing until the next time I can get to play.”

McDonald has a set of Tycoon drums with the tumba, the conga and the quinto, which are what “everybody plays”, but sometimes he has to dress it up.

“Maybe you can throw another pepper in the pot without bursting it. Maybe it will give you another taste without burning your mouth,” he said of his creativity.

McDonald, who worked with multi-Grammy Award-winning American blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal from 1974-79, shared that that was one of two gigs that set him on his way. He had been working in South Carolina with a band when they were fired because the leader threatened to kick the entertainment manager’s ass.

“And you really don’t want to be talking that kind of stuff down there in South Carolina when you look like we do,” McDonald said.

He met Ossie Brown, a Jamaican who was the road manager for Taj Mahal, through a girlfriend who worked at the tourist board in New York.

“He called one day and said, ‘Can you make a 12:30 flight tomorrow to San Francisco?’ Taj picked me up, and we walked straight into a rehearsal. He was one of the first persons to do reggae. He had done over Slave Driver and Johnny 2 Bad, and he was going on tour behind that album,” McDonald said.

And then Taj Mahal asked him to go to Jamaica to get Earl ‘Wya’ Lindo, also known as Earl ‘Wire’ Lindo, who was one of Bob Marley and The Wailers’ keyboard players.

“It didn’t hit me until I was on the plane that what I was going to do was to take one of the Gong’s musicians. I couldn’t do it without telling him. So I went up to the house and sat on the verandah. Eventually he came out and poured a little libation, and he said, ‘So wha’appen?’ I said, ‘Mi come fi Wya, yuh know. Taj Mahal sent me for Wya’. He said, ‘Taj is mi uncle.’ I had no idea they had met ... and there I was tying myself up in knots.”

McDonald’s other big gig was with Scott-Heron. He met his engineer, a guy who was always encouraging Scott-Heron to do reggae.

“They called me in to make the music sound like reggae, and I put my tracks on, but for the track to really sound like reggae, it needed the guitar, which is intrinsic,” McDonald recalled.

Ken Lazarus was his neighbour, and he took him to the studio, and he put on “reggae guitar”, but the lead guitar was still missing. After humming it in Lazarus’s ear, he played it, and they had the reggae sound they wanted. Scott-Heron and his team were shocked.

“It was a tune called Storm Music ...Ken laid the tracks for it. Gil then asked me to go on the road with him ... and that was for 27 years,” McDonald said.

Currently living in New York City, McDonald plays with The Skatalites, tours with dub band Subatomic Sound System, and is a vocalist and percussionist with the 20-piece NYC Ska Orchestra.

In January, he delivered the keynote at UC Santa Cruz’s 42nd annual Martin Luther King Jr Convocation.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com