Search - Don Drummond :: Best of Don Drummond

The reggae firmament is full of mad geniuses, but none of their life tales approaches the tragedy of the Skatalites' brilliant trombonist, Don Drummond, who died in a Jamaican insane asylum in 1969, after murdering his lover, the beautiful dancer Marguerite Mahfood. Until the band's revival of a few years ago, it could not recover from the blow. This collection of Studio One tracks features Drummond's mellow and sinuous instrument--recognized as one of the world's finest by leading American jazz artists--leading the legendary group of musicians who met as students at Kingston's famous Alpha Boy's School and later joined to record hundreds of tunes in an astonishingly brief period. Today's ska bands pursue a more frenzied, punkish pace, but the Skatalites and Drummond take their own sweet time here on classics like "The Reburial," the shimmering "Eastern Standard Time," "Roll On Sweet Don," and 14 others, giving listeners plenty of space to savor. --Elena Oumano