Jackie Mittoo: Original beat-master

UNSUNG

Howard Campbell

Friday, February 24, 2012

In commemoration of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence from Britain, the Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment section recognises 50 persons who have made significant, yet unheralded contribution to the country’s culture. Today, we feature the fifth in the series, musician Jackie Mittoo.

WHEN the sensational Sleng Teng beat was released in 1985, it gave birth to a flood of keyboard/producers who call the shots in dancehall to this day. Twenty years before the Sleng Teng, a pianist/organist named Jackie Mittoo called the shots.

Mittoo, who died from cancer in Toronto in 1990, is the original beat-master of reggae music. He played on or arranged many of the timeless rhythms of the 1960s, several of which have been sampled by contemporary dancehall producers and artistes.

He was an original member of the Skatalites, joining that band while he was a teenager and still a student at Kingston College (KC). It was in the KC chapel that Mittoo fine-tuned his skills on the piano and organ, preparing him for a prolific career that took off at Studio One in the mid and late 1960s.

Mittoo's distinctive sound can be heard on groundbreaking songs like Nanny Goat by Larry and Alvin, Moving Away (Ken Boothe) and the instrumental Real Rock. One of his greatest admirers is drummer/producer Sly Dunbar, who rates Mittoo as a 'gifted musician'.

"He was very creative, Jackie Mittoo single-handedly developed the sound at Studio One. He had a piano style that was different from anything in those days," Dunbar said.

Though he continued to work with top performers, Mittoo's output declined considerably in the 1970s after he moved to Canada. By the 1980s when computerised dancehall took over, Mittoo and many of his contemporaries were all but forgotten in Jamaica.

In 2004, Jamaica's top musicians including Dunbar and jazz pianist Monty Alexander paid tribute to Mittoo on the cover album, A Tribute to Reggae's Keyboard King: Jackie Mittoo which was released by VP Records.

Tomorrow, the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association will recognise Jackie Mittoo's immeasurable contribution to the country's music during its annual awards ceremony at Emancipation Park in St Andrew.