COMPOSER and trombonist Don Drummond will take centre stage at the fifth annual Reggae/Black History Month Grounation series scheduled for the Lecture Hall of the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, beginning on Sunday, February 7.

According to director/curator of the Jamaica Music Museum, Herbie Miller, the series — dubbed Ungle Malungu Man: Musings on Don Drummond — aims to determine and evaluate the importance and the effects of the composer’s musical, spiritual, and socio-political legacy on popular Jamaican music today, not only as entertainment but also as a liberating sound.

It is scheduled to run for four Sundays (Feb 7, 14, 21 and 28).

“In spite of being found guilty for murder and incarcerated as a criminal lunatic, in his best mental state, much of Don Drummond’s music and character exuded a liberating ethic. His personality and his music is a manifestation of his Afro-Jamaican experience and his music functions first and foremost as a conduit for aesthetic, spiritual and social liberation within that context,” said Miller.

Presentations and musical performances relevant to the theme will feature leading personalities, including Dr Christopher Charles, who will launch Heather Augustyn’s book, Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World’s Greatest Trombonist; philosopher Dr Earl McKenzie; psychiatrist Professor Freddy Hickling; and cultural historian/political scientist Dr Clinton Hutton. The series will also feature poets Dr Kwame Dawes, Prof Lorna Goodison, Jerry Small, Raymond Mair and Poet Laureate Prof Mervyn Morris.

Local and foreign ethno-musicologists and musicians will contemplate the significance of Drummond and his music while trombonists and singers will do interpretations of Drummond’s music. They include two of the world’s leading trombonists Steve Turre and Delfeayo Marsalis, along with Andre Murchison, The Wareika Trombone Quartet, featuring Nambo Robinson, Romeo Gray, Barry Bailey and Kemar Miller as well as the legendary toaster Big Youth.

Drummond was one of the original members of The Skatalites, and composed many of their tunes including

Eastern Standard Time, Heavenless andMan In the Street.

He murdered his lover, exotic dancer Margarita Mahfood, on New Year’s Day, 1965. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to the Bellevue Asylum where he died at age 35.