Jamming for Jackie Mittoo
Stories of Jackie Mittoo rocking the organ in the chapel at Kingston College (KC) are part of that school’s popular lore.
On Saturday, the legendary musician/arranger’s music filled the hallowed North Street hall. Keyboardists Tyrone Downie and Harold Butler (also KC old boys) led a rousing tribute to the respected Mittoo who died at age 42 in Toronto, Canada in 1990.
Members of the Kingston College Old Boys Association (KCOBA) honoured the trio as well as dub visionary Augustus Pablo, who attended KC in the 1960s.
Mittoo’s family, who reside in Toronto, was presented with a plaque and symbolic tie by the KCOBA. Downie, who recorded and toured with Bob Marley for five years, received two plaques and a tie.
Butler, a composer/arranger of songs like Beres Hammond’s One Step Ahead and Take My Love Forever by Cynthia Schloss, received a plaque.
For Downie, who left KC in fourth form during the early 1970s, it was an emotional homecoming.
“KC giving me an award…I feel like flying without wings,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
Downie paid tribute to Douglas Forrest — former head of the school’s music department — who had a big influence on his career.
“I know he would be proud, so too (music teacher) Barry Davis ’cause they loved this school and young people. ‘Dougs’ used to give me LPs to carry home, classical music. Bach, Beethoven, Mendelsson, Mozart. I appreciate that ’cause he made me love music,” he said.
At different stages, Downie and Butler were accompanied by fellow keyboardists Robbie Lyn and Franklin ‘Bubbler’ Waul, guitarists Maurice Gordon and Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, bassist Omar ‘Jallanzo’ Johnson, and percussionists Ras Reuben Gayle, Sangie Davis and Michael Cleghorn.
They performed well-received versions of Mittoo’s Darker Shade of Pale, Drum Song and Autumn Sounds.
Musicologists Clyde McKenzie and Kingsley Goodison spoke about Mittoo’s remarkable legacy and the importance of preserving it. His 91-year-old mother, Dorothy Mittoo Walker, thanked the KCOBA in a taped video from her Florida home.
The event was organised by Karen Morrison-Gayle of Bryck Rose Entertainment. Among those in attendance were producers Clive Hunt and Tony Owens, producer/singer Linval Thompson, singers Willi Williams, Leroy Brown and Clem Gordon, musician Addis Pablo (son of Augustus Pablo), Dr Patrick Dallas, president of the KCOBA, Ambassador Anthony Johnson, musicologists Michael Barnett and Roy Black, and Monty Blake of the Merritone family.
