Once a cornerstone of Jamaican music, the instrumental has long given way to hardcore dancehall rhythms with multiple artistes. Drummer Sly Dunbar believes there is a place in contemporary reggae for non-vocal music.

Dunbar and his long-time sidekick, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, team with keyboardist Steven “Lenky” Marsden on Project 1966, an instrumental album released in September by Marsden’s Diwali Records and VPAL Music.

“I grow up listening to The Skatalites an’ instrumentals. They may not be selling as much again, but it will come back,” Dunbar told the Jamaica Observer. “The deejays an’ singers doing dem thing, so it’s up to as musicians to put out as much instrumentals as possible.”

Dunbar made his name on instrumentals. The first song he played, Night Doctor, was a big hit in 1969; two years later, he was also on drums for Dave Barker and Ansell Collins’ Double Barrel which made the British Top 10.

While a member of The Revolutionaries, house band at Channel One studio, Dunbar played on MPLA, a militant salute to Angolan freedom fighters. The instrumental, he points out, is commercially viable again.

“Yuh hear dem on radio, television in commercials. What wi want to do is put out instrumentals so people can use dem,” he said.

This is the second instrumental album in a year featuring Marsden, following Self Taught. Lead musician in Buju Banton’s Til Shiloh Band, Marsden had massive success in 2002 with the exotic Diwali beat which drove Sean Paul’s Get Busy to number one in the United States.

On Project 1966, his Jackie Mittoo-inspired touches stand out on Buy Yuh Sum. Saxophonist Dean Fraser and keyboardist Q, Marsden’s son, shine on the jazzy It’s Coming.

Instrumental music made a comeback in Jamaica during the 1990s with musicians such as guitarists Dwight Pinkney and Maurice Gordon, Fraser and fellow sax man Tony Green, and trumpeter Mickey Hanson releasing well-received albums.

Most of Dunbar’s musical heroes recorded at the rival Studio One and Treasure Isle during the 1960s. They produced seminal instrumentals like Heaven Less, Death In The Arena, Rockfort Rock and Ranglin on Bond Street.

He is encouraging his colleagues to produce more projects like Self Taught and Project 1966.

“What wi mus’ try an’ do is push Jamaican music in all forms. It may not sell big straight away, but one day it will break out,” he said.