Names like Lynn Taitt, Jackie Mittoo, Jackie Jackson, Hux Brown, Earl “Chinna” Smith, Uzziah “Sticky” Thompson, Winston “Bo Pee” Bowen and Robbie Lyn are heavyweights of Jamaica’s music. But the country’s Generation Y know little about their accomplishments.

Mathias Liengme, a Swiss musician and producer, noticed this when he first visited Jamaica 10 years ago. He tries to combat this with Roots Architects — From Then ‘Til now, an album which was released in May by his Fruits Records.

“I wanted to shed light on the crucial role of the session musicians in the history of the Jamaican music industry. Usually reggae history is told in terms of singers, producers, or engineers, but no one really pays attention to those who actually play the music. And, more than playing, they compose and arrange the music,” said Liengme in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“The session musicians are the unsung heroes of Jamaican music, and I believe they deserve more recognition for their work. They were never mentioned on a 7-inch single, rarely on a LP, and most of the time wrongly credited or with no details. And today, in the streaming era, there’s no room to credit the musicians properly. So this project is about giving a little more recognition to the musicians who actually built the music in Kingston’s studios during the 60s, 70s and 80s. I gathered as many of these forgotten giants as I could find,” he shared.

The 31-year-old Liengme said he recorded 90 per cent of Roots Architects in 2017 at Mixing Lab and Small World studios in Kingston. It was completed at his home studio in Geneva, Switzerland.

Some of the musicians who worked on the album include guitarists Bowen, Ernest Ranglin, Stephen “Cat” Coore, Dwight Pinkney, Dalton Browne and Mikey Chung; Sly & Robbie; hornsmen Karl Bryan, Vin Gordon, Glen DaCosta, and Dean Fraser; Lyn, fellow keyboardists Ibo Cooper, Ansel Collins and Franklyn “Bubbler” Waul; Jackson, fellow bassists Boris Gardiner, Lloyd Parks and Flabba Holt; drummers Fil Callender, Mikey “Boo” Richards, and Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace.

A few have since died, which makes working on the album even more special.

“It was unbelievable. I felt like the luckiest musician on Earth. As a musician, getting the opportunity to meet, reason, and play with these legends was more than a dream come true. On a personal side, this project was for me the unique opportunity to approach a lot of these musicians. And it’s always a different relationship if you talk to a musician as a musician yourself or as a fan,” he said. “I’m really thankful for the time I shared with these legends. A lot of them are resting in Zion now, so I will always cherish the memories of my sessions with them and the teachings I was lucky enough to receive.”

A keyboardist, Liengme has idolised musicians from the classic rocksteady/reggae eras of the 1960s and 1970s since his youth. In 2013 he met Wallace in Geneva, and the drummer best known for his starring role in the 1978 movie Rockers, invited him to Jamaica to meet stalwart musicians such as Smith, a guitarist who has played on countless hit songs.

Through Fruits Records, Liengme has produced a number of compilation and solo albums featuring veteran artistes and musicians.