Dean Fraser recently donated one of his saxophones to Trench Town Culture Yard Museum, a gesture the veteran musician said was long overdue.

Fraser, who is from the Kingston community that produced a number of legendary artistes, including Bob Marley, Alton Ellis, and The Heptones, presented the saxophone in October to Shawlet Skeen, office manager and tour guide at the facility.

“This is something I should have done earlier, this is something that I’ve always wanted to do. This is my playground, this is where I grew up and one of the surroundings that shaped me into the musician I am today. I am very much elated,” he said.

Marley and his family lived on the compound of what is now Trench Town Culture Yard Museum during the 1960s. It is the inspiration for some of his most famous songs including Trench Town Rock, No Woman No Cry, and Concrete Jungle.

Several items that once belonged to the reggae legend are in the museum, including a guitar, a bed, and the shell of his Volkswagen van.

Marley died from cancer in May 1981 at age 36.

The 67 year-old Fraser grew up on Fourth Street in Trench Town. He remembers watching Ellis, The Wailers, Delroy Wilson, and Ken Boothe participating in impromptu tenement yard jams throughout the area.

Those informal music sessions inspired him to become a musician. Fraser’s initial music lessons came in Trench Town with teacher Babe O’Brien, whom he considers one of his biggest influences.

In the 1990s, he recorded two albums — Dean Plays Bob and Dean Plays Bob Volume Two — for RAS Records, in tribute to the community’s most famous resident.

— Howard Campbell