perhaps the most revered and controversial
instrumentalist-composer to come out of Jamaica. After the death of saxophone
legend Charlie ‘Yardbird” Parker in 1955, the graffiti “Bird Lives!” became
common around New York City. I have appropriated that phrase for the similarly
legendary Don Drummond.
Even the most prestigious
and scholarly music admit that
very little is known of his early life. From a recording standpoint, he first
emerged around 1956, amidst the then nascent sound system movement,
contributing horn breaks on what were then known (and still so called now in
some circles) as specials. Several of these would be later released in the UK,
to great acclaim (but little, if any direct remuneration) on Chris Blackwell’s
Island records imprint.
With the advent of the 1960s, Drummond, like many of his
contemporaries, were increasingly drawn to and influenced by the twin strands
of the global Black nationalist movement and the more distinctly homegrown
Rastafari ideology. Without a doubt,
this must have placed him and his bandmates in sharp variance with the Establishment who frequented the better clubs
to witness their live performances. Whether this exacerbated Drummond’s then already well known mental difficulties
(schizophrenia? Manic-depression?) cannot be said with certainty.
It didn’t help either that his live-in girlfriend was Anita
Mahfood, an exotic dancer popularly known as “Margarita”. Mahfood, though part
of the economically powerful Kingston merchant class was herself a bit of a “wild card” and her relationship with the
troubled genius was no doubt tumultuous. That tumult reached a grisly and
tragic crescendo in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1965, shortly after
Mahfood returned to their East Kingston apartment. There were reports of an argument and
screams. In the aftermath Mahfood, then only 23, was found dead from multiple
stab wounds.
Drummond was arrested and – in a bit of a whirlwind – tried,
deemed “legally insane” and remanded to Kingston’s Bellevue Hospital. That
brings us back to May 6th, 1969, the day he died, but not to the end
of controversy. With no autopsy performed, Drummond’s death was ruled a
suicide, an “official” version that remains contested by conspiracy theories of
various sorts to this day. The hospital
staff, one claims, ruthlessly beat and otherwise ill-treated Drummond, all with
the tacit permission of the then Government, which was bent on stamping out
this “Black Power nonsense” (It was hardly a year prior that rioting broke out
in the wake of the Government’s decision to expel pan-Africanist Walter
Rodney); others claim that Mahfood’s family had extracted revenge for her
demise at Drummond’s hands.
The full truth has very likely been interred with the body,
but, selfish as it may seem, in the wake of Drummond’s departure, we have the
tremendous treasure of the music. His official recorded output has been put at
over 300 songs. No matter how often one
hears classics like “Eastern Standard Time” or “Confucious” or “Man In The
Street” the warm idiosyncracy and fleet-footed, “hop-skipping” energy (my
coinage) of Drummond’s playing and compositions shines through. This goes not
only for us here in Jamaica, but for music lovers worldwide
Which brings to mind, as an aside, What is it about the
month of May anyway?
Bassist Lloyd Brevett recently made a painful, and by all
accounts untimely, transition (precipitated by the tragic shooting death of his
son), leaving drummer Lloyd Knibb as now the only surviving member of the
original musical aggregation known as the Skatalites who helped shape and
popularise a distinctly Jamaican sound, enjoyed in the four corners of the
earth.
Incidentally(?) May
is also the month in which Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd checked out of this
earthly realm. He left us, in 2004, on May 5 to be exact, or one day before (36
years after) Drummond did. It was in Dodd’s famed Studio One that Drummond and
the Skatalites not only laid down their own recordings, but as the de facto
“house band” provided support for a host of other Jamaican musical
legends. “Don Cosmic” as he would also
come to be known, first caught Dodd’s attention during a performance at
Kingston’s Majestic theatre
But back to Drummond. To borrow a
very apt summation from noted musicologist Herbie Miller, “He was
a musical prophet created by the people, not one imposing himself on them in
pursuit of stardom, but having it thrust upon him. Drummond observed their
tribulations and aspirations then reshaped them into a blues allegory reflected
through his compositions and plaintive trombone tone.”
In my own humble estimation, Don Drummond was an original, a
“one-of-a-kind” from a nation that seems to specialize in “one-of-a-kind”
people. Whatever format you can get it in, get hold of his music and – in a
very good way – let him blow your mind.
