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Jazz Jamaica
Motorcity Roots
Dune CD012
www.dune-music.com
www.jazzjamaica.com

The simplest ideas are often the best: Motown, ‘the sound of young America’ was equally popular in the Caribbean and in Britain, back in the day. The long-standing big band Jazz Jamaica, led by bassist Gary Crosby, is an assembly of 20 musicians and singers, drawing from the cream of Britain’s Black jazz and nu-soul scenes, and here playing ska, rocksteady and reggae versions of the Detroit hits - but all infused with a jazz sensibility reminiscent of the innovative Jamaican saxman Joe Harriott (who according to many in the know was undertaking the kind of radical musical experimentation associated with Ornette Coleman a couple of years before the American).

Certainly do not be put off by the heavy sounding jazz associations - this is indeed a joyous celebration of Detroit sounds and Jamaican heritage - if the first few notes of the opening ‘I Want You Back’ don’t bring a smile to your face, there’s little hope for you. Songs such as ‘Dancing In The Street’, ‘Just My Imagination’, ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ (here given an instrumental treatment), and ‘My Guy’ are all instantly recognisable, but the added Jamaican twist makes for sheer delight! Cultural pride is clearly shown by having Sir Bill Morris - a Jamaican who has become one of the leading figures in the British trade union movment - as Marvin Gaye with his spoken commentary in a highly appropriate and totally convincing revisioning of ‘What’s Going On’, and political commitment is also demonstrated in a nyahbingi funk big band rendition of Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ (“what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’”).

An absolute gem of a CD - different maybe, but I’ll say it again - an absolute gem. - Norman Darwen