That Chop on the Upbeat -- the origins of Ska
May 7, 2020 2:47 PM Subscribe
When I got back home and was trying to write about Jah B., doing my best to stake out some understanding of what was going on musically in Kingston in the late Fifties and early Sixties, I ran into the riddle that bedevils every person who gets lost in this particular cultural maze, namely, where did ska come from? That strange rhythm, that chop on the upbeat or offbeat, ump-ska, ump-ska, ump-ska... Did someone think that up?That Chop on the Upbeat
See also My Boy Lollipop by the very.recently departed Millie Small, which was itself a cover of the Mafia riddled original.
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness?
posted by Beardman at 2:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Beardman at 2:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
You were so wrong -- by such a long shot kick de bucket.
posted by y2karl at 3:13 PM on May 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 3:13 PM on May 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
My favorite ska tune is the opening theme to a little show called America's Funniest Home Videos.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:19 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:19 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness ?
That would be like the Hoosier Hot Shots and Dave Van Ronk invented jazz and the blues.
posted by y2karl at 3:20 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
That would be like the Hoosier Hot Shots and Dave Van Ronk invented jazz and the blues.
posted by y2karl at 3:20 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
I Met a Man by the Folkes Brothers, a B side recorded in 1958, is reckoned by some to be the first ska recording and that would make Count Ossie, the bandleader thereon, the Originator.
posted by y2karl at 3:46 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 3:46 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
For every Rocket 88, there's a Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee that came before it. I listened to those old piano ska tracks and they're boogie-woogie — just with the single mic too far from the bass. So the chop's the right hand of barrel-house piano.
posted by scruss at 3:49 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by scruss at 3:49 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
OMG, that Folkes Brothers song...
"Background singers" need to be able to, you know, actually sing. Had to stop listening after about 40 seconds. Yikes
posted by Windopaene at 3:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Background singers" need to be able to, you know, actually sing. Had to stop listening after about 40 seconds. Yikes
posted by Windopaene at 3:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
...So the chop's the right hand of barrel-house piano
Mmmmm kay....
My theory on ska's upbeat used to be so:
Have you ever tried to tune into a far away radio station playing music and gotten that rhythmically chop chop chop scratch of intereference against the beat ?
That was my theory of the origin of Ska previous to today. There's a certain amount of logic to it, but...
posted by y2karl at 4:05 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Mmmmm kay....
My theory on ska's upbeat used to be so:
Have you ever tried to tune into a far away radio station playing music and gotten that rhythmically chop chop chop scratch of intereference against the beat ?
That was my theory of the origin of Ska previous to today. There's a certain amount of logic to it, but...
posted by y2karl at 4:05 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
That Stick McGhee track scruss linked is fucking excellent. There's tonight's rabbit hole sorted for me.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:14 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:14 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness?
This has to be trolling, right?
posted by aspersioncast at 4:18 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
This has to be trolling, right?
posted by aspersioncast at 4:18 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
For those that want to read more, I would recommend Heather Augustyn's "Ska: An Oral History" for a more in-depth take of how the Jamaican soundsystems jumped to The Skatalites and co, jumped across the pond for 2-tone, and a bit globally jumping into the third wave that many are more familiar with.
posted by xtine at 4:25 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by xtine at 4:25 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
To be fair...
A new beat emerged that mixed the shuffling rhythm of American pianist Rosco Gordon with Caribbean folk influences, most notably the mambo of Cuba and the mento, a Jamaican dance music that provided the new music’s core rhythm. The boogie-woogie piano vamp characteristic of New Orleans-style rhythm and blues was simulated by a guitar chop on the offbeat and onomatopoeically became known as ska. The beat was made more locomotive by the horns, saxophones, trumpet, trombone, and piano that played the same riff on the offbeat. All the while the drums kept a 4/4 beat with bass drum accents on the second and fourth beats.
Because the history of Jamaican popular music is largely oral, contending claims of authorship were inevitable, but guitarist Ernie Ranglin’s claim that he invented the ska chop is generally regarded as plausible.
Britannica giveth-- and then kind of taketh away -- credence on scruss's comment, depending on how one splits the proteinacious filament. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 4:45 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
A new beat emerged that mixed the shuffling rhythm of American pianist Rosco Gordon with Caribbean folk influences, most notably the mambo of Cuba and the mento, a Jamaican dance music that provided the new music’s core rhythm. The boogie-woogie piano vamp characteristic of New Orleans-style rhythm and blues was simulated by a guitar chop on the offbeat and onomatopoeically became known as ska. The beat was made more locomotive by the horns, saxophones, trumpet, trombone, and piano that played the same riff on the offbeat. All the while the drums kept a 4/4 beat with bass drum accents on the second and fourth beats.
Because the history of Jamaican popular music is largely oral, contending claims of authorship were inevitable, but guitarist Ernie Ranglin’s claim that he invented the ska chop is generally regarded as plausible.
Britannica giveth-- and then kind of taketh away -- credence on scruss's comment, depending on how one splits the proteinacious filament. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 4:45 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm just glad Ska made its way all the way back to the islands in Animal Crossing. (The Airplay version sounds significantly better.)
posted by Nelson at 4:49 PM on May 7, 2020
posted by Nelson at 4:49 PM on May 7, 2020
This has brought back a memory:
I saw the Skatalites and Bad Manners play the Hub at the UofW in the late 70s.
The Skatalites were bunch of grizzled greybeards by this time, who appeared nonplussed by the attentions of the young men in the audience who were grabbing and pressing their heads against their Skatalitic feet.
They played a relaxed and loping beat and then Bad Manners just tore it up about twice as fast, so I heard both Skas that night.
One of my best concerts ever.
I also saw Madness there that year. And they were all flat topped sharp in shiny sharkskin suits with their own dancer. I was floored to see the crew cut as a bohemian hairstyle.
The closest Seattleites had gotten to a punk look by then were business in front, party in back haircuts. Which looked so silly to me. So another pet theory of mine is Seattle invented the mullet. A dubious distinction at best.
posted by y2karl at 5:09 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
I saw the Skatalites and Bad Manners play the Hub at the UofW in the late 70s.
The Skatalites were bunch of grizzled greybeards by this time, who appeared nonplussed by the attentions of the young men in the audience who were grabbing and pressing their heads against their Skatalitic feet.
They played a relaxed and loping beat and then Bad Manners just tore it up about twice as fast, so I heard both Skas that night.
One of my best concerts ever.
I also saw Madness there that year. And they were all flat topped sharp in shiny sharkskin suits with their own dancer. I was floored to see the crew cut as a bohemian hairstyle.
The closest Seattleites had gotten to a punk look by then were business in front, party in back haircuts. Which looked so silly to me. So another pet theory of mine is Seattle invented the mullet. A dubious distinction at best.
posted by y2karl at 5:09 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
Got to see the Skatalites twice! Good times dancing with my wife (who was hearing them for the first time) before we were married.
Aren't we due for a Fourth Wave by now?
posted by MrGuilt at 5:36 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Aren't we due for a Fourth Wave by now?
posted by MrGuilt at 5:36 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'd like to mention Carlos Malcolm here. I found his Bonanza Ska on 7" the other day and it blew my socks off. He's now more or less a Professor of Ska. Does lecture tours and everything.
posted by Richard Upton Pickman at 5:38 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Richard Upton Pickman at 5:38 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Such a good essay... Thanks for sharing. John Jeremiah Sullivan is a poet.
posted by clockwork at 5:52 PM on May 7, 2020
posted by clockwork at 5:52 PM on May 7, 2020
→ Seattle invented the mullet
Of course it did. You don't want that rain going down the inside of your collar, do you?
posted by scruss at 5:53 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
Of course it did. You don't want that rain going down the inside of your collar, do you?
posted by scruss at 5:53 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
Reminds me of my favorite comment ever about ska (couldn't find the original unfortunately).
posted by saladin at 6:01 PM on May 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by saladin at 6:01 PM on May 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
Prince Buster was way in there at the start.
As to second wave, I made a post about that a while back.
posted by adamvasco at 6:08 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
As to second wave, I made a post about that a while back.
posted by adamvasco at 6:08 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
And here's your reminder that ska lives on in your phone.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:39 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:39 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
Have you ever tried to tune into a far away radio station playing music and gotten that rhythmically chop chop chop scratch of intereference against the beat ?
A radio station so far away that you can just barely pick-it-up, pick-it-up, pick-it-up, pick-it-up!
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:24 PM on May 7, 2020 [23 favorites]
A radio station so far away that you can just barely pick-it-up, pick-it-up, pick-it-up, pick-it-up!
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:24 PM on May 7, 2020 [23 favorites]
I saw the Skatellites once, in the mid-2000s at an all-ages show at the Reverb in Toronto. The crowd consisted of kids going nuts at the front, old-timers leaning against the wall and nodding their heads in the back, and people my age (early 30s at the time) in the middle of these two extremes.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 AM on May 8, 2020
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 AM on May 8, 2020
"It's still too exotic for mass acceptance."
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:49 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:49 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I also saw the Specials at the Showbox within a year or so as Madness, the Skatalites and Bad Manners.
Whoa!
They were so hard and so fast, the whole front line all marching doubletime, kicking so high that they were basically running in place for the whole set and encores. We were exhausted just watching them.
posted by y2karl at 9:35 AM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Whoa!
They were so hard and so fast, the whole front line all marching doubletime, kicking so high that they were basically running in place for the whole set and encores. We were exhausted just watching them.
posted by y2karl at 9:35 AM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
I liked this essay and have been a little distracted from my workday to dig into specific tracks, but was a little thrown by this statement:
Jamaica wasn’t making its own music yet—they were dependent on American stuff (and had always been involved in a passionate binary relationship with it; they had songs they were calling “blues” by the late Twenties).
What does this mean? I mean, Mento is around before this. I'm reading some kind of weird colonialist bias in here, but maybe I'm misunderstanding.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:54 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Jamaica wasn’t making its own music yet—they were dependent on American stuff (and had always been involved in a passionate binary relationship with it; they had songs they were calling “blues” by the late Twenties).
What does this mean? I mean, Mento is around before this. I'm reading some kind of weird colonialist bias in here, but maybe I'm misunderstanding.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:54 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
The key is Sound Systems -- the portable turntables & PA systems which preceded radio in Jamaica and which played postwar American blues aka rhythm and blues records:
posted by y2karl at 3:29 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
...But if you listen to these songs or even listen to thirty seconds of each, you can hear the rhythm we’re talking about begin to change in flip-book fashion. You hear it persist, you hear it move from song to song, but you hear it changing. You hear the emphasis on the upbeat getting stronger, hear an essential garishness creep in, feel the tempo getting faster, everything sort of sliding forward in the measure. African drumming, calypso and mento and Cuban counterpoint, Rastafarian groundations, the sound systems, and something quintessential but indefinable that is Jamaican, all of these had readied the people, certain people, for this change, to receive this rhythm from the States and just crank it a little, then send it back. In those eight songs you can hear ska unfurl as another tendril out of the blues, the great mother root. It’s as tidy a demonstration as I know of the fact—deeper than ska, deeper than Rosco, deeper than the South—that black popular music in the twentieth century can’t be comprehended except as a phenomenon of what Bernard Bailyn calls the Atlantic world. In this case the old West Indian world, of which Tennessee lay at the northern fringe. It’s the shatter-zone of the slave diaspora. Circulating currents. We gave Jamaica blues. Jamaica gave us ska. Jamaica gave us dub, we gave back hip-hop. It’s been happening for four hundred years.-- mento preceded indigenous commercial recordings in Jamaica. The sound systems played what was available at the time: early American R&B. Where is the colonialism in that?
posted by y2karl at 3:29 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
Where is the colonialism in that?
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but they didn't say "recording." They said "making." As though music didn't exist there before the Dodd showed up with the 45s from the mainland. And who is the "We" in "We gave Jamaica blues"?
posted by SoundInhabitant at 3:57 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but they didn't say "recording." They said "making." As though music didn't exist there before the Dodd showed up with the 45s from the mainland. And who is the "We" in "We gave Jamaica blues"?
posted by SoundInhabitant at 3:57 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
As though music didn't exist there before the Dodd showed up with the 45s from the mainland.
I fail to see that thought explictly said or even implied in the article.
As for the we:
...black popular music in the twentieth century can’t be comprehended except as a phenomenon of what Bernard Bailyn calls the Atlantic world. In this case the old West Indian world, of which Tennessee lay at the northern fringe. It’s the shatter-zone of the slave diaspora.
Your mileage may vary but I can see the 'we' right there. A rhetorical 'we' by extension perhaps but really, that provides barely even a nitpicking argument for colonialism to me.
posted by y2karl at 5:14 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
I fail to see that thought explictly said or even implied in the article.
As for the we:
...black popular music in the twentieth century can’t be comprehended except as a phenomenon of what Bernard Bailyn calls the Atlantic world. In this case the old West Indian world, of which Tennessee lay at the northern fringe. It’s the shatter-zone of the slave diaspora.
Your mileage may vary but I can see the 'we' right there. A rhetorical 'we' by extension perhaps but really, that provides barely even a nitpicking argument for colonialism to me.
posted by y2karl at 5:14 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness?
One of my favorite S&W bits - skip to 11:50 for the Madness part. The reactions from callers later on are priceless.
posted by zombiedance at 5:25 PM on May 8, 2020
One of my favorite S&W bits - skip to 11:50 for the Madness part. The reactions from callers later on are priceless.
posted by zombiedance at 5:25 PM on May 8, 2020
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness?
This has to be trolling, right?
This is a question that is quickly answered by reading the link (it's on the question mark, for those who, like me, initially missed it).
posted by eviemath at 5:48 PM on May 8, 2020
This has to be trolling, right?
This is a question that is quickly answered by reading the link (it's on the question mark, for those who, like me, initially missed it).
posted by eviemath at 5:48 PM on May 8, 2020
Bunny Wailer seems more obliging here than in another interview that I'd read a while back, where he was pretty testy. Sorry I can't place it at the moment..
posted by ovvl at 6:39 PM on May 8, 2020
posted by ovvl at 6:39 PM on May 8, 2020
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but they didn't say "recording." They said "making." As though music didn't exist there before the Dodd showed up with the 45s from the mainland.
posted by y2karl at 6:42 PM on May 8, 2020
...African drumming, calypso and mento and Cuban counterpoint, Rastafarian groundations, the sound systems, and something quintessential but indefinable that is Jamaican, all of these had readied the people, certain people, for this change, to receive this rhythm from the States and just crank it a little, then send it back.Again, your mileage may vary but I see several "made" musics listed in that quote.
posted by y2karl at 6:42 PM on May 8, 2020
The author's style in this article is indistinguishable from the music journalist character in Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:19 AM on May 9, 2020
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:19 AM on May 9, 2020
The Specials -- Skinhead Symphony: Longshot Kick The Bucket, Liquidator, Skinhead Moonstomp
posted by y2karl at 1:12 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 1:12 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
I thought it was common knowledge that ska was started by Madness?
You've got to lend credibility to your argument by citing sources! _Rock Rot and Rule_ by Ronald Thomas Clontle. It's the definitive argument settler!
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 8:40 PM on May 9, 2020
You've got to lend credibility to your argument by citing sources! _Rock Rot and Rule_ by Ronald Thomas Clontle. It's the definitive argument settler!
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 8:40 PM on May 9, 2020
^ Again, maybe bother to read Beardman's link in that comment before commenting yourself.
posted by eviemath at 9:30 PM on May 9, 2020
posted by eviemath at 9:30 PM on May 9, 2020
Bunny Wailer seems more obliging here than in another interview that I'd read a while back, where he was pretty testy.
Oh, man, you want testy, try interviewing Peter Tosh.
posted by y2karl at 4:24 AM on May 10, 2020
Oh, man, you want testy, try interviewing Peter Tosh.
posted by y2karl at 4:24 AM on May 10, 2020
excellent article with some lovely turns of phrase.
ending that illustrative playlist with annette funicello is a crime. but worse: annette funicello and bob hope totally missing the chop on the upbeat: jamaica ska.
posted by 20 year lurk at 8:08 AM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
ending that illustrative playlist with annette funicello is a crime. but worse: annette funicello and bob hope totally missing the chop on the upbeat: jamaica ska.
posted by 20 year lurk at 8:08 AM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Good god that link needs some sort of content warning on it. "Warning: not safe for people who like music."
posted by Nelson at 8:29 AM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 8:29 AM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by y2karl at 2:51 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]