Sam Manning
|
|
The liner notes of Boogu Yagga Gal alert mento fans to the early Caribbean-Jazz recordings of two Trinidadians, Sam Manning and Lionel Belasco. Both traveled to New York City, where they recorded the earliest versions of Jamaican mento songs in the jazz style of the 1920s. These songs can be heard on CD collections that are in print and readily obtainable.
When Jamaican mento recordings began to appear in the 1950s, in addition to the rough and rural country style that was a forbearer of reggae, there was also the more polished and jazzy dance band style, that can be seen as a descendant of these 1920s jazz-mento tracks.
Though the jazzy dance band style of mento faded away by the late 1960s, jazz would continue to enrich Jamaican music, as can be seen in the Jamaican Music Roadmap.
Though Manning was Trinidadian, he often used Jamaican musicians in his band. From 1924 to 1930, he made 53 jazz recordings. Eleven of them are mento songs, or utilized part of a mento song. Manning recorded a number of these sides with either the Cole Mentor Orchestra or Aldophe Thenstead's Mentor Boys. The fusion of 1920s jazz and "mentor" music, often complete with banjo, is an unusual and enjoyable combination. Thirty years before mento's golden age began, jazz-mento recordings were being made in New York City.