JACKIE MITTOO: reggae’s beat master
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 18th of its biweekly feature looking at seminal moments that have helped shape Jamaica over the past 60 years.
WHEN the sensational Sleng Teng beat was released in 1985, it gave birth to dancehall ‘s digital age. Twenty years before the Sleng Teng, a pianist/ organist named Jackie Mittoo called the shots.
Mittoo, who died from cancer in Toronto in 1990, is reggae’s original beat master. He played on or arranged many of the timeless rhythms of the 1960s, several of which have been sampled by contemporary dancehall producers and artistes.
He was an original member of The Skatalites, joining that band while he was a teenager and still a student at Kingston College (KC). It was in the KC chapel that Mittoo fine-tuned his skills on the piano and organ, preparing him for a prolific career that took off at Studio One.
Mittoo’s distinctive sound can be heard on groundbreaking songs like Nanny Goat by Larry and Alvin,
Moving Away (Ken Boothe), and the instrumental Real Rock. Drum Song hears him at his mystic best while he did justice to the folk standard, Evening Time.
One of his greatest admirers is drummer/ producer Sly Dunbar, who rates Mittoo as a ‘gifted musician’.
“He was very creative,
Jackie Mittoo single-handedly developed the sound at Studio One. He had a piano style that was different from anything in those days,” Dunbar said.
Though he continued to work with top performers, Mittoo’s output declined considerably in the 1970s after he moved to Canada. By the 1980s when computerised dancehall took over, Mittoo and many of his contemporaries were all but forgotten in Jamaica.
In 2004, Jamaica’s top musicians including Dunbar and jazz pianist Monty Alexander paid tribute to Mittoo on the cover album, A Tribute to Reggae’s Keyboard King: Jackie Mittoo, which was released by VP Records.
In February 2012, the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association recognised Jackie Mittoo’s immeasurable contribution to the country’s music during its annual awards ceremony.