Entertainment News

PBS FM Presents
THE 2008 MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA WINTER JUMP-UP
– STUDIO ONE REUNION WITH THE CARIBS

Starring the monumental 30-piece Melbourne Ska Orchestra blasting out a night of skanking Studio One classics with very special guests, Australian-Jamaican ska pioneers, The Caribs (reunited for the first time in 45 years!)

Plus DJs Mohair Slim (PBS), Jesse I (PBS) and Derek Marr (PBS)

Saturday 28 June 2008
Corner Hotel, Richmond
Tickets $35 + b.f.

Since the beginning, Jamaican producers have relied upon tight, well-drilled studio groups to carry their sounds. Coxsone Dodd (Studio 1) was no exception. In the reggae era he used the Brentford Road Allstars, during rocksteady, the Sound Dimension, in the ska days, the Skatalites and before all of them, the Caribs.

The Caribs played behind dozens of historic Jamaican records by the likes Laurel Aitken, Owen Gray, Desmond Dekker and Derrick Harriot and not just for Coxsone Dodd but for most of the early producers including Chris Blackwell (Island Records). Incredibly. Other than bass player Lloyd Brevett, the Caribs were all ex-patriate Australians!

As part of its 5th birthday and to help pay tribute to the great Studio One, the Melbourne Ska Orchestra has invited Jamaica’s first studio group, The Caribs, to reunite for for the first time since 1962! The Caribs, comprising Dennis Sindrey (originally from Camberwell, Victoria now USA), Peter Stoddart (originally from Adelaide, South Australia now Jamaica) and Lowell Morris (Albert Park, Victoria), will play a set of authentic mento, ska and Jamaican rhythm & blues.

Some bands play often. Some bands play rarely. The Melbourne Ska Orchestra plays once a year. And for a very good reason – to gather most (30+) of this great city’s ska, jazz and reggae talent on one stage at one time is a logistical nightmare. The 30-piece Melbourne Ska Orchestra (including a 20-piece horn section) is almost certainly the largest aggregation of ska-reggae musicians ever to gather on one stage anywhere in the world. The result is inevitably thumping Jamaican grooves doled out to packed houses of roots music lovers.

The MSO will be celebrating its 5th birthday with a musical tribute to Sir Coxsone Dodd’s imperious Studio One label playing a brand new set of ska, rocksteady and reggae classics. Expect to hear hits by Bob Marley & The Wailers, Ken Boothe, Marcia Griffiths, Jackie Mittoo and more. The MSO will be directed, as always, by Australia’s funky reggae maestro, Nicky Bomba.

A further guest will be legendary Studio One, Duke Reid and Island Records recording engineer, Graeme Goodall (USA) who will mix the sound on the night.

DJs Mohair Slim (PBS), Jesse I (PBS) and Derek M (PBS) will keep the party going selecting original Studio One 45s.

The entire event will be filmed in high-definition for an upcoming documentary on The Caribs.

As is MSO tradition, the ladies and gentleman are kindly requested to dress “to the nines”.

MSO has been renowned for breaking venue attendance records at past shows (and turning away many disappointed fans!) so get in early and book your tickets NOW!

HISTORY OF THE CARIBS

The Caribs played and recorded in Kingston Jamaica during the years 1958 to 1968. The Caribs were made up of three ex-patriate Australians (Dennis Sindrey, Camberwell, Victoria – guitar, Peter Stoddart, Adelaide, South Australia – piano and Lowell Morris, Albert Park, Victoria – drums) who had originally been brought to Kingston by the owners of the prestigious Glass Bucket Club for a short stint as the club band. With the addition of bass-player Lloyd Brevett (later to play bass for Jamaica’s ska super-group, the Skatalites), the Caribs soon became the pre-eminent group on Kingston burgeoning hotel circuit in the early 1960s.

When Jamaica’s first recording studios opened their doors, the Caribs were a logical choice to back up the local singers such as Laurel Aitken, Wilfred “Jackie” Edwards, Owen Gray, the Jiving Juniors and Keith and Enid. All the early Jamaican producers, Coxsone Dodd, Simeon Smith, Chris Blackwell hired the Caribs as a studio band. In this capacity, the Caribs played on some of the earliest and most important Jamaican music, in the pre-ska style known as “shuffle-boogie” or “Jamaican blues”. The Caribs also had releases in their own right including the second record on Chris Blackwell’s Island label, “Taboo”/”Matilda Cha Cha”.

Lowell Morris returned to Melbourne in 1962 but the Caribs continued with a new drummer until 1968. During this time, Dennis Sindrey also started a solo career singing calypso billed as “The Calypsonaire with the blonde hair” and is still much loved in Jamaica today.

Dennis Sindrey continues to play calypso, Australian and Jamaican folk music in and around Boca Raton, Florida.

Peter Stoddart began a landscaping business in Kingston which he still operates today. He lives with his wife in the hills above Kingston and plays piano only rarely.

Lowell Morris lives in Melbourne and teaches percussion and plays congas with local band the Ska Vendors and the Melbourne Ska Orchestra.

HISTORY OF THE MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA

The Melbourne Ska Orchestra was formed in 2003 by PBS musicologist Mohair Slim and local band-leader Nicky Bomba to celebrate the 40th birthday of ska music.

The Melbourne Ska Orchestra features a who’s who of local Jazz, Reggae and Ska talent including members of Skazz, the Pachuko Playboys, the Trojan Horns, Bustamento, Strange Tenants, Commissioner Gordon, the Moonhops and the Ska Vendors amongst others.

The Melbourne Ska Orchestra is dedicated to the educating and entertaining audiences to the sounds of sweet Jamaican roots music from the 1960s … ska, rocksteady and reggae. In previous years, ska legends Owen Gray and Carlos Malcolm have been guests of the orchestra.

HISTORY OF GRAEME GOODALL

Graeme Goodall was born and raised in Caulfield, Victoria and began his career as an electronics engineer working on outside broadcasts of football matches and concerts for 3KZ in the early 1950s, before going to work for the BBC in London. In 1957, he was contracted by the Jamaican Government to oversee the construction and operation of Jamaica’s second radio station, RJR.

Outside his work for RJR, Goodall found his skills as the only qualified sound engineer on the island in great demand by producers such as Island’s Chris Blackwell and the late “Sir Coxsone” Dodd (pictured with Graeme Goodall above). Graeme Goodall was present at and involved in virtually every Jamaican recording session between the years 1958 and 1966. He sound mixed every great ska era record including the Skatalites, Toots & The Maytals, Bob Marley and the Wailers and Jimmy Cliff.

In 1964 he set up his own label, Doctor Bird, releasing albums by Roland Alphonso, the Ethiopians, the Gladiators and Lee Perry, before relocating to London in 1967 and building a studio from where he engineered and produced rocksteady and reggae by locally based artists Laurel Aitken and Desmond Dekker’s including the latter’s massive hit “The Israelites’ (released on Goodall’s Pyramid label).

More recently, Goodall engineered Eric Clapton’s “There’s One In Every Crowd” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” albums. Graeme Goodall is now semi-retired in Georgia, in the US.