My journey
 

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As a young teenager in the late 90s, I was introduced to ska music and immediately fell in love with the uptempo offbeat, brass, and kind of umba-umba riddim... The ska beat...

My desire to discover more of this genre took me on a musical journey,  where I discovered different sounds of ska from bands from all over the world, especially the ska music of the 90s.

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Back then, it wasn't as easy to find music as it is today. You had to find a special store and be lucky to find a CD with a collection of various artists in the ska genre.

Nevertheless, I continued on my endless journey, always searching for more ska music.

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One day, a friend put on a tape cassette with The Specials, and I was blown away by their sound. It took me on a new path on my journey to British 70s-80s ska, also called 2tone. I discovered so much interesting music and was also given the story of Jamaican music.

From that moment, I was taken and went deep into it, especially one name got me thrilled - The Ska-talites!

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While I had heard a few tunes from them on my journey, including "Latin Goes Ska," "Phoenix City," and some others, but when i got deeper into them ...nothing else mattered 

The trombone player in the band really impressed me, and I soon discovered that his name was Don Drummond.

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I listened to everything by The Ska-talites and found out that most of what I could find were new recordings that weren't quite the music I had fallen in love with.

i was looking for the 60s recordings of The Ska-talites when Don Drummond was there..

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Fortunately, the internet was getting big, which helped me in my research and made it possible for me to buy records from all over the world. I was always on the hunt for lost treasures, and every time I bumped into a track I didn't know, my expectations were very high, and mostly, I was never disappointed.

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I learned that The Ska-talites were musicians used in different constellations as a studio recording band but got together as a band and rocked the music scene in Jamaica from 1963 to 1965.

Later on i realized that The Ska-talites was a kind of a term for a great group of musicians , 

not the same members on the recordings .

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Unfortunately, the real original Jamaican ska ended with the jailing of Don Drummond, but my love for him grew larger and larger.

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I listened to his music every day, and every piece of music he was in , had something unique. When I heard some of the great vocal oldies and a trombone solo was starting, I just knew when Don Drummond was playing.

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As a spare time musician myself, I had taught myself to play and Don Drummond made me buy a trombone because of the sound he could bring from that instrument. I started to write his music down as sheet music, still without any kind of schooling. Countless hours of listening again and again gave me results and more insight into some of his tunes, as some of the recordings hide the greatness of the scales and melody.

I succeeded in writing down some of his tunes and had in mind to share them with other who fans of Don Drummond.

My journey into ska music has been a never-ending quest for more knowledge, more music, and more understanding of its history and culture.