Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Heavy Reggae Recording with Prince Polo & Clive Chin

 TEASER FROM MY "EVENING NEWS" SESSION W/PRINCE POLO


  I've had some really fun sessions recently at The Kennel with Billy Szeflinski (aka Prince Polo) and Clive Chin.  Billy and Clive are both heavy producers, Clive's father Vincent "Randy" Chin owned/operated "Randy's Studio 17" in Kingston, Jamaica starting in the 1970's, where they worked with artists like Bob Marley, The Wailers, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Lord Creator, etc.

  Clive has an insane amount of original, unreleased tapes featuring these legendary musicians.  Together, Billy and Clive have begun digitizing these amazing tunes and preparing for quite the historic release.  However, some songs are missing things like vocals, horns, etc.  That's where I come in... (more info/music after the jump)



  "Evening News" was Lord Creator's first hit single in 1959, a great Calypso song with a classic old big band sound.  When he moved to Jamaica and began an extremely successful career, he later had a hit by re-recording the song as a Ska.  These 2 recordings are highly regarded, but very few people know he also recorded a Rocksteady version which was never released (and didn't have horns).

  Billy brought me in to arrange the horn parts based on the calypso version, and it came out great!  3 saxes, 2 trumpets and 1 trombone all recording live into one mic, old school.  It was a great experience recording on top of such amazing, historic tracks.  Special thanks to Jason Colby, Sam Hoyt, Peter Sparacino, Morgan Price, Freddy DeBoe and Jacob Teichrow for stepping in and nailing my charts!


ORIGINAL - Kentrick Patrick aka "Lord Creator" (1959)



SKA RE-CUT - Lord Creator (1965)



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