The Skatalites

Ska-Boo-Da-Ba

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• 01 Ska-Boo-Da-Ba
• 02 Confucius
• 03 China Town
• 04 The Reburial
• 05 Smiling
• 06 Skaravan
• 07 Ringo
• 08 Surftide Seven
• 09 Lawless Street
• 10 Marcus Junior
• 11 Ghost Town
• 12 China Clipper

Essential 60s ska from the legendary Skatalites line up, with a Sino/Japanese twist. In the early 1960s Justin Yap and his brother Ivan [aka ‘Jahu’] ran the Top Deck sound system from their family’s ice cream parlour and restaurant in Barbican, Kingston. The local success of the sound system encouraged them to venture into the recording business, and by 1962 Justin had recorded singers Larry Marshall, Ephraim ‘Joe’ Henry and Ferdie Nelson. The fledgling label enjoyed a modest local Jamaican hit in 1963, with trumpeter Baba Brooks and the Trenton Spence Orchestra's “Distant Drums” issued on Top Deck Records as the b-side to Larry Marshall’s hit “Too Young To Love”. As a fan of exotica composer Martin Denny, Justin had heard “Jungle Drums” on Denny’s 1959 LP “Afro-Desia”. His liking for Martin Denny would prove fruitful later, when Justin recorded the Skatalites in a mammoth all-night session in 1964 at Clement Dodd’s Studio One on Brentford Road.