FOLK/Music The Skatalites, Jamaican ska

Friday: 8 p.m. Kenduskeag; Saturday: 1 p.m. Railroad, 5 p.m. Kenduskeag

The Skatalites are living musical legends, founding fathers of the modern Jamaican sound. Four decades ago, the group virtually invented ska, the upbeat dance music that spawned rock steady and reggae, and inspired three waves of British and American ska revivalists. A triumphal 1983 reunion performance at the Reggae Sunsplash Festival eventually inspired the group to reform on a permanent basis in 1986. For nearly 20 years, the modern incarnation of this legendary band has brought classic ska to audiences around the world. Billboard has called the group “Jamaica’s supreme instrumental band,” and Rolling Stone’s description is: “The Skatalites – Jamaica’s answer to the Motown house band and Booker T. and the MG’s combined.”

The ska style began to emerge in the mid-1950s along with Jamaica’s fledgling recording industry. After World War II, Jamaican youth were wild for American music. Artists’ recordings such as Fats Domino, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louie Jordan and Ray Charles were popularized by radio and traveling DJs and their “sound systems,” the portable dance machines that became a fixture of the Jamaican dancehall and street. Rock ‘n’ roll held little appeal for Jamaicans – they didn’t like the dance steps. As rock eclipsed the popularity of other styles in the United States, it became harder to meet Jamaican demand for new recordings of rhythm and blues and jazz.

The Skatalites consist of Jamaica’s top session musicians who had played together in various groupings for years, both on the resort circuit and in the studio. While not really setting out to do so, their fusion of mento (a Jamaican folk style with similarities to calypso), New Orleans R&B, jazz, jump blues and Afro-Cuban rhythms created ska: a one-of-a-kind Jamaican sound. Characterized by jazzy solos over a galloping rhythm section, ska features lots of horns (saxophones, trumpets, trombones). Its rhythms are distinctive, easily recognized by the sharp accents on the offbeat (the second and fourth beats in 4/4 time).

Ska was an immediate hit in Jamaica and, later, worldwide. By the 1960s, groups including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Alton Ellis, Lee Perry, Toots and the Maytals and Desmond Dekker were rushing to record their songs to the infectious new beat. The flurry of recording coincided with excitement about Jamaica’s independence in 1962.

The core artists playing on most of these sessions saw the opportunity to play this music live for the public. In 1964, Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, Lester Sterling, Don Drummond, Jerome “Jah Jerry” Haynes, Lloyd Brevett, Donat Roy “Jackie” Mittoo, Lloyd Knibb and Johnnie “Dizzy” Moore decided to form their own group.

The ensemble might be said to have had its beginnings many years before. Four members – Moore, McCook, Sterling and Drummond – were alumni of the Alpha Cottage for Boys in Kingston, a Catholic school for troubled youth with a renowned music program that had turned hundreds of wayward boys into notable musicians.

Outer-space travel was all the rage in the early ’60s, so drummer Knibb originally suggested the band be called “The Satellites.” But it was the late saxophonist McCook who came up with the much hipper sounding “Skatalites.”

That same year, the Skatalites recorded their first LP, “Ska Authentic,” at Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd’s Studio One in Kingston, and toured the island as the creators of ska. The schedule was grueling, but the musicians were having the time of their lives. Then, at the close of 1964 on New Year’s Eve, tragedy struck. The group’s brilliant but mentally unstable trombonist-composer, Don Drummond, in a fit of rage, stabbed his common-law wife and band vocalist Marguerita to death. The band continued on for another six months, but the spark was gone. In July 1965, the Skatalites disbanded. Members went their own way and formed lesser-known groups that continued to be important on the Jamaican music scene.

No musical group, existing for a mere 18 months, has likely had as much influence as the Skatalites. Seminal recordings such as “Guns of Navaronne,” “Addis Ababa,” “Silver Dollar,” “Phoenix, City,” “Corner Stone” and “Blackberry Brandy,” to name just a few, created a new genre that defined Jamaican music throughout the 1960s, and was the island’s premier musical export.

The musicians include original members Lloyd Knibb (drums), Lester Sterling (alto sax), Doreen Shaffer (vocals), joined by Devon James (guitar), Ken Stewart (keyboards), Karl “Cannonball” Bryan, Kevin Batchelor, Val Douglas and Vin Gordon.