Jazz Jamaica All Stars celebrate the Trojan story at Brighton Dome

Gary Crosby presents the Jazz Jamaica All Stars with special guests Brinsley Forde (Aswad), Noel McKoy and rising vocal stars Dem Three '“ all in celebration of The Trojan Story.
Jazz Jamaica All Stars. Picture by Steve CropperJazz Jamaica All Stars. Picture by Steve Cropper
Jazz Jamaica All Stars. Picture by Steve Cropper

The record label marks its 50th anniversary with three shows this autumn: in London, in Hull and also in Brighton (September 29, Brighton Dome, 8pm).

The line-up features award-winning saxophonists Denys Baptiste and Camilla George, trumpeter Mark Kavuma and Shirley Tetteh on guitar. They will be joined by members of the hip-jazz strings quartet Tomorrow’s Warriors StringTing.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Trojan Story will feature many of the best-loved anthems from the label over the past 50 years, including Desmond Dekker’s hit ‘Israelites’, Tony Tribe’s classic ‘Red Red Wine’ and Harry J All Stars’ ‘The Liquidator’, specially arranged by Jason Yarde.

Established in 1968, the London-based company was the first to distribute the music of Jamaica on a grand scale, becoming for many in the UK the first point of contact with Jamaican music and culture.

Noel McKoy is looking forward to the concert: “Jazz Jamaica is a band put together by Gary Crosby, and what it does is what it says on the lid. It is classic songs from funk and Motown put into reggae. They pay tribute to all the different genres and give it a Jazz Jamaica style.”

He continued: “Trojan is important to a lot of people from the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, that have come here and are buying records. A lot of it was mail-order. It was offering Caribbean music to our British counterparts here.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Reggae is music that has got a heartbeat that people can relate to in the sense that it has got rhythmic style and also the topics that it talks about. A lot of them come from not very nice surroundings, but they are people that are happy in their situation. They were making music that expressed their happiness. It is happy music. But also a lot of it has political meaning as well.

“For reggae, it is all about speaking your mind and standing up for yourself.”

Tickets cost £22-£26. Call 01273 709709.

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be among the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make our website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page

3 Follow us on Twitter

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

Be part of it.

Related topics: