The Skatalites’ stunning instrumental music preceded and influenced reggae when the band fashioned in 1964, however that was practically 60 years in the past. In 2023, solely singer Doreen Shaffer is alive and performs with the band. For percussionist Larry McDonald, the way in which the Skatalites have continued as a legacy band follows an honorable musical custom nobody thinks twice about on this planet of jazz or classical music.
“I consider it how you could have the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras. They’ve each been lifeless a very long time, however new musicians play their songbooks,” McDonald says. “We play the Skatalites’ charts. As the kinds change, it adjustments how gamers play these songs. The preparations will all the time keep the identical.”
 At 85, McDonald’s musical legacy is interwoven with the unique Skatalites lineup.
“I performed with all the unique members earlier than they even turned a band. We all performed within the resort circuit in Jamaica,” McDonald tells New Times.
It wasn’t till the age of 24, after years of working day jobs, that McDonald started to work as a musician. “It was the mono recording days, so nobody might make a mistake within the studio,” he remembers. “I wasn’t adequate but to get a lot work then. I used to be not so good as the Skatalites, who have been luminaries.”
After years of working at a tax workplace and as a tallyman, the place he’d go to the docks and rely the bananas, McDonald determined to make a go at pounding the drums. “Back then, you did not inform your dad and mom after you went to high school that you simply turned a musician,” he says. “Musicians had dangerous reputations. You weren’t eager to inform your dad and mom you have been one in all them.” It was the early ’60s, proper as ska and rocksteady have been blowing up across the island of Jamaica. Meanwhile, the Skatalites have been defining the sound of ska on their very own, collaborating with musical legends just like the Wailers and Lee “Scratch” Perry.
Looking for musical gigs wherever he might discover them, McDonald decamped to Mexico in 1967 to play with a limbo troupe. When he returned to Jamaica in 1969, the music scene was rapidly altering.
“There was no speak of reggae in Mexico. When I bought again, I tuned into the radio [and] a good friend was a DJ, mentioned hello to me on air, and performed ‘Long Shot Kick de Bucket’ by the Pioneers. That was the primary reggae tune I heard,” McDonald says. “It made me wish to discover out what the hell was occurring. I’d performed ska and rocksteady, however reggae was one thing new, and I wasn’t going to be left behind.”
Afterward, McDonald began researching indigenous Jamaican rhythms. “I took bits and items from all of them and put them collectively,” he provides. He additionally discovered a technique to incorporate his love of jazz into his taking part in. “I used to be a bebop head earlier than something. I nonetheless have that method to music the place you bought to be quick in your toes. There’s nonetheless components of jazz and Latin music in what I play.”Â
As McDonald was discovering himself musically, together with performing with Gil Scott-Heron within the U.S. for years, he returned to Jamaica in 1983, the identical yr that the Skatalites got here out of hibernation to carry out on the Reggae Sunsplash competition. Since then, the group has been touring in a single configuration or one other for the final 4 many years. McDonald joined the present iteration only some years in the past.
“A variety of the band got here aboard when the unique Skatalites have been nonetheless taking part in. They know extra about these songs than I do,” McDonald says of his youthful band members. “The bass participant Val Douglas recorded with anybody Jamaican you ever heard of. Everyone within the band has a robust background. They make it so the Skatalites are Jamaica’s legacy band.” Â
The Skatalites. 7 p.m. Friday, January 27, on the Ground, 34 NE eleventh St., Miami; thegroundmiami.com. Tickets price $35 to $40 through eventbrite.com.