Tommy McCook

Tommy McCook, the tenor saxophonist who headed the iconic Skatalites, ranked among Jamaica’s most inventive and impactful players of his era and served as a driving force in the rise and global reach of both ska and reggae.

Born in 1927, he acquired his saxophone technique at Kingston’s Alpha Cottage School, a facility for troubled youths, and after departing at age 14 he traveled with the dance ensembles led by Eric Deans and Roy Coburn, developing into an accomplished jazz stylist. From the late 1940s into the early 1950s he also worked regularly alongside Count Ossie, contributing to performances with the Rastafarian hand drummers and chanting singers who formed the core of Ossie’s ensemble. In 1954 McCook moved to the Bahamas to enter a local dance band, and over the ensuing period his command of jazz grew steadily more evident.

He did not settle back in Jamaica until 1962, when he arrived in time to advance the emerging ska style. In 1963 Studio One’s musical director Jackie Mittoo invited him to direct a newly assembled ensemble called the Skatalites; McCook first turned the proposal down, yet by the middle of 1964 he had taken the position of bandleader, applying his broad command of jazz and R&B to give the group’s music fresh character. Although the Skatalites lasted only fourteen months, they defined the ska era, supporting every prominent vocalist and generating a remarkable quantity of outstanding instrumental recordings. Following the band’s dissolution McCook established the Supersonics, who quickly became the resident ensemble at Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle studio, the leading facility of the rocksteady period, and they backed enduring hits by Alton Ellis, Justin Hinds, and the Techniques.

McCook continued as a steady presence on Jamaica’s session scene in subsequent years and released several solo albums with producer Bunny Lee, among them Cookin’ in 1974, Brass Rockers in 1975, and Hot Lava in 1977. For Glen Brown he also put out a 1976 blank-labeled LP commonly known as Horny Dub, and in 1978 he joined trumpeter Bobby Ellis on Blazing Horns. In 1983 he revived the Skatalites almost twenty years after their first breakup and shifted the group to the United States in 1985, shortly after the appearance of their reunion album Return of the Big Guns. Additional recordings followed, earning the band a pair of Grammy nominations. Their first world tour came in 1994 and featured dates on the Skavoovee U.S.A. package alongside the Specials, the Selecter, and the Toasters. McCook passed away at his Atlanta, Georgia residence on May 5, 1998.