Jackie Mittoo: reggae’s keyboard maestro

Donat Roy Mittoo, a.k.a. Jackie Mittoo, was born on March 3, 1948, in Browns Town, Jamaica. Mittoo was taught to play the piano by his grandmother from age four and began performing in public before he was ten.

As a teenager, Mittoo performed professionally in groups including the Vagabonds and the Vikings and hooked up with a young Augustus Pablo and another friend in a musical group known as the Jackie Mitree. He frequently skipped school to play with the house band at the nearby Federal Studios. This is where he met producer Coxsone Dodd, who enrolled Mittoo for recording sessions when the scheduled pianist did not show up on time.

When Coxsone Dodd opened Studio One in Kingston in 1963, he called the 15-year-old Jackie Mittoo to serve as musical director. The young keyboard player had continued gaining attention across Jamaica for his work with The Sheiks, one of the island’s most coveted club attractions.

Jackie Mittoo played on almost every record produced by Studio One in the following years, often arranging and polishing songs. In 1964 he became part of a new band, the Skatalites, which included legendary trombonist Don Drummond and Studio One session regular Tommy McCook, among others. Even though the group lasted only 14 months, it became the quintessential ska band of the period, and its influence on music worldwide was massive.

Jackie Mittoo later began a solo career, scoring a major hit with his rendition of the Heptones’ “Fatty Fatty” and a series of instrumental LPs. Mittoo also continued working at Studio One, delivering five new rhythms a week.

Among Mittoo’s most remarkable contributions were Freddie McGregor’s “Bobby Babylon”, “Darker Shade of Black” (the basis for Frankie Paul’s “Pass the Tu Sheng Peng”), Alton Ellis’ “I’m Still in Love with You” and Marcia Griffiths’ first hit. In 1970, his “Peanie Wallie” was also versioned by the Wailers, becoming the hit “Duppy Conqueror.” Later artists and studios, such as Augustus Pablo, Channel One, and virtually the entire dancehall movement of the early 80s, based their rhythm arrangements on material Mittoo pioneered in the 60s.

In 1968 Jackie Mittoo relocated from Jamaica to Canada, where he set up the Stine-Jac label. During the mid-70s, he also traveled to England to record LPs with Bunny Lee, while in the following decade, he worked on some fine sessions for Sugar Minott‘s Youth Promotion outlet. In 1989, Mittoo joined the reunited Skatalites, but health problems soon forced him to leave. Mittoo died of cancer on December 16, 1990.

Jackie Mittoo was probably reggae’s premier keyboard player, one of the true legends of reggae, an extraordinarily prolific songwriter and a mentor to countless younger performers as the musical director at the famed Studio One.

Sources:
Jackie Mittoo Biography by Jason Ankeny
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin on oldies.com

Photos from:
last.fm
cruisedigital.co.uk