Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Ting-A-Ling!

Here's a nice tune from Prince Jazzbo from the start of the eighties.
It's a cut of 'Ting-A-Ling' by the Heptones, which he'd already versioned as 'Ring-A-Ting' in the early seventies. In the eight or so years that separate the two records, Jazzbo's style has changed ('Natty-Ting-A-Ling' owes a big debt to the new style of deejays like Lone Ranger) and so has the mixing at Studio 1. This has a similar sort of mix to the twelve inch singles that Coxsone was putting out by the bucketload in those years - you really notice it on the dub.
I really like this tune, and I hope you will too. Anyway, Enjoy!
http://www.mediafire.com/?zjnzdfmqwou and don't forget that there are a couple of excellent compilations of Jazzbo's music out there (and if you decide to buy one of the compilations of his Studio 1 stuff, make
sure it's 'Pepper Rock' - the other one has the same songs, but doesn't have the right mixes and is nowhere near as good).

6 comments:

the_voice_of_reason said...

This was the era of overdubbing by the Brentford Rockers, with Pablove Black and Jackie Mittoo on keyboards, Horsemouth Wallace on drums, Bagga Walker on bass and Ernest Ranglin on guitar working round the basic backing track.

There's no doubt that Jazzbo's style has moved a long way from the days of "Playboy Version", "Jah Dip" and "Crabwalking"; I suspect his time with Scratch and cutting tunes like "Step Forward Youth" had allowed him to hone a more mature stye after rather losing his way with Bunny Lee during the I.Roy feud. This is one of his best tracks IMHO

the_voice_of_reason said...

Incidentally, the organ led cut of "Ting-A-Ling" was the second version the Heptones cut for Coxsone, no? Was the one dubbed as "King a Thing" and "Theme A Ling", and later versioned by Alpheus, Glen Washington and JD Smoothe at Fulton Street, Brooklyn in the late nineties not the original cut?

lala said...

steve say:
I pretty much agree VOR. The rootsier stuff that he cut with Perry and on his own labels suited Jazzbo far better than all those deejay feud records. Jazzbo didn't really do humour, so he was always going to come out second best in against I-Roy ('Jazzbo, if you were a jukebox, I wouldn't put a dime in your slot'). I actually think that some of the other stuff he cut with Bunny Lee is pretty good - those two versions of 'Queen of the Minstrel' for instance.

Jah said...

Speaking of Jazzbo, do you have either the Moonrocks 12'' or Rasta Have Ambition? (yeah, I know he's not on the latter, but you mentioned Bunny Lee and its the only Live & Love collection I still can't find....plus it's great stuff!)

lala said...

steve says:
I think I might have the Moonrocks one somewhere - watch this space. 'Rasta Have Ambition' - that's the only Live & Love comp that I never managed to find!

Jah said...

I just realized there IS one Jazzbo track on RHA. Oops. I'll keep checking back for the Bushays 12''-Thanks.