Jackie Mittoo: Disco Jack/Version

Pressure Sounds [seven inch repress]

Jackie Mittoo's name would go down in history even if his only claim to fame had been that he was a founding member of The Skatellites [the ground- breaking sixties ska group]. After the break up of The Skatellites, though, Jackie moved on.

Even a cursory glance back at reggae's history will show the name 'Jackie Mittoo' cropping up again and again, through Studio One's birth, the subsequent development of rocksteady and on into the eventual emergence of reggae itself. Jackie performed on and/or arranged hundreds of sides working with all the big names.

This single finds Jackie back in the days when he was working for bunny Lee and it's Bunny that gets the production credit. Disco Jack is a beautiful, slightly melancholic instrumental featuring the classic Mittoo Hammond sound and it's Jackie's Hammond lines that make this one so special. The B-side has a version where most of the organ lines have been dubbed out and although it still more than works, a lot of the soul and feeling is missing and it's the A-side that I'll be playing out.

Disco Jack is another spot-on selection by Pressure Sounds who can always be relied upon to unearth hard-to-find classic 'roots' tunes. To sum up, I'd say that in a world where so much music has become mere pedestrian, this is one of those tunes that stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. D.J's, toasters, singers, players and listeners all should CHECK THIS.

BIMBLE

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