Like an old dog, it's debatable whether you can teach an old musician new tricks. But old musicians most certainly always have something up their sleeves for a surprise.
The Skatalites are no exception to that rule. When the Skavoovee! tour pulled into Spanish Fork two years ago with the Toasters, the Special Beat and the Selecter, hardly anyone expected a group of mostly 60-year-old musicians to steal the show. But the Skatalites did it in convincing fashion, with startlingly spry musicianship and sparkling talent.Now they are returning to Utah, headlining a four-band concert commemorating the band's 30-year anniversary. That show will be Saturday, July 29, at the State Fairpark Coliseum.
Roland Alphonso, the band's tenor saxophonist and one of its founding members, said in a recent interview that he didn't know how to explain the band's long life musically and physically, as well as the current resurgence of interest in ska. However, Don Snowden, head of Shanachie Records - which has released quite a few reggae and ska albums in its time - does.
"Jamaican music sprang from this root source," Snowden explained simply.
Indeed the Skatalites were part of a frustrated contingent of Jamaican jazz artists in the early 1960s who were looking for more freedom and life in their musical performances. Along with bass guitarist Clu Johnson and guitarist Ernest Ranglin, the Skatalites added touches of American R&B, calypso and New Orleans shuffle to their jazz and wound up with ska, a more danceable and upbeat Jamaican musical hybrid.
Once it slowed down, ska eventually begat rock-steady and later, reggae. And when it did, the Skatalites were there, adding their instruments to recordings by Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff.
Original members Alphonso, bass guitarist Lloyd Brevett and drummer Lloyd Knibb - augmented by alto saxophonist Lester Sterling, trumpeter Nathan Breed-love, trombonist Will Clark and guitarist Devon James - still tour as the Skatalites and recently released a new album, "Hi-Bop Ska: The 30th Anniversary Recordings."
Opening the show at 7 p.m. will be Chapel Hill, N.C., ska act Regatta 69, with local reggae band Cardiff Reefers and Salt Lake skankers Insatiable.
Tickets are $10 in advance from Modified Music, Graywhale CD Exchange, Cosmic Aeroplane and Raspberry Records in Salt Lake and Crandall Audio in Orem, or $12 at the door.