Ska bandleader Carlos Malcolm was an underappreciated figure of the music's early days, and also

made some recordings in New York in a more Americanized vein. A native of Kingston, Malcolm

received formal musical training and broke into the business playing trombone with the legendary

Don Drummond in a jazz group in the late '50s. In 1962, he was tapped to head the ten-piece house

orchestra of the newly established state radio organization the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation,

and wrote some of the first formal ska arrangements as a result. He also composed uncredited

music for the soundtrack of the first James Bond film, Dr. No (which was partly filmed in Jamaica),

and formed his own group, the Afro-Jamaican Rhythms, whose music melded ska, African, Latin,

and jazz rhythms. They scored hits in Jamaica with "Rukumbine" (1963) and, especially, "Bonanza

Ska" (1964, a rework...