Ska

Ich liebe Ska, denn Ska ist die Musik der dicken Männer. Nur das Tanzen ist so anstrengend, aber dafür total geil. Shuffle your feet!!!

SKA ist keine Musik, es ist eine Einstellung zum Leben. Wenn ich SKA höre vergesse ich alles andere um mich herum und es macht mir Spaß meine Augen vor der scheiß Welt und dem beschissenen Alltag zu schließen, denn etwas habe ich gemerkt ICH kann die Welt nicht verändern, aber SKA verändert meine Welt. FOREVER SKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Über Ska läßt sich manches sagen, aber nicht, daß mein geliebter Two-Tone-Rythm allmählich langweilig wird. Seit nunmehr mehr als zwanzig Jahren ist Ska ein außergewöhnlicher Hörgenuß, und, da kann ich mich nur Gronkor anschließen, Ska wird das auch noch das nächste Jahrtausend
überleben. ...und jetzt ist Kirmes...

Ska ist die einzige wirklich zeitlose Musik!
Wer einmal auf einem Ska-Konzert war, den lässt es nicht mehr los.

Prince Buster wird auch noch in hundert Jahren gehört werden!

Stay Rude!

In meiner Jugend grassierte ein Ska-Wahn, durch Madness ausgelöst. Das hat mich so gar nicht angemacht, obwohl ich die Verwendung von Blasinstrumenten im Pop schon für eine tolle Sache hielt. Erst, als ich mir in Jamaica einige Ska-Platten aus den 60ern gekauft habe, habe ich ein Gefühl dafür bekommen, was für eine freundliche und entspannte Musik das ist. Vielleicht hat milo recht, und man muß erst dick werden, zumindestens innerlich, um diesen Groove würdigen zu können.

Stell hier mal meine Facharbeit zur Entsteheung und Entwicklung des SKA rein. Die Musikrichtung hat es einfach verdient, dass sie etwas bekannter wird, dafür, dass sie den Menschen schon ewig hilft, fröhlich und gut gelaunt zu sein.


SKA - A Music for the Future?

1. Introduction

Ska, a music style of its own, with its origin in Jamaica, is not a very well-known music for most people nowadays.
That is completely different from Reggae, which nearly everyone knows, at least some famous interpreters like Bob Marley or Jimmy Cliff. But Reggae springs from Ska and both Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff were formerly Ska idols. The Ska-sound is quite similar to the sound of Reggae, but mostly faster and in my opinion happier, respectively more connected to positive thinking, than Reggae is.

Furthermore there are so many popular bands that include Ska-elements, and almost nobody realizes it.
Some of them are, for example, “Smash Mouth“ or “The Offspring“. Both are bands that had No. 1 hits in many charts of the world as well as in Germany. So nearly everyone has heard their songs and probably judged them as good ones, because maybe it is a famous band playing them. However seldom do people ask themselves what kind of “new“ music style they are listening to, and that is the reason why there is so little attention paid to ska in public.

The only band that could manage to get really known by the majority of music-interested Germans is “The Busters“, that is already one of the most famous German Ska-bands.

As a dyed-in-the-wool Ska-fan I think it is elementary for people that are interested in music to be au fait with the origin of Ska and its fundamental liaison to Reggae.


2. A general definition of ska

Ska is a music that is mainly characterized by its beat and its wind instruments.
The Off-Beat-Style of the guitar is the element which indicates if it is ska or not. Off beat means the beat between the even beats of the music, so that you feel an always up-going tendency. This certain impression normally makes you feel happier and stimulated, because it is not just the normal 4/4 beat, but something more lively.

Then there are the wind instruments. Normally you have a tenor-sax, a trumpet and a trombone. Together with the guitar and the drums they make up the sometimes enormous speed of this music, which together with its liveliness is, characteristic for ska music.
Nearly every song has its own melody played by the wind instruments. Even though they are often varied, you always recognize them.

The content of the songs is often about parties, having fun, drinking beer or just friends. You would hardly find a ska song which is about practised violence, hate, racism or anything else destructive. Ska could be described as a mostly positive-thinking, tolerant music style that marks out any prejudices.

The way you dance the ska reminds one a little bit of the twist. You lean your body forward, bend your knees, shake your feet alternately and move your arms forward and backward at your sides. All these movements are fast just as the whole music is fast. This way of dancing is called “skanking“.

With the exception of some slow ska songs, which are written in an enjoyable, easy-going style, so that you still feel upbeat and by no means melancholy.


3. The Origination of Ska

The musical happening in Jamaica was already authoritatively influenced by outer factors in the 1950s.
Musical influences mainly came from other Caribic Isles and North America, but also with immigrants, soldiers or radio programs. These impulses were accepted from most of the autochthons and they used them within their music.
The map below shows the isle of Jamaica:

3.1 The Role of Rhythm & Beat

The greater part of the contact with the American black popular music was made in the 1940s and 50s with the GIs, which were stationed in Jamaica during World War II. Their favourite music was primarily Rhythm & Blues (R&B).
Those Jamaicans who were hired as harvest helpers in the USA, Costa Rica, Panama and Cuba got more and more in contact with R&B.
Another reason which explains the immense influence of American R&B was the establishment of American radio stations around Miami/Florida in the 1950s.

The explanation why R&B attracted the greater part of the Jamaicans is, that they identified themselves with the fate of the R&B musicians in the USA. The problems of the Blacks in America were similar to those of the poorer people in Jamaica, which lead to this intensified extension after all.

Therefore chiefly American R&B artists were almost the most popular ones in Jamaica, like Louis Jordan, Magic Sam, Amos Milburn Jackie Brenston, Wynonie Harris, Johnny Ace and Fats Domino. Rosco Gorden, the piano player, was even treated like a hero, especially during his tours in Jamaica (Clark 1973, p.26; Clarke 1980, p.59).


3.2 The “sound system“

As a consequence of all these influences, R&B developed into the musical standard for the poorer rural and urban population in the years before 1962. Accordingly most of the R&B fans could neither afford records nor record players. Due to this distress the idea of the “sound system”, respectively the “sound system dance“, was developed.

At that time some Jamaicans founded mobile discos where they played their own records and the people who wanted to come in, had to pay an admission charge. Those dances, which usually took place in rented halls or just in the streets of the slums, soon became the musical practise in Jamaica.
Sometimes a “sound system” (amplifier, record player, speaker and records) had the same value as the yearly salary of an average Jamaican. Ergo a “sound system” owner attracted great attention.
These owners, or DJs, understood themselves as independent musicians, who played their records in particular for slum dwellers of West Kingston. (Clarke 1980, p.58)

There is no agreement about the date when the first »sound system« was founded. Various authors write about this topic, but their reporting is rather vague:
Simon Jones says, “Sound Systems first began to appear in the late 1940s...“ (Jones 1988, p.18). Griffiths says something about the first “sound system” owner:

“When Tom ‘The Great‘ Sebastian started the island‘s first sound system around 1950, the discs played were dance music in the form of American Rhythm and Blues“
(Griffiths 1995, p.9)

An owner of a “sound system“ said in an interview: “One of the earliest sounds [i.e. “sound system“] was a sound named Waldron. At that time I was a fairly young kid.“ (Seidler M.A. 1983, p.3)

Striking about the DJs were their shows, in which they wore crazy, fancy clothes. Dressed up as Zorros or pirates or something else, they handled alternately with epées, pistols or records during their shows.
Dick Hebdige describes this shows as follows:

“Like Trinidad‘s boastful calypsonians they often played with images of violence, presenting themselves in a jokey but nonetheless menacing fashion as criminals, gangsters and legendary bad men.“ (Hebdige 1987, p.65)

Around 1960 the three best-known DJs out of this chaotic crowd were Duke Reid, Sir Coxsone Dodd and Prince Buster. Everyone had his own “sound system“ and his typical style.
In this serious business with R&B, the different “sound system“ proprietors were in such mutual rivalry, that they hid their records like treasures, to keep the identities and the sources of their hits secret. It was essential to get and play the hits from the USA as early as possible.
Duke Reid hired additional personnel whom he sent to America to buy the latest hits. (Charlton 1989, p. 193)


3.3 The First Jamaican Music Studios

Then, in the late 1950s R&B clearly lost its popularity in Jamaica. At the same time the provisioning of records from the USA faded, because rock ‘n‘ roll had became the most popular music style in America then.
Both trends were fatal for the future of the “sound systems”. The owner invested huge amounts in their systems and without new hits, it would not be a profitable business any longer. (Vieth&Zimmermann 1981, p.29)

So they had the idea to produce records for their shows by themselves. For this purpose they established their own studios in inner courts or cellars and engaged special musicians to tape records.
Those were the studios where the music style “Ska” came into being. However, in the beginning the well-known and still quite popular R&B style was reconstructed. Robert Witmer remarks that “the majority of early (...) Jamaican recordings were strongly derivative of American R&B“ (Witmer 1987, p.16)
First these special records were not made for sale, but to be played only in the own “sound system” as a valuable unique specimen. The advantage of this procedure was that the producers could test which effect the new records had on their audience, and then decide on copying and selling them.

This first records were made of hard wax, their sound quality was rather bad and they could be played only a few times. (Jones 1988, p.21)
It turned out in the end, that the development which seemed to be fatal for the musical future of the Sound Systems, prefaced the beginning of a completely new and independent music style: “SKA”
“This (...) unique Afro-Jamaican music form (...) came to be known as ska” (Jones 1988, p.19)



4. Why “Ska” ?

There are several theories to explain the origin and the meaning of the name “ska”:
Sebastian Clarke discusses this generic name as an onomatopoeic creation, which describes the special Off-Beat-Style of the ska-guitar. With this explanation he leans on the musician Jackie Mittoo, who says, that “play some staya staya” was a usual order to get the guitar player start.
According to Mittoo, the musician Bryon Lee then changed the naming “staya” into “ska” and so gave the new style its name. (Clarke 1980, p.69)

Another writer named Willis holds the opinion that the name came from the greeting “Love skavoovie”, as the bassist Cluet Johnson hailed his friends. Willis says that “From this greeting, the name of the music (...) developed into ‘ska’ “. (Seidler M.A. 1997, p.6)

Therefore you can neither say who thought of this name nor what it really means. The “inventor” of ska as its own music style is also unknown.
What is proved is that it has existed since 1962.


5. Social Background

After the independence of Jamaica in 1962 there was a far-reaching rural exodus and lots of people went to the cities, especially to West Kingston. About 20,000 people arrived there a year. (Vieth & Zimmermann 1981, p.43)
As a result of this development, many slums were established around Kingston, with its typical corrugated-iron, wooden and cardboard huts. The city just could not get over such a mass of people, so that the ghettos were places with inadequate hygienic conditions where too many people suffered from all kind of diseases.

However, this was the place where ska was founded, a place where the mainly black and poor majority of the population lived. This social background strongly influenced the production, spreading and the way of performing ska.
Due to this connection to poorness and sorrow, ska got nearly no acknowledgment within the relatively small middle- and upper classes of Jamaica.


5.1 The Rude Boys as gang members

Those who could not profit from the advantages connected to the independence of Jamaica, were the black, frustrated youth that grew up in those slums. As an answer to the contradictions in society they founded gangs and called themselves Rude Boys.
This naming stood for mostly unemployed young men aged 14 - 25 years (White 1967, p.39), who were armed with knives and guns, and sometimes the gangs waged wars among each other, so that almost every Rude Boy was at the same time a criminal.
These youngsters tried to be hip and cool and played dangerous games like “Tram Hopping” (Thomas 1973, p. 34), where they tried to jump on and off moving trams.

They were called Rude Boys, because they acted coarse, boorish and ill-mannered in public. Nevertheless, they cared a lot about their outfit. Dick Hebdige describes it as follows:

“(...) the rudies wore (...) serge trousers, (...) gangster-style jackets, and their eyes were often hidden behind moody pairs of shades (...) the point was to be as cool as possible”
(Hebdige 1987, p. 72)

While the dream of every Rude Boy was to do it equal to Jimmy Cliff or Bob Marley: to go into a studio, make a record and become famous, they spent their days hanging around, taking drugs and committing crimes.
The demeanour of the Rude Boys ensues from their miserable situation in life. Maybe that was the reason why they liked to invent myths about themselves. (Vieth & Zimmermann 1981, p.44)


5.2 The Rude Boys as ska fans

The Rude Boys became the main target group for many ska interpreters, because all the Rude Boys could afford, was to go to the concerts. That is why their subculture was integrated in the musical life of the ska bands.

With the big Rude Boy-riots in 1966 the situation reached a tragic climax, above all when the government of Jamaica had a whole district by bulldozer destroyed around Kingston’s Paine Avenue.
What happened before was, that the two big political parties JLP (Jamaican Labour Party) and PNP (Peoples National Party) thought they could utilize the Rude Boys by handing out weapons to them. Under the sham to protect their own members, they wanted the Rude Boys to fight against political enemies, to reach a higher percentage of the votes at the next election. (White 1967, p.43)

With the beginning of the Rastafari-movement in the 1970s the Rude Boys era came to an end, among other things because many Rude Boys joined the Rastafaris. (Johnson & Pines 1982, p.59)


6. Ska in our days

Some people divide the development of ska into three waves. The first wave includes the origin and the development of ska in Jamaica, as described above. In the second wave, ska came to the UK where it was revived in the so-called “Two-Tone”-Era in the 1970s. There the Rude-Boy-movement turned to the movement of the Skinheads who were strongly connected to the punk-scene.
The wave I will describe more exactly is the third wave that started in the early 1990s and mainly takes part in America.

There are several bands playing the pure ska-sound like “The Toasters” and “The Pietasters” from America and “The Busters” from Germany.

However mostly if you hear ska sounds, you are in the punk or skate-punk scene. There you can find many bands that have borrowed parts of ska (e.g. the guitar or the wind instruments part) and mixed it with their own style.

For that reason there are as many ska-related music styles as there are for example:

6.1 Ska-Punk:

This is a mixture of ska and punk. Sometimes there are just some ska parts beside the punk parts so that every part is separated from the other.

Then there are bands like “Operation Ivy” or its successor “Rancid” or “Mad Caddies“, which combine ska with punk. That means for example that the music is even faster than the genuine ska. Instead of the normal ska-guitar they use a distorted guitar.



6.2 Ska-Core:

This style is very similar to ska-punk, but instead of the punk parts you will hear more hard-core. Hard-core is, compared to punk, more aggressive and tends toward heavy-metal. Accordingly the impression that you get by hearing this music loses a little of the positive elements that ska has. But it is still ska music. The best bands to demonstrate this style are the “Voodoo Glow Skulls” or “ The Mighty Mighty Bosstones ”.




6.3 Ska-Jazz:

This is probably the most demanding actual music style that combines ska with another style, because this connection of two genres is nearly perfect. Both have wind instruments, and each instrument has its own solo part. So it can superbly be combined to one style: Ska-Jazz.
The best example for this genre I know, is the “New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble”. Ska musicians from popular ska bands like “The Scofflaws” or “The Toasters”, which are a very popular ska bands especially in the USA, play together in this band.



6.4 - A German Ska Band

This band is the unchallenged No. 1 of the German ska bands. What guarantees a real good stage show is the great number of band members: 12. Moreover their instrumental make-up almost exactly corresponds to the original: trumpet, trombone, tenor-, baritone-, alto-sax, guitar(s), bass, drums, percussion, piano and organ.


These facts, that it is the most popular ska band in Germany and that they are set up like the original ska bands, were one reason for me to interview them, the other was to get a better idea who they are and how they estimate the situation of ska as a substitute for all ska bands, especially in Germany.

Therefore I spoke to Peter Quintern who is responsible for the band’s public relations:

H.M.: How long does your band exist?
P.Q.: We’re now in our 13th year.
H.M.: Please give a short statement about other ska-styles like ska-punk, -core, -jazz, etc. and what sort of connections you have to them.
P.Q.: On principle we are open-minded about all crosswise connections, because ska offers to be mixed with other styles. That’s what we did so far, too. Unfortunately some bands think they get a ska song just by using the off-beat. But that’s not all what makes up a real good ska song.
H.M.: How did you start playing ska, and why did you decide to play pure ska?
P.Q.: At that time we all were fans of the “Two Tone”-movement and formed our group for a birthday party of our lead singer “Onkel Bräsig”. We were very surprised that about 500 people from all over Germany came to see our debut, and so we decided to carry on... In fact I would not say we’re playing pure ska, but we try to develop it.
H.M.: How would you define ska?
P.Q.: An off-beat stressed party music, which you can skank to.
H.M.: Do you think that ska could successfully be played on radio or at various music channels on TV?
P.Q.: It could be - ska is hidden in many chart songs, but unfortunately the pure ska bands have been ignored for years.
H.M.: Would you say that ska experiences a turnup in Germany or worldwide?
P.Q.: Until last year there was a turnup in the USA, caused especially by the ska-core movement with bands like “The Mighty Mighty Bosstones”. In Germany you hardly notice a change and we’re probably the only ska band that can exhibit a German wide spectator average of 600 people.

H.M.: When and where did you have the biggest audience at a concert?
P.Q.: That was 1992 in “Bonn/Hofgarten” at the big demo against the changing of the asylum law, where we played in front of 150,000 people together with “Herbert Grönemeyer” and “Die Toten Hosen”.
H.M.: What do you think about your fame in Germany and worldwide?
P.Q.: We’re probably the best-known ska band in Germany, but worldwide they normally know us only in the scenes and sometimes some more people. In 1998 we had an open-air in Rome to which 8,000 people came, surprisingly...
H.M.: Which music style concerning ska do you think has the best future prospects?
P.Q.: A difficult question – I’m not quite sure what I should say... but what really counts is to make good songs and sometimes giving people exactly what they want to hear, just by chance.
H.M.: Is ska an outlook on life for you?
P.Q.: Ska means to us having fun in life.

After making this interview I was glad, that “The Busters” confirmed my opinion of ska and its actual situation today. I think it is clear now, that there is a ska-scene in Germany with many good bands.
All what they need is, that the people, probably in the first place the people who are responsible for making the TV and radio programs, pay more attention to their music.



7. Conclusion

Ska is a music style that played and still plays an important role for several music genres. I mentioned it before, but Reggae is the best example: this music style springs directly from ska.
As a consequence there is no other style that has a comparable connection to ska, but many which took greater parts of this music together with parts from other genres to create new styles.

This creation of new music styles is one aspect that will help ska to exist for a long time, even 38 years after its beginning in Jamaica.
Almost every new (or old) music-style can be connected or mixed up with ska in order to create a new style. So ska will always be up-to-date by its many-sided connections to present and popular music-styles. And if just a few of the people who are responsible for the programs of the big music channels on TV or radio would recognize that, ska could have the best prospects.

The other one is the positive component that ska has. I think everybody enjoys having a good time and original ska, which is no radical or extreme music, is just perfect for stressed people who want to have some unburdened time after work for example.

All the aspects of ska I mentioned, are only a short part of the whole. To get a better idea what ska is and find out if it is the right music for you, you should go to a concert or listen to some ska songs. My sample only offers a short selection of good ska songs I know.

Ska ist die perfekte Mischung aus allen möglichen Musikrichtungen.
Schnell, melodisch, aufmunternd.
Ska macht auf Parties stimmung und wenn man es sich alleine anhört, wird man gut gelaunt.