Jackie Mittoo at Home and Abroad: the Cultural and Musical Negotiations of a Jamaican Canadian
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JACKIE MITTOO AT HOME AND ABROAD: THE CULTURAL AND MUSICAL NEGOTIATIONS OF A JAMAICAN CANADIAN KAREN ANITA ELOISE CYRUS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO June 2015 © Karen A. E. Cyrus, 2015 ABSTRACT Donat Roy ‘Jackie’ Mittoo (1948-1990) made significant contributions to the genres of rock steady and reggae as a musician, producer and musical director of Studio One in Jamaica. He is renowned for the number of recordings that he arranged at Studio One, as well as his own instrumental recordings that featured the organ. He was also among a number of Jamaican musicians who migrated to Canada at the end of the 1960s and was active on the music scene in Toronto, as well as in the UK and the USA. Although Mittoo’s significance to the emergence and dissemination of Jamaican popular music (JPM) is acknowledged by music industry personnel, most studies focus on the big names of reggae and the theme of social protest in their music. Little attention is given to the role of session musicians such as Mittoo and the instrumental recordings that they created. This study attempts to redress this oversight; it will offer the first in-depth account of the career and instrumental recordings of Jackie Mittoo. This dissertation is in two parts. The first section presents a career biography which situates Mittoo’s role within the collective experience of Jamaican session musicians at home in Jamaica, and abroad in the centers of JPM production in Canada, the UK, and the USA. In part two of this dissertation, I outline four strategies that he used in his compositions—straight covers, covers with multiple sources, paraphrases, and remixes— and discuss the complexities associated with his body of work. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without my supervisory committee. I would like to thank my supervisor Rob Bowman for his assistance and encouragement through the years. You have been an excellent guide. Thank you for believing in me. It was also a privilege to work with Robert Vander Bliek, who challenged me during our talks. Thank you for providing the resources that I needed. I am greatly indebted to my mentor Bob Witmer who inspired and helped me in countless ways. I was honoured to have the coveted position of graduate assistant with him for a number of years when I first came to York. You showed me the ropes. Thank you for everything. I would like to express my gratitude to the graduate program administrator, Tere Tilban-Rios, who assisted me in navigating the Ph.D. process, and the graduate program director, Michael Coghlan, for his support. At my request, I received a wide variety of TA assignments (tutor, coach, and marker grader) for undergraduate courses in the music department including: Music and Cultures; Ska, Reggae, Dancehall; Latin and Caribbean Popular Music; Gospel Choir; Piano for Non-Majors; Classical Singing for Non-Majors; and Caribbean Ensemble (Steel Pan Orchestra). Each assignment added value to my graduate experience and preparation. Many thanks to the entire faculty and staff of the Department of Music. I also gratefully acknowledge a number of funding sources. They include several FGS graduate bursaries, a Knowledge Mobilization internship, and the York Region Arts Council Education Grant. iii I thank God for my family. Special thanks to my mother, Ita Phyllis Headlam, Michael, Ruth, Jenine, and Samantha for their help. My gratitude goes out to my brilliant children Esther, Elizabeth and Andrew, who have been waiting patiently to get my complete and undivided attention. Thank you Errol; you have witnessed my journey and understand what it took to ‘climb this very tall tree.’ You have my sincere appreciation and respect for all you have done. Last but not least, I would like to thank the family, friends and associates of Jackie Mittoo for sharing their memories. I am especially grateful for the assistance of Mrs. Mittoo- Walker, Marcia Mittoo, Marlon Mittoo, Krystal Mittoo, Sandra Mittoo, Joel Simpson, Marlene Simpson, Barbara Tourigny, and Merlene Finikin. I would also like to thank the following persons for taking the time to speak with me at various stages in this research: Noel Alphonso, Alton and Blossom Barned, Arnold Bertram, Howard Cable, Jeffrey Cobham, Donald Davidson, Carol Dodd, Jay Douglas, Fredlocks Elliot, Melva Harris, Godfrey Harris- McLean, Hartley Nathan, Peggy Quattro, Ernie Smith, Rick Wilkins, Michael Williams, and Desi Young. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents v List of Figures vi List of Music Examples viii PART ONE Chapter One Cultural Negotiations 1 Chapter Two Definition of Terms 16 Chapter Three Literature Review on Jackie Mittoo 30 Chapter Four Cultural Background 39 Chapter Five: Career Biography 57 Chapter Six: Summary and Conclusion of Part One 158 PART TWO Chapter Seven: Musical Negotiations 175 Chapter Eight: Literature Review: Borrowing as a Strategy in Composing 184 Chapter Nine: General Characteristics 199 Chapter Ten: Straight Covers 217 Chapter Eleven: Covers With Multiple Sources 239 Chapter Twelve: Paraphrases 252 Chapter Thirteen: Remixes 276 Chapter Fourteen: Summary and Conclusion of Part Two 292 Reference List 298 Appendices Appendix A: Identity Theories 333 Appendix B: Mittoo’s Work Schedule 334 Appendix C: Examples Of References to Mittoo’s Creative Process In JPM Discourse 342 Appendix D: Summary of Sewell’s Typology of Surface and Structural Samples 343 Appendix E: Mittoo’s LPs (1967-1990) 344 Appendix F: Retitled And Reissued Recordings 345 v LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Three Elements of Habitus 20 Fig. 1.2 The Process of Cultural Change in JPM 26 Fig. 2.1 Two Important Notices From Jamaica Federation of Musicians 48 Fig. 3.1 The Names of All Star Bands 99 Fig. 3.2 The Significance of Band Names 103 Fig. 3.3 Name Changing of Studio One’s House Band 104 Fig. 3.4 An Advertisement for the 1969 Musical Scorcher Show 122 Fig. 4.1 Thesis, Behaviors and Principles 159 Fig. 5.1 The Layers of an Arrangement 194 Fig. 5.2 Descriptors For Reused Music 197 Fig. 6.1 Contrasting Elements of Mittoo’s Consecutive Phrases 207 Fig. 6.2 Example of Contrast in the Lead Melodic Line of Mittoo’s Cover of 207 “Elenor [sic] Rigby” Fig. 6.3 Layers in Rock Steady Arrangements 208 Fig. 7.1 Resources for Straight Covers 217 Fig. 7.2 Theoretically Possible Configurations for a Straight Cover 218 Fig. 7.3 Elements of the Source and Cover of “Who-Dun-It?” 222 Fig. 7.4 Structural Comparison Chart for “Who-Dun-It?” 227 Fig. 7.5 The Configuration of “Who Done It?” 229 Fig. 7.6 Elements of the Source and Cover of “Too Late To Turn Back Now” 233 Fig. 7.7 Structural Comparison Chart for “Too Late to Turn Back Now” 234 Fig. 7.8 The Configuration of “Too Late To Turn Back Now” 237 Fig. 8.1 The Sources Used in the Arrangement of “Rock Steady Wedding” 242 Fig. 8.2 Reused Motifs From “Ol’ Man River” 244 Fig. 8.3 A Breakdown of the Structure of Mittoo’s Version of “Ol’ Man River” 245 Fig. 8.4 The Placement of Reused Music in “Mission Impossible” 247 Fig. 8.5 Transcription of the Melodic Structure of “Mission Impossible” 248 Fig. 9.1 Paraphrases: Resources and Elements 252 vi Fig. 9.2 Types of Undeclared Paraphrases in Mittoo’s Body of Work 25 3 Fig. 9.3 Elements of “Evening Time” 255 Fig. 9.4 The Structure of Mittoo’s Paraphrase of “Evening Time” 258 Fig. 9.5 Elements of “You Don’t Love Me” 262 Fig. 9.6 The Structure of Willie Cobbs’s “You Don’t Love Me” 263 Fig. 9.7 A Comparison of the Structures of the Cobbs and Penn Recordings 264 Fig. 9.8 The Configuration of “You Don’t Love Me” 265 Fig. 9.9 Elements of “Loving You” 266 Fig. 9.10 A Breakdown of the Phrases in “You Don’t Love Me” (Penn) 266 Fig. 9.11 Sources Used in the Arrangement of “Loving You” 268 Fig. 9.12 The ‘ab’ Phrase in “Loving You” 268 Fig. 9.13 The ‘cb’ Phrase in “Loving You” 269 Fig. 9.14 Structure of “Monkey Man” 272 Fig. 9.15 The Variations of “Monkey Man” 272 Fig. 10.1 Structure of “Drum Song” 281 Fig. 10.2 Remixes 289 Fig. 10.3 Variations 289 vii LIST OF MUSIC EXAMPLES Ex. 1.1 Higgins’s Bass Riff 223 Ex. 1.2 Higgins’s Guitar Riff 223 Ex. 1.3 Mittoo’s Duplicated Bass Riff 223 Ex. 1.4 Mittoo Modified Bass Riff 223 Ex. 1.5 Mittoo’s “A” Subject 227 Ex. 1.6 Higgins’s “A” Subject 228 Ex. 1.7 Mittoo’s “B” Subject 228 Ex. 1.8 Cornelius’s Riff 234 Ex. 1.9 Mittoo’s Guitar Riff 234 Ex. 1.10 Mittoo’s Bass Riff 235 Ex. 1.11 The End of Mittoo’s Phrases 236 Ex. 2.1 The “a1” Motif 245 Ex. 2.2 The “b” Motif 245 Ex. 2.3 The “c” Motif 245 Ex. 2.4 The Emphatic Figure 246 Ex. 3.1 The Two-Note Figure 257 Ex. 3.2 Extract From The Refrain of Ferland’s “Evening Time” 258 Ex. 3.3 Mittoo’s Modified Theme From the Refrain of “Evening Time” 258 Ex. 3.4 Extract From Ferland’s Verse 259 Ex. 3.5 A Bass Figure Serves as the Introduction in Penn’s Cover 262 Ex.