Desi Jones: Drummer for all seasons

Desi Jones was a master musician, bandleader, arranger, producer, educator, mentor, and percussionist of the highest calibre. For many of us, he embodied a zest for life, displayed by his humanity, generosity, musicality, wit, infectious laugh, trademark beverage with the Red Stripes, and the school cadet beret tilted like a veteran’s on Poppy Day.

Born in Kingston on February 21, 1959, he was christened Desmond Jack Jones. Desi passed away peacefully at home on Saturday, May 11, less than 24 hours after a stellar performance with the Oshane Love Quartet at the F&B Restaurant Friday Night Jazz Downtown Kingston series.

As a seven-year-old at the Institute of Jamaica Junior Centre, Desi began his musical excursion playing the recorder and conga drums, and at 12, he joined the Salvation Army Brass Band. His next stage was at St George College, where he was a member of the Cadet Drum Corps, and at 14, he became the conga drum player for the National Dance Theatre Company. He later joined the Sonny Bradshaw 7, a top Jamaican dance band at the time and also honed his craft with the Peter Ashbourne Ashes and Cedric Brooks’ United Africa Band.

Jazz summoned

Desi’s tenure with Sony Bradshaw exposed him to jazz as an additional art form to pursue. His passion and quick absorption of the art positioned him as a talent to be encouraged. While he may not have been the go-to drummer for reggae, dancehall, or other stylised forms of popular music, Desi’s ability to comfortably excel at everything beyond any other drummer is a testament to his versatility and deep-rooted connection to jazz, Jamaican culture, and music. No one mastered all these styles as well as Desi.

This esteemed drummer understood the art of playing rather than beating drums. He was assertive without being overpowering, nuanced without being tepid, and a consummate musician whose pulses and beats were demonstrated in many different ways, colours, textures, and shadings.

Desi exhibited masterful technique and protean imagination, which made him one of a small cadre of elite drummers whose variable percussionist skills place them among the most accomplished masters playing jazz today. Not only could Jones’ solos be an exercise in velocity and intenseness, but his delicate and focused strokes on cymbals or skins provided startling understanding and significance to the moments when he amplified and activated his dynamism, extending and rearranging the melodic flow. He applied varying pitches on various tunes and could push, redirect, or fragment the beat. Guided by his innate melodicism, unwavering vibrancy, and openness, Desi created a counterbalance through which his compositional intent was noticeable.

Desi studied composition and completed a distance-learning arranging course at the Berkley College of Music. This skill was applied in LTM Pantomimes such as King Root (1987) and Bruins (1988). Jones produced and arranged albums by Carlene Davis, Gershwin Lake of Anguilla, and Dwight Richards. He became a founding member of Chalice in 1980 and recorded seven albums with the group.

His diverse approach to music informed his leadership with Skool, the band he co-founded in 1988. Skool was the band of choice for Jimmy Cliff, Barrington Levy, Marcia Griffiths, Bob Andy, and Mutabaruka, among many others. He played festivals on Reggae Sunsplash North American tours and Reggae Japan Splash tours. Eventually, he formed his own jazz group as well as Desi Jones and the Young Bloods to expose young musicians.

Desi also recorded commercial jingles, performed with mainstream artistes such as Ernie Smith and Gem Myers, played in pit orchestras, and recorded with dozens of reggae artistes. He was comfortable touring the UK with Miss Lou, playing folk music in the ‘80s and just as relaxed playing drums on Beenie Man’s Grammy award-winning dancehall album Art & Life.

He served as musical director for Bob Andy, Ernie Smith, Myrna Hague, and Karen Smith and did work with major foreign acts such as Billy Paul; Ray, Goodman, and Brown; Peaches and Herb; The Chilites; The Four Tops; Eartha Kitt; Cyndi Lauper; Roberta Flack; Ben E. King; and Randy Crawford.

Above all, Desi was the consummate jazz drummer. He worked with Sonny Bradshaw Big Band, Myrna Hague, and pianist Marjorie Whylie and toured and recorded with Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alexander.

Mr Jones recognised that in his capacity as a touring musician, he represented Jamaica. “When abroad, I try to big up Jamaica and its people as much as possible. I aim to make my performance so attractive to foreigners that they want to come to our island and experience our great country.”

He believed in the “importance for experienced musicians to pave the way for a new generation in every way possible and provide a template for them”, and in 1983, he published the instructional book The Art of Reggae Drumming, the first such book of its kind dealing specifically with reggae music. He generously shared his knowledge with students and upcoming drummers and happily adjudicated exam performances at the Edna Manley School of Music. Closer home, Desi was an inspiration to his son, bassist Joshua.

In a world of new technologies and changing ways of music making and performance, Jones offered advice to fledgling musicians: “Prepare yourself for your big moment by knowing your instrument. This is the first lesson to learn. It is also important to play every show you get and do free shows to get exposure and experience.”

Desi’s final bow

We chatted together on Friday, May 10, when I produced the weekly F&B Restaurant Downtown Jazz Night. Desi had the younger musicians excited when he related meeting and being acquainted with the great jazz drummer Max Roach at the Blue Monk Jazz Gallery in 1983 that I operated. They were all ears and excited when he told them about other jazz masters like Monty Alexander, Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin who he met at the Monk. He used the occasion to impress on them the importance of practising in anticipation of their big opportunity to play with greats such as those.

When it was time to hit, the tenor saxophonist Oshane Love led his quartet with Dr Orville Hammond on the keyboard, Leon Duncan on upright bass and Desi Jones on drums to the stage. Oshane admited his nervousness as he introduced the three gentlemen he was leading as his teachers and mentors. At the end of the first set, we discussed the high-level jazz arrangements they played and the unsteady passages encountered. The second set elevated the performance to something so creative that Orville’s wife and I lamented that it needed to have been recorded and that the absence of art critics to cover events of this quality was disappointing.

For instance, towards the end of the second set, Oshane introduced a well-known tune by blowing textured abstractions and free-wheeling melodic lines. Orville introduced a set of discordant phrases as if exploring consonance with the form. Leon raised an eerie blend of ascending and descending passages, creating fragmentation and a sense of something otherworldly. Exercising the true democracy of jazz, Desi assumed the leadership role by pulling attention to himself, intoning a burru rhythm to merge the free-for-all. He created phrases of stunning ambiguity before resolving into a repeating rhythmic figure, prompting Leon, the bassist, to introduce the Sattamasaga line and bring the tune to familiarity. Orville shifted from dissonant harmonic suggestions to a basic reggae riff, allowing Oshane to expose the melody, and the audience cheered in recognition of one of the most adored songs in the reggae canon. Initiatives like this sum up what made Desi Jones a loved, respected, and exciting musician and bandleader.

At 7:19 Saturday morning, Desi posted, “Last night was well done, Oshane! I’m proud of you, man.”

At 7:22 Oshane replied, “Much respect Uncle Desi “. I added, at 8:12 a.m., “Hail all. Last night was truly a jazz occasion. Oshane, your two sets were well thought through and you led the band and addressed the audience like a true professional. I’m proud of you.”

Oshane responded at 8:36, “Much respect Sir Herbie. I’m a student always.”

During all this sharing of Friday night’s achievement, little did we suspect by early evening, Desi would be gone. He was unresponsive when his son, Jushua, checked on him at home and hurried him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His family notified me and permitted me to tell the band. Grown men cried like babies, knowing that in less than 24 hours after a splendid evening together, we lost the most spirited member among the five of us responsible for so many jazz moments.

But as Desi said: “I get inspiration from the knowledge that I can make people dance with a simple beat. The drums can also change a person’s mood from sadness to joy.”

Desi would want us to keep the music joyous.

Herbie Miller is a sociomusicologist with an interest in slave culture, Jamaican popular music, and jazz.