Bertie King
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Albert "Bertie" King (1912 – 1981) was a Jamaican jazz and mento musician.
King, a saxophonist, was raised in Kingston, and he left that country in the 1930s to play in England. He worked in England with Jiver Hutchinson and in France with Django Reinhardt, and worked with visiting American musicians such as Benny Carter, George Shearing, Coleman Hawkins, and Nat Gonella. He returned to Jamaica in 1951, where he started his own band, playing in the mento style. Since there were no Jamaican record labels at this time, King arranged for his recordings to be pressed in a plant in Lewisham, England owned by Decca Records.
King led the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation's house band in the 1950s; his sidemen included Ernest Ranglin and Tommy Mowatt. He recorded extensively with this outfit, and continued to play jazz as well.
