Tommy McCook

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Tommy McCook
Born	3 March 1927(1927-03-03) Havana,Cuba
Origin	Jamaica
Died	5 May 1998 (aged 71)
Genre(s)	Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae
Instrument(s)	Saxophone
Associated acts	The Skatalites Tommy McCook and the Supersonics

Tommy McCook (3 March 1927 – 5 May 1998) was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s.

[edit] Career

The death of McCook in 1998 passed by completely unnoticed by the mainstream press. Like his fellow Skatalites, Roland Alphonso and Jackie Mittoo, McCook never received the respect from the general media that his contribution to Jamaican music richly deserved. McCook was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Jamaica in 1933. He took up the tenor saxophone at the age of eleven, when he was a pupil at the famed Alpha School, and eventually joined Eric Dean’s Orchestra.

In 1954 he left for an engagement in Nassau, Bahamas, after which he ended up in Miami, Florida, and it was here that McCook first heard John Coltrane, and fell in love with jazz. McCook returned to Jamaica in early 1962, where he was approached by a few local producers to do some recordings. Eventually he consented to record a jazz session for Clement "Coxson" Dodd, which was issued on album as Jazz Jamaica. His first ska recording was an adaptation of Ernest Gold’s "Exodus", recorded in November 1963 with musicians who would soon make up the Skatalites.

During the sixties and seventies McCook recorded with virtually every prominant reggae artist of the era, working particularly with producer King Tubby and his house band The Aggrovators as well as being featured prominantly in the recordings of Yabby You and the Prophets (most notably on version sides and in extended disco mixes), all while still performing and recording with the variety of line ups under the skatalites name.