Grounation ［3LP+7inch］

To clear up a couple of things first: the title of this two-CD set is Grounation, the name for the Rasta drumming ceremony thats one of the foundation stones of reggae. So the group performing here is the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, which in turn signals that Count Ossie was probably the leader. More crucially, this record was the first sign outside the hardcore anthropology/ethnomusicology set that this kind of music existed when it was first released in the late 70s (if memory serves, it was originally issued as a three-LP boxed set on Dynamic Sounds). Surprises abounded for casual, adventurous listeners exploring what was then the new reggae sound from Jamaica and finding a whole spiritual and political worldview behind it. So its hard to separate the music from that historical context, and that may well be why a legit label with credibility in Jamaica like VP is reissuing Grounation as what amounts to a bootleg. The cover art looks Xeroxed, the absence of musician credits is frustrating, songs fade in and out, and the scratchy record noise that crackles and pops up periodically suggests the music was taken from old vinyl LPs, not master tapes. This is Rasta devotional music before it was turned into commercial reggae styles, music that could be played outdoors in the hills or around campfires in Kingston. Theres nary a guitar in sight -- the music is all percussion, with horns, chants and recitations, an acoustic bass foundation (maybe Lloyd Brevett from the Skatalites?) and a surprisingly strong jazz quotient. "Bongo Man" leads with percussion and horn riffs before a sax solo surprisingly close to free jazz (could it be Cedric Brooks?). "Naration" (sic) starts with the heartbeat Nyabinghi rhythm and a consciousness rap on the middle passage and slavery emphasized by sudden sax honks before an introduction-to-Rasta section that quotes the psalm that "By the Rivers of Babylon" is drawn from. It does go on a bit, but "Marbat...Passin Thru" gets an Afro-Cuban/mambo horn riff and percussion groove, and "Lumba" and "Way Back Home" close things out in a song format with sax and trombone playing off the drums. Volume Two basically falls in the same vein, with a ragged-but-right version of the proto-reggae hit "Oh, Carolina" (famous now thanks to Shaggy but not to non-Jamaicans when Grounation first came out) with trombone solo and group singing leads into the Rasta chanting with drums on "So Long." "Groundation" (sic) is this discs full-fledged, extended excursion into Nyabinghi consciousness while the finale, "The Warm Up," marries effective horn riffing with the percussion and what sounds like arco bass but may just be the sax. Grounation obviously lost some of its shock-of-the-new power over the years as reggae became a known quantity in the broader pop world, and other recordings covered the same Nyabinghi/Rasta musical ground. Its still valuable historically, because you can hear the Jamaican music spectrum from ska and jazz come together to form reggae and the roots of Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus and conscious poets like Mutabaruka, too. And the music is still enjoyable, just as long no one goes in expecting a two-CD set of regular reggae songs. ~ Don Snowden