Baba Brooks

Baba Brooks – Selection

The trumpet melodies of Baba Brooks – place him into the highest rank of instrumentalist – along with Don Drummond, Augustus Pablo and Jackie Mittoo.

Unlike the latter, Baba as never been given an album release on LP or CD.

For some – these kind of things seem to be irrelevant – but for most people an album – is a very quick way to find out what an artist is all about. And buying singles that were released over 50 years ago can be very expensive process.

One of Baba's best known tunes 'Shank I Sheck' was recorded for King Edwards in 1965. Was so popular in the dance hall era – that Bobby Ellis another fine trumpeter recut it for Sonia Pottinger in the dance hall era.

Very few Ska tunes had this kind of popularity during that time in Jamaica. At the moment I can't think of no other. Baba in fact had worked with Sonia Pottinger on a number of tunes – but not 'Shank I Sheck'

He also worked with Leslie Kong, Justin Yap, Lindon Pottinger. While the bulk of his work was done with Duke Reid – well over 20 tunes. It seems like his got name 'Baba' from his great love of the film 'Jungle Book' and Baba the Elephant who features in the film!!!"