NAMBO

After years of backing top acts like Sly and Robbie, Dennis Brown and Burning Spear, trombonist Ronald 'Nambo' Robinson gets his place in the spotlight tonight at the Red Bones Blues Café in St Andrew.

Robinson will lead a band that includes bass player Andrew Ayre, drummer Shawn Anderson, Stephen Maxwell on keyboards and his son, guitarist N'namdi Robinson. They will play songs that cover the gamut of Jamaican music - from mento and ska to rocksteady, roots-reggae and dancehall.

"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but didn't have the time or support," Robinson told The Gleaner.

He said the enthusiasm abroad for classic Jamaican popular music spurred his determination to perform a live set of songs mainly from the 1960s and 1970s, at home.

"Every time I travel I meet young musicians who know everything about Jamaican music. It's not so here where we tend to discard things," he said.

Robinson is originally from east Kingston where many of Jamaica's leading musicians, including the legendary trombonist Don Drummond, got their start playing in venues like the Bournemouth club.

Strongly influenced by Drummond, Robinson began recording in the early 1970s when hornmen were still in demand.

Worked with biggest names

Over the years, he has recorded and toured with some of reggae's biggest names, including Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Freddie McGregor, Maxi Priest, Max Romeo and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari.

His distinct sound can be heard on Marley's Wake Up and Live, Honey by Bob Andy and That Thing, the massive hit from singer Lauryn Hill's Grammy-winning album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

With the advent of the computerised Sleng Teng rhythm in 1984, many Jamaican producers opted for multi-faceted keyboards to create their music and cut production costs. The musicians, especially drummers and hornmen, were alienated.

"Even now, you don't hear a lot of instrumentals on radio, it's just dancehall. Wi trying to change that," Robinson said.

Robinson has recorded four solo albums.