Augustus Pablo comes alive in ‘Ancient Harmonies’

Ancient Harmonies, one of the many rich stories tracing the musical nuances of the great grandmaster of the melodica, Augustus Pablo, will be released on streaming and digital platforms for the first time today (Friday, April 24). Pablo, described as “a prolific survivor from the classic reggae era”, released four studio albums through Greensleeves Records (subsequently bought out by VP Records) between 1986 and 1991, which coincided with the era of the evolvement of reggae music from analogue to digital.

VP Records, in the past, has reissued a number of Pablo’s albums, with the last title being in 2018, a Tetrach project, Let’s Get Started. Carter Van Pelt, director of Catalogue Development at VP, confirmed that this 2020 set, being promoted as “a new take on a classic reggae sound”, is being released simply because of the importance, influence and relevance of the pioneering reggae dub producer and multi-talented instrumentalist, Augustus Pablo.

“It’s not a special anniversary or his birthday or anything like that. This project is a compilation of four albums recorded between 1986 and 1991. It was the era after the Sleng Teng and the digital creations, and Pablo had to come to terms with this new information. Creatively, he was confronted with a new environment and he responded. Ancient Harmonies includes all the music from the four LPs, Rising Sun, Rockers Comes East, One Step Dub, and Blowing With The Wind,” Van Pelt told The Gleaner of the artiste whose 1972 instrumental, Java, first released through VP’s original Randy’s Records outlet, has been a cornerstone of the sound system world for more than 40 years.

A VP Records release noted that the change in music production technology in the 1980s opened doors to new sounds and experiments from producers around the world. In Jamaica, producers who built their name on the live studio sound with a drum and bass foundation either adapted to syndrums or full digital drums by the mid-80s, or they dropped out of the game.

Van Pelt underscored that Pablo, hailed as the world’s premier exponent of the melodica, and who used an instrument which was once seen as a child’s toy to make timeless music, was connected to the music on many levels, and that his cycle can be divided into three categories. “There are the productions where he voiced other artistes, including Jacob Miller, Hugh Mundell and Junior Delgado; there is the instrumentals and also the dub albums,” he said.

HARDCORE STEPPERS

These albums, comprising “hardcore steppers and nyabinghi meditations”, were recorded at Channel One, Tuff Gong, Dynamic, HC&F & Creative Sound studios and made their debut with A-list engineers such as Scientist, Soldgie, Phillip Smart and Steven Stanley. Van Pelt writes in the VP release that the songs were keenly embraced by the New-Age sound system culture in Europe in the late ‘80s and early 1990s.

The individual LPs will be issued with their original covers and all the tracks will be on a two-CD digipack collection with a 12-page booklet. In the summer, the original LPs, in the original jackets, will be released in Europe where there is still a strong market for vinyl.

Born Horace Swaby in St Andrew, Jamaica, in 1954, Pablo, the son of a lawyer, attended the prestigious Kingston College on North Street, where he learnt to play the organ. Legend has it that the daughter of one of his father’s friends loaned him a melodica and Pablo soon became obsessed with the instrument. At KC, his classmates included talented musicians such as drummer Sparrow Martin (Alpha Boys’ School), keyboardist and trumpeter Ralph Holding. Also attending KC during that time was Clive Chin, son of the owners of Randy’s Records at North Parade, who later produced Java.

Pablo, his bio states, was also a renowned session keyboardist. A man who shied away from the media, there is not much archival audio or visual footage with him, but, according to Van Pelt, the best interview with Augustus Pablo was reprinted in Wax Poetics magazine, #43, in which he briefly references two of the albums on this collection. Pablo says, “…. every now and then I might do some dub album or some different type of things, but those albums are melody albums, like Earth’s Rightful Ruler, River Nile, and Rising Sun. Melody albums. Some great melodies on them, I love them out of this world.”

Augustus Pablo, the instrumentalist who “serenades you with his beautiful melodies that chase the demons away”, and in whose hands the humble melodica became complex and exquisite, was plagued with ill health, and died on May 18, 1999.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com