As a historical note, "rocksteady" was the Jamaican style of music preceding reggae and almost assuredly is the inspiration for this recording's title. Hassan Shakur's acoustic bass playing leads credence to the album's title of On the standard CD of this recording all the instrumentalists are recorded with a very natural balance and acoustic setting. Ernie's contribution seems to be a straightforward guitar-picking accompaniment. Near the beginning of the second tract, "Confucius", Alexander plays around with the melodica for a short time. The first two selections are played in a fairly straightforward jazz style with strong hints of bop as well as reggae thrown in. The songs on this recording share a Jamaican or reggae heritage and for the most part were composed in the era around nineteen seventy. These two great musicians plus the famous reggae vocalist/ musician Bob Marley are probably the most recognized musical names from Jamaica. Ernie and Monty first played together forty-five years ago and their first recording was released approximately ten years later. Monty Alexander has regularly fronted his own group and still does. As outstanding as he was and still is, Ernie was almost always a sideman or shared billing on recordings. Soon after arriving in New York City in the late fifties, the great George Benson presented Ranglin with a George Benson model Gibson Guitar. There was a period of time more than forty years ago when Monty was generally acclaimed the greatest and hottest jazz piano player in the country while Ernie enjoyed the same reputation with his guitar playing. Do you know which country? The answer is to be found at the end of this paragraph. Ernest Ranglin, Alexander's special guest on this recording, is from the same country as Monty. The other type is the very different "soprano melodica" which features a smaller number of push keys. On this recording Monty is using the "piano melodica" which features a miniature keyboard with approximately one key for every letter of the alphabet. In other words, you can think of the melodicas (there are two very different versions) as super-duper harmonicas or simply as more versatile. Here, in addition to his famous pianistic abilities he seems to be enjoying a few passages showcasing his performance on the melodica. Monty's stylistic approach is once again in evidence on this disc continuing what has made him increasingly popular after joining Telarc's growing stable of outstanding performers. You should pay close attention to the comments regarding the audio quality mentioned later in this review, there is something uniquely (in my experience at least) happening. This release is the fifth in the past few years helping Telarc to increase its presence in the worlds of jazz and blues along with typically fine sound quality and even surround sound. Monty Alexander has been turning out an average of at least one album per year for more than thirty years.
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