Day 91 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Don Drummond - Cool Smoke

Another day and another Treasure Isle ska scorcher!  Perfect music to melt away your mid-winter blues!  This one is by the great Don Drummond and the Baba Brooks Band and it's called "Cool Smoke" and was originally released in 1964.  Don Drummond for those who don't know him was one of the greatest trombonists to ever pick up the instrument, bar none!  An Alpha Boys School graduate, Drummond started out playing jazz in 1950 and in 1964 joined the Skatalites and the rest is history... with songs like "Eastern Standard Time," "Man In The Street," "Thoroughfare," etc. he became a household name.  Shortly thereafter in 1965, Don Drummond was convicted of murdering his long-time girlfriend Anita "Marguerita" Mahfood. an exotic rhumba dancer and singer.  He was ruled criminally insane and was imprisoned at Kingston's Bellevue Asylum where he died four years later.  The cause of his death has never been accurately determined and there are theories that he died from heart problems, malnutrition, improper medication and even beliefs that he may have been murdered by gangsters in retaliation for his killing of Mahfood.  A tragic story nonetheless but to me Don Drummond's music still sounds as good today as it did the day it was recorded... absolutely classic.