Don Drummond born 12 March 1932

Don Drummond (12 March 1932 – 6 May 1969) was a Jamaican ska trombonist .He was among the seminal figures behind the evolution of ska and a founding member of the legendary Skatalites. He was the genre's most prolific composer, with well over 300 songs to his name before his brief career ended in tragedy. 

Drummond was born at the Jubilee Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, to Doris Monroe and Uriah Drummond. To state anything more than that, would be a travesty. Apart from the fact that like all legends, nothing seems to known about his early days, men like Drummond are just here for a short while, then gone. He was educated first Franklin Town Primary School, then Alpha Boys School, where he later taught up-and-comers including Tommy McCook, Rico Rodriguez, Vernon Muller, Joe Harriott, and Vincent Gordon. 

In 1940's Jamaica, big band swing and jazz ruled, and the starting place for musicians was the Eric Dean Orchestra. Drummond joined them in 1955 having been voted Best Trombonist in 1954, and then formed The Don Drummond Four. He was also cutting specials for sound systems before being spotted by Clement 'Coxone' Dodd, performing at the Majestic Theatre.

Drummond had just completed one of his many short visits to one of the local mental hospitals, and didn’t even own a trombone, but Coxone was impressed enough to take Drummond on him as a solo artist and session player. In the meantime, the specials Drummond had previously cut were starting to be released commercially in Jamaica and England to critical acclaim. Drummond started his recording career sometime around 1956, with his first record being “On the Beach” with Owen Grey on vocals. 

In 1962, Chris Blackwell started releasing recordings in England, and many of Drummond’s compositions first saw the light of day on the Island and Black Swan labels. In 1964, under Coxsone's supervision, keyboardist and musical director Jackie Mittoo began to assemble the best musicians in Jamaica to create a sound that would dominate the music scene for years to come. The seeds for the Skatalites were sown while Mittoo played in the Sheiks, alongside Johnny Moore (trumpet) and Lloyd Knibbs on drums. Drummond was the man Mittoo turned to, and he quickly became the most prolific composer and musician in the band. The Skalites would go on to be a who’s who of Jamaican musicians including the great Rico Rodriguez. 

The quintessential ska band of their time, the Skatalites had an influence that was incalculable -- their 1964 debut, Ska Authentic, ruled Jamaican airwaves throughout the year, and in addition to leading sessions with all of the island's top solo artists, they also helped launch the careers of newcomers including Delroy Wilson, the Wailers, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Ken Boothe. Drummond's composition "Man in the Street" earned the group a Top Ten U.K. hit later in 1964, and a year later his adaptation of the theme to the film The Guns of Navarone duplicated the feat. 

                              

With Drummond's politicized conversion to the Rastafari movement, other band members followed his lead.  Drummond’s prestige among other musicians carried with it the hopes and dreams of all of Jamaica’s shantytown musicians. This was an incredible stress on a man whose life hovered between eccentricity and manic depression which earned him the nickname "Don Cosmic.” 

His delicate mental condition was not helped by the amount of ganja he consumed, and the pressures of fame without gain simply helped to push Drummond completely over the edge. 

The crunch came one early morning in January 1965, after his girlfriend returned home to the apartment they shared together in East Kingston. There was a grisly murder scene and 23 year old Anita Mahfood, (known as Margarita) and Jamaica’s leading exotic dancer, was found dead. Drummond was duly convicted and remanded to the Belle Vue Asylum where he died in 1969, listed officially as a suicide, but the story doesn’t end there. For even in death, Drummond’s tortured soul could find no rest, and soon after his demise conspiracy theories took hold. 

Many people in Jamaica thought Drummond’s death was far more sinister in origin, and definitely not suicide. The theory is that Drummond was beaten to death by guards, with the governments blessing, and the fledgling democracy had indeed repressed the West Kingston musical scene for years, along with its Rasta brethren. The truth probably is a lot simpler, and is probably a combination of all the theories with some simple truths. The history of music is littered with casualties, and with genius often comes tragedy, and the great Don Cosmic is another star who shines bright in heaven. 

Drummond recorded over 300 songs before he died at the age of just 27. 

(Edited from All About Jazz, AllMusic & Wikipedia)