"I think I'll quit singing..."

On the way back form a photo studio after finishing a session for a new album, "Dreams Come True...", all of a sudden, Sandra Cross started giving me those shocking words.

"'Cos I've done the best ever I could for this album, you know. Yeh, the best ever voice was recorded with the best ever combination of the musicians and I have never felt so good about singing in my life. And... I was so happy about the photos too. Up till now, none of the photo-sessions was that good... Then, if... this album did nothing, what am I singing for? It wouldn't make a sense at all. Don't you think?"

She might have been right. This second album of her project of jazz reggae, with Alan Weekes, the producer and arranger, really is a masterpiece which will have a place in history. The sound sealed in the disc is a complete fusion of jazz and reggae which is a Jamaican equivalent of jazz-bossa that had never been done before. You may find it too reggae if you are a jazz fan. Or it might sound too jazz if you are a reggae fan. While one may call it jazz-reggae, one might call it reggae-jazz, or one might name it reggae swing. Whatever it might be, the key is whether this music sounds fresh and rocks you. If it does, who cares the name?

The idea of this fusion, which really is sweet rebel music, comes from a study on the history of reggae music. As broadly known, the roots of reggae is ska created in the late 50's under a heavy influence of R&B from the States with local music such as calypso. By who? That was the thing. There are several theories about exactly who created ska, but that is not so important, but, whoever it was or they were, the fact is that almost of all musicians at the time had jazz back ground and ska would never have been born without those local jazz musicians who later would be the main force of Jamaican music scene.

With no doubt the most important band to talk about the history of reggae and ska is the Skatalites. Formed in 64 by the late Tommy McCook, who passed away on the 4th of May this year ('98), this legendary band was continuously recorded hundreds of Jamaican classics in its short life of less than 2 years. The members were the crystal of the finest musicians of the island who previously played jazz for a tourist. In fact, when Louis Armstrong, one of the jazz giants, was in the island, "Wow, Isn't that Lester Young?" he shouted to a young sax player who later became the member of Skatalites, Roland Alphonso. Indeed the Skatalites were playing "burning hot" improvisation along with the typical rhythm of ska.

Though there was a heavy influence of jazz in ska music and actually ska really is Jamaican jazz, almost nobody of the jazz establishment gave any respect to ska. Perhaps it was simply because of ska having a lack of contact with a jazz great. By having Chalie Parker played with some Cuban musicians, Afro-Cuban is well regarded as jazz and so was jazz-bossa because of Stan Getz. Why not ska? This question was the beginning of this jazz-reggae project.

In London, there were a bunch of British Jamaican musicians sharing the similar feeling on this injustice. It was Jazz Jamaica lead by a bass player, Gary Crosby whose uncle is Ernest Ranglin, the original ska legend and a great jazz guitarist recorded some albums for one of the top jazz label, Verve. Featuring 4 original Jamaican giants like Rico Rodriguez on trombone, Michael "Bammie" Rose on sax and flute, Eddie "Tan Tan" Thornton on trumpet and Tony Utah on percussion ons the front, Gary formed Jazz Jamaica in 93 with Alan Weeks on guitar, Kenric Rowe on drums, and Clifton "Bigga" Morrison on kbd. all of who are the second generation of Jamaican immigrants who originally started off playing reggae and turned into jazz.

Their approach to ska music was to go back to the roots and re-vitalize it by emphasizing dynamic improvisation that is the hardcore of jazz as well. The debut album called "Skaravan", which is a coined word with ska and "Caravan", a jazz classic by Duke Ellington, tells us all about the charm of Jamaican Jazz.

As an extension of their approach to ska music, the following album was designed to emphasize how jazz or jazzy Jamaican music can be by covering jazz classics in its unique style with several guest musicians in the same circuit. A well known jazz standard, "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To", was arranged in a Lovers Rock style featuring Julie Dexter, one of the up'n'coming female jazz vocalists in London and a funky bossa tune, "Ricardo Bossa Nova", was played in a style named Jamaican Swing. One of the most talented multi musical instrumentalist, Cleeveland Watkiss, took vocals on "Mornin'" and "Take 5" with real bad reggae swing and the top sax player Courtney Pine gave a thrilling solo in "Cristo Redentor", one of the most spiritual classics penned by Donald Byrd, with Nyabingi, Jamaican drumming, style. Their brilliant performances were recorded in an album called "The Jamaican Beat - Blue Note Blue Beat Vol.1" which surprisingly made a smash hit in Japan.

The key to jazz music should be swing and improvisation. If so, ska/reggae has got rockin' rhythm, that is an equivalent of swing, in its origin and improvisation too. Then a fusion of jazz and ska/reggae should work. This simple theory was proven fully in this album. If you get a chance to check their wicked performances on this album, you'll find that all of those jazz classics in Jamaican style sound as if they are made for ska/reggae. Providing artistic expression with improvisation, they still rock you wild like jazz swings you sweet.

However still the jazz establishment looked down on their approach and regarded it as blasphemy to jazz simply because they never are willing to give any respect to dance music. If that is the case, there are different ways to approach to fuse those two by providing a vocal album featuring one of the top vocalists in the field. Of course Sandra Cross was the vocalist to be approached for this project.

Making a debut at the age of 14, she has been singing in the front line of Lovers Rock in the UK for the last 20 years. With a help of one of the top producers, Mad Professor recently gave a great work for the Massive Attack's dub album, Sandra Cross' career was blooming in the 80's with a series of big hits such as a reggae version of "Country Life" originally sung by the Stylistics. Indeed she was the queen of Lover's Rock in the 80's if Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson were the ones of the late 70's.

After Sandra moved to Barbados in the Caribbean in the early 90's, she was not actively performing till her voice was heard in an album called "JAVA" by Arturo Tappin who is another force of jazz reggae. Studying jazz and sax at Barkley, Arturo was trying to create a fusion of jazz and reggae in Barbados and making a storm in the Caribbean. Finding her name there, the approach to her begun in spring of 96.

"Yes, I'd love to!"

This was Sandra's first reaction to this idea of making a vocal album of jazz reggae as an equivalent to jazz-bossa created by Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto.

"I just felt that this project is me, really, and have to do it. Believe it or not, I really wanted to do this for a long time. Because I am able to show my creativity and a lot of things come out musically that never happened in the past. At last... yes, at last I've got what I really wanted to do."

The first album of this jazz reggae project, later titled "Just A Dream", was recorded in the summer of '96 in London with Alan Weekes of Jazz Jamaica who was responsible for a version of "Lover Man", another trial of jazz reggae, in Carroll Thompson's album called "Free" recorded in 94. At this stage, nobody knew exactly how it should sound like and it was a struggle to complete the idea. But with the concept to cover jazz standards, they could manage to finish the recordings after a series of experiments.

"I really enjoyed it. Not only about making an album, but the concept of it and the whole meaning of it, you know. When I was working for ARIWA, Mad Professor's label, it was like a 9 to 5 job. I found there was no meaning of it. It is not just sitting at piano and sing, is it? I suppose it was my fault though 'cos I was more laid back at the time and was not serious enough. But this project is like going to school and learn, you know. When you learn, you excel. This really is the type of music I wanted to do but I could not find the right producer and right people to work with till then."

It was incredible to see Sandra changes. From the first day of the recording, her vocals were reflecting all of the little bits and pieces happening around her in studio which might have been just a touch of a note or phrase of a musical instrument. It was the same when she toured in Japan in July last year. There was a clear difference of her way of singing in the first show in Osaka and the second one in Tokyo. Obviously she was getting better and better.

"That's something incredible about Sandra. When I recorded with her my album, I just couldn't believe how good she was. She doesn't have to sing twice, you know. I can guarantee that she could master the way Ella Fitzgerald sings if she can get a chance to listen to Ella's album.

Arturo, played tenor for "Just A Dream", was explaining Sandra's talent and it was right. This new album, "Dreams Come True..." was the evidence of it.

"I knew this new album would be much better than the last one. Because it was the first time for me to work together with Alan and other musicians for "Just A Dream", but we now know each other well and also feel together not only physically but mentally. And also up till that time, I never listened to jazz at all. You guys might have known what I should sound like, but not me."

Like Sandra, Alan also knew what to do in this new album.

"We will have acoustic musical instruments and try having organic sound. Very little over-dubs, but we record most of the parts live"

Of course, they worked quite a lot to sketch the image of the sound for 3 or 4 days before getting into recording studio . But the actual recording was similar to the one by a pure jazz session. Apart from Alan, as he had to be cool to check the sound, the rhythm section and Sandra got in studio together and play completely live. If anyone of them did not like a take, another take was prepared. But most of the times, one take was good enough.

They recorded 4 or 5 songs a day and, in the process of it, they were experiencing a series of magical moments and a great example was captured when they were recording a single track, "I Want You", a ballady cover version of Marvin Gayes's big hit. After a couple of rehearsals in studio, the first take was to be kept for the album, but, in that take, Sandra was giving wicked adlib closer to the end of the song and never seemed to end and all of the musicians were vived up like one organic creature. Indeed, right after, getting out of the studio to the control room, everyone was saying "Yes, It's a magic, innit?"

This albums has 16 tracks. There are some jazz standards like "All of Me", "Someone To Watch Over Me", "Moon River" and "I'm A Fool To Want You" as well as a cover of pop songs like Burt Bacharach's "The Look Of Love", Leon Russell's "This Masquerade",and Aretha Franklin's "Crazy He Calls Me" as well as some Brazilian classics. But Sandra recalls the most difficult one was "Agua De Beber", one of those Brazilian tunes.

"When I got the selection of the songs in a cassette, I thought it was a difficult songs to sing. But then again, I was asking to myself. What was I frightened of? Yes, I did struggle with it in the beginning , but when I was doing it, I was not struggling at all. I didn't feel any pressure either."

Apart from the covers and jazz standards, there are 2 original songs composed for this album. One of them was ready before getting into the studio, but another one was actually born through a jam session when Graham Harvey of Incognito manage to spend a couple of hours in studio before catching a flight for holiday. It was a thrilling moment to witness a song been born. The musicians kept playing and Sandra was singing along and making words and melody with them. Of course, it was not an easy thing to do and it was obvious that Sandra was well stressed at the time.

"I have to admit that it was the hardest time I have ever had in my career. I had to stop and think and pull my sock up. I suppose it was a very good lesson to learn. Put it that way. Usually I am very easy to give up, but I did not. It was like a discovery of myself, you know. Because I had never had anything like that before this jazz reggae project. In another word, it was not that important when I was working with previous producers. I can tell you, Alan is such a magical character and such a talented man. With him, I could not give up but did it. After finishing it and looking back, I felt that I did such a great work."

Another songs Alan found difficult to play was a self cover of "Foundation Of Love". In fact he was trying to give it up a couple of times. But with a help of one of the pianists, Arnold Khanu, this slow jazz ballad version with still rockin' rhythm of reggae was created.

"I knew it would work... because I wrote this song as a ballad, but because of previous producers, I could not finish it in the way I wanted. You know, in reggae music, almost of all the producers demand no ballad. Even if I asked, they told me I was a reggae singer and nobody listened to a ballad. Don't even think about it! That's it."

According to Sandra, this ballad, "Foundation Of Love" was written about an encounter with her husband and she said, "This is my most favorite song I have ever written." Like she said, "At last I feel this project is me!", in this album her dream to complete this song come true. If this album does not do anything, what could you say?

To Alan and all of those musicians involved, this album was one of those dreams to have come true. The drummer, Kenric, and co-producer of this project did create a basic style of jazz reggae drumming in "Just A Dream" and completed it thought the sessions of this new album.

"Having a suggestion seems ridiculous in the context of reggae in the early stage, I was puzzled, but I just tried it. Then it sounds so good and gives a brand new nuance on a track... It's not easy but hard sometimes 'cos I had to play so slow whole through a track, but this new drumming definitely open up a new perspective to reggae."

Receiving the words of Kenric, Alan added and emphasized,

"You have to know that Kenric is the only drummer could play this style of drumming. He really is the pioneer, you know."

When Alan was working on the mixing, all of the musicians pass by the control room, without exception, stopped a while and fell into the sound they had worked on and gave a word, "Wicked!" It was just not the musicians involved the recording, but the owner of the studio, Kuma Harada, the bass player of the Breakfast band, and the chief engineer of the studio, Berti, who worked on the UB40's albums, were simply amazed to witness a drama to create this new sound of jazz reggae.

"It is not "Just A Dream" anymore, you know"

It was the bass player of this recording, Neville, started giving a suggestion on the title of this new album when the mixing was about to be finished. "But reality. We just made this."

The title of this new album was born at this moment. Surely their dreams come true through this recording session. This jazz reggae really is an equivalent of jazz bossa created in the 60s and nobody could ignore this. Especially all those cats in jazz should at least have a listen to this album. If something is missing or there is another dream to come true, then it should be to gain those cats respect on this brand new jazz reggae. But it would not take long...

written in Tokyo and New York in August 98.