Boomshots

Tag: Jackie Mittoo

  • SPECIAL REQUEST: Willi Williams “Armagideon Time”

    SPECIAL REQUEST: Willi Williams “Armagideon Time”

    Don’t Mix Up The Studio One Star With The First Black LAPD Chief, Who Passed Away Today

    What’s in a name? Willie L. Williams became Los Angeles’ first African American police chief in the aftermath of the 1992 riots,  died today of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72, reports the L.A. Times. Williams stepped into the top job at the LAPD at a sensitive time, as the department reeled from criticism over its handling of the riots and Los Angeles struggled to mend racial divides. He replaced Daryl Gates, who had long been criticized for running a department that mistreated minority groups, particularly blacks, in Los Angeles. Williams helped usher in a series of reforms in the wake of the Rodney J. King beating. Under him, the department grew by 2,000 officers and the LAPD adopted more “community policing” strategies that were designed to be less confrontational than Gates’ methods. He won credit for restoring confidence to the department. “I was the guinea pig” he once told a Times reporter. Audio After The Jump… (more…)

  • Japanese Melodica Master Anna i Talks Augustus Pablo and His “Far East Style”

    Japanese Melodica Master Anna i Talks Augustus Pablo and His “Far East Style”

    Classical Piano Lessons At Age Eight Didn’t Thrill Her, Then She Discovered Augustus Pablo

    July 1st marks the 20th anniversary of International Reggae Day a celebration of the global impact of Jamaica’s musical culture. And there’s no greater representative than Tokyo-born Anna i. She always loved music, so at the age of eight her parents gave her classical piano lessons. But her passion for playing wasn’t sparked until a vinyl-collecting friend introduced her to soul, jazz, and especially reggae. She was particularly drawn to the “Far East” dub style of Jamaican melodica master Augustus Pablo. Absorbing his sound, she taught herself to play the instrument and within a few years she was playing with the German punk band The Slits on tracks like the 2009 banger “Babylon.”  Earlier this summer she joined Jamaican keyboard master Monty Alexander during his birthday celebration at B.B. King’s, improvising “Happy Birthday to You” during a dub-jazz jam session. She’s now under the wing of Patricia “Miss Pat” Chin—the P in VP Records—who has big plans for the young melodica master. The ReggaeGirlAboutTown recently caught up with Anna i at VP headquarters for an in-depth conversation. Anna even treated Boomshots to an off-the-cuff performance. Video After The Jump…

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  • HEAR THIS: Inner Circle ft. Touter “Drum Song”

    Keyboard Master Touter Harvey Drops A Dubstep Update of The Jackie Mittoo Classic “Drum Song”

    “Reggae influence a lot of music,” says Bernard “Touter” Harvey, and he should know. He’s played on classic cuts by Bob Marley and Inner Circle, among others. “Look at it this way, reggae have many babies. A man say in Jamaica you have the roots. Every tree have to have roots and it have to have branches. And from branches, sometimes you get seeds. Sometimes even the root push out another plant or a baby plant.” One of the  new musical babies would be dubstep. “Where we used to have dub, now we have drum and bass and dubstep.” The good people at Dubshot Records have teamed with Inner Circle to produce Dub Planet X, a tribute to Jackie Mittoo, reworking some of his classic compositions inna “Steppin Dub” stylee. Audio after the jump.
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