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Jools in Jamaica: Lost early-‘80s BBC reggae documentary hosted by founder of Squeeze

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Fresh out of his tenure with new wave stars Squeeze, 25-year-old musician Jools Holland had launched his career as a TV presenter on the BBC channel 4 show The Tube. Assigned to cover Jamaica’s music scene circa 1984, the confident Holland strode right in to Kingston and made it happen.

Expertly directed by Geoff Wonfor, Jools’s special features footage of rising stars Mutabaruka, Dennis Brown, Black Uhuru and the Wailing Souls, along with spotlights on legendary riddim section Sly & Robbie and maniac producer Lee “Scratch” Perry (who claims he “comes from the trees”).

Not satisfied with the established stars, Wonfor and Holland prove their cred by including a gritty dancehall sequence with star microphone men Yellowman, Billy Boyo, Massive Dread and Lee van Cleef. They all do well until the on-fire Eek a Mouse suddenly hits the stage in pancho and sombrero and turns the place out.

Bookended by his intro while swimming fully dressed through a hotel pool and a beautiful finale shoot in heaviest Trenchtown for his big-band/ska tune “Black Beauty,” Jools in Jamaica is a remarkably bright document of an island in its deepest post-independence economic and political depths.
 

 
After the jump, catch the rest of the doc…
 

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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09.24.2010
06:10 pm
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Land of Look Behind: Live from Planet Jamaica

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When Bob Marley’s family called on the legendary singer’s childhood friend Alan Greenberg to film his funeral in 1982, it’s worth wondering whether Greenberg knew that he’d end up widening the scope to make one of the iconic films about Jamaica.

Shot by Werner Herzog associate Joerg Schmidt-Reitwein, Land of Look Behind seems to almost float across the island, touching down in both impoverished rural badland areas and the crowded setting of Kingston for the superstar’s stately final rites. Backed by the Kerry Leimer’s unlikely ambient score and featuring performers like Gregory Isaacs and Mutabaruka, Land… is a rich document of the places, faces, and voices of a Jamaica coming to terms with its lagging economy and post-colonial future.

Former Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk sampled many bits of the film’s various monologues to populate In Dub: Chant to Jah and Live in the Earth, the electro-dub albums he made in his Sandoz guise.
 

 

 
Get: Land of Look Behind [DVD]
 
Download: K. Leimer’s score for Land of Look Behind [MP3]
 
Get: Sandoz in Dub - Chant to Jah [CD]

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.16.2010
01:54 am
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