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Veronica Swift - A Little Taste

With the arrival of the sounds of Fats Domino, James Brown, Otis Redding, Brook Benton and Ray Charles, the music was analyzed, taken apart, joked about and put together again. When jazz, blues, and R&B was played, it was usually speeded up by local musicians, who grew up with a scattered pace of mento. Over time American R&B and soul music became the leading music of the Caribbean.

The rise of American music in Jamaica helped to bring about the notorious sound systems. The Jamaican radio was controlled by the government and was then seen as far too conservative for the people and the black blues that the Jamaicans wanted to hear. Programming did not reflect the preferences of the population, and people continued to complain that the radio stations did not play what the public really wanted. R&B records were hard to come by, led alone good records, and far too expensive for most Jamaicans So, the sound systems came into play.

Mysteriously, by the early 1960’s, the major R&B and pop movement in America fizzled and died. The sound systems in Jamaica had been dependent on these American dance records for jobs and in order to keep the Jamaicans dancing. This drop in American music led directly to the beginnings of Reggae.


Veronica Swift - A Little Taste
  • Release on: August 30, 2019
  • First Released by: Dave Frishberg
  • Released on: Confession album zc

"Veronica Swift first two albums solidified her position in modern jazz. she shows that she’s more than a jazz singer, exploring French and Italian opera, European classical music, bossa nova, blues, industrial rock, funk, and vaudeville. She pulls the feat off without the results sounding callow or pastiche."

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