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Alpha Boys School

Page history last edited by Mike Davey 14 years, 1 month ago

Alpha Boys School

This sign which hangs at the Alpha School displays a handful of the school's musical graduates.

History & description

The Alpha Boys' School was founded in the 1880's in Central Kingston as a home for wayward boys, providing them with an education and practical training. The musical program of the School matured and gained a unique stature during the jazz-era of the 1940s and '50s. This period saw the training of the majority of Jamaica's top hornsmen, many of whom would go on to be instrumental in the development of the island's first indigenous pop music: ska. Ska's most famous supergroup was The Skatalites, and four of its founding members -- Tommy McCook, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, Lester Sterling and the internationally-recognized Don Drummond -- were all graduates of the Alpha Boys' School. The Drummond-composed ska instrumental "Eastern Standard Time" (1964) was a perennial favorite for the Jamaican-born Sister Ignatius, who also ran Sound System dances for the students at Alpha. Alpha graduates went on to feature prominently in the emerging musical styles of rock steady and then reggae.