From Kingston to Toronto...

Jackie Mittoo moved from his native Jamaica to Toronto, Canada in 1968 and quickly threw his hat into the local music scene, bringing with him his funky reggae keyboard sensibility. He had some chart success with the infectious instrumental "Wishbone" (based, it would appear, on the central riff from the Beatles' "Carry That Weight") in 1971, and released the supporting album Wishbone that same year. A joyous, upbeat affair that wasn't reggae at all, but a cosmopolitan mix of soul, funk, gospel, jazz, and fusion with a subtle and compelling Jamaican underside, the Wishbone LP became a rare and sought-after collector's classic. Seattle's Light in the Attic Records re-released this bouncy gem on CD in 2006, drawing it directly from the original two-track master tapes. Again, this isn't your basic one-drop reggae record, and fans looking for hard Kingston rhythms (and Mittoo certainly did plenty of those back at Studio One) will be a little surprised to discover little or none of that on Wishbone. The Jamaican influence is present, certainly, but cuts like the endearing title track really sound much more like Booker T. & the MGs than the Skatalites, and it's clear that Mittoo was trying to make a pop-funk record that blended all of his various influences into an accessible and commercial sound, which included carefully arranged horns to punch things up a notch and the use of strings to sweeten everything down and give the album a panoramic feel. What flies out of every track is a boundless joy, and Wishbone literally bounces along like an Energizer bunny, until it's impossible to resist it, even if no single track actually takes one's head off in one swoop. It's an accumulative thing, and Wishbone is so insistently positive and so upbeat as a sequence that it works like a redemptive sunny day tonic. It’s hard to imagine, with its easy mix of northern and southern pop sounds, that Wishbone could have been recorded by anyone other than Mittoo, and it fits its own little category -- Jamaican-Canadian soul-jazz funk.