Music: Extracting "Pine and Ginger" from Deep Jamaican [Musical] Roots

Joshua "Tessellated" Meeks

- Michael A.D. Edwards

When Josh Meeks, who does music under the name Tessellated first took up the study of music, he had no full idea of how deeply his own family tree connected him to the very roots of the Jamaican sound that has nwow gone far and wide - and to which he has now added by virtue of the uber-catchy single "Pine and Ginger" featuring Amindi K Frost and Valleyz.




"I knew my [maternal] great-grandfather taught music and was the band master at Alpha," he shares. But the university music history student and Campion College (high school) grad began to see the depth and breadth of the contribution made by the former Alpha Boys' School during his former studies. Names of  Jamaican musical legends tumbled forth: troubled genius Don Drummond, Joe Harriott, Johnny Moore and, of course, Samuel Tulloch, the aforementioned forebear and in fact, the first Jamaican bandmaster at the fabled music school/ boys'sanctuary.

Tessellated, who plays a bit of saxophone and keyboard himself, says he became eager to not only spreads the word about Alpha's astounding musical legacy (a personal one in his case), but also to help sustain it. Thus,  on December 15th, he and his  young collaborators  staged a charity concert, "Tessellated and Friends - Di Vibes Live", performing to a sold out 700+ strong crowd at Kingston's Barbican Beach Bar.

That, in turn led him back to Alpha about two weeks ago, when he paid a visit tothe South Camp road campus of the now Alpha Institute under the firm yet compassionate guidance of administrator Margaret Little-Wilson, who was on hand to receive the proceeds from December's charity event, and was genuinely surprised to open the envelope and see a cheque in the amount of J$282,000. Not "Shaggy-type" numbers surely, but then again, pretty good for a first-time event on an admittedly smaller scale. Amid the handshakes and the "thank yous," there was a pledge to do even more for the Institute going forward.

And the funds are surely needed. A tour of the Institute showed a myriad of activities that could certainly benefit from sustained contributions: a barber shop, landscaping, a sports facility, printing operations, a craft and gift shop featuring pens, clocks and other items handmade from wood and other materials.

And, of course, there is the music. There are lecture halls, a recently built studio and mixing lab, and there is Alpha Radio, spreading the culture worldwide from that humble yet neatly self-contained base at South Camp Road.

And there is live instrumentation, the core, the heartbeat of what has made Alpha, well....Alpha.  A "pick-up band" of some of the boys assembled in the performance area and after a minute or two of the obligatory tuning, gave a rousing version of  "I Can't Help Falling In Love" (modelled on the hit UB 40 cover of the Elvis Presley original).    

Even more heartening than the performance and Tessellated's brief remarks of encouragement, was the genuine hunger on the part of the young musicians to learn more and improve. Generations before them have gone on to greater glory from the Alpha base, and they are conscious that dedication to the craft can yield satisfying and lucrative results.

 For Tessellated, his own musical journey began in earliest childhood, but he did not approach music in a serious way until about age 16, watching You Tube tutorials and "fiddling" with downloaded software That approach pretty much continues to this day. Once he has a melody line or even an idea bubbling in his head, Tessellated says he "opens up Ableton Live (the music production software) and start laying down my idea, usually a bassline or drum pattern in the beginning. After that, I start to build on it layer by layer, adding in new elements and sometimes taking out others. Once the song has started to take shape I’ll decide whether I want to write to it or send it off to someone else to write to, and after vocals have been sorted out I’ll go in and start to clean up everything to create the final product."  

scene from 'Pine and Ginger " video

The biggest such "product" so far is undoubtedly 'Pine and Ginger" which which one internet music site (highsnobiety.com described as "an escape to Danceahll Heaven". It  is informed by the musical influences of each member of the trio and  deftly mixes some savoury horn breaks and other flavours into its drum and bass confection, creating the kind of "instant classic" that will not merely reach a wide cross-section of folks, but will surely accompany its present youth audience well into their own mid-life.

Asked casually about the "pressure" to follow-up, Tessellated is sanguine, declaring that there's many such potential hits in the works, some finished and waiting, others in various stages of completion.Though he is not given to bombast or empty chatter, he nevertheless has an easy air that enables him to navigate the many layers of Jamaican society and the music scene with no pretension- whether he's dealing with his collaborators, with business interests, like the reps from Warner UK (a division of which has licensed tracks for distribution).

And no doubt, he'll need every bit of that skill and temperament as a the arc of music success climbs ever higher. That he is now firmly grounded in his own history as a part of the story of the Jamaican sound, will undoubted aid in the pursuit of a legacy that looks ot be every bit as grand as the one he is stepping confidently into.

No doubt, Grandpa Samuel is smiling.