R.I.P. Lynn Taitt – “The musician’s musician”

On January 20th, Rocksteady pioneer Nerlynn Taitt died from cancer in Toronto, Canada.

“Lynn Taitt was a musician’s musician,” prominent music selector/historian Winston Blake told Splash. [...]

“He played a role in Bob Marley’s career, and touched the lives of countless reggae greats,” was how well-known musicologist Roger Steffens remembered Lynn Taitt. “He will be remembered by historians as one of the major contributors to the internationalisation of reggae, particularly for his work in spreading the music in Canada,” the reggae historian added.

Taitt began playing the guitar at the age of 14. He came to Jamaica in the early 1960s and was booked by the late Byron Lee to perform on the 1962 Independence celebrations. While here, he played in a number of bands, including The Sheiks, The Cavaliers, The Skatalites, Baba Brooks and Tommy McCook and the Supersonics.

He later started the first of two outfits, and — according to Winston Blake — Lynn Taitt and The Comets was one of the best dance bands Jamaica had. He went on to form The Jets in 1966, which included such stalwarts as Hux Brown, Headley Bennett, Hopeton Lewis, Gladstone Anderson and Winston Wright, which was his most successful aggregation.

The musical virtuoso was highly rated for his inventive and unconventional guitar styling. He has been widely credited as having crafted the first rocksteady bassline on the song Take It Easy by vocalist Hopeton Lewis. (via Jamaica Observer)

When doing some quick research on Taitt, I came across the trailer you can watch above.

It is for a documentation called “Lynn Taitt: Rocksteady” by filmmaker and MIT radio DJ Generoso Fierro. That same filmmaker obviously was/is also working on a documentation on Ska-pioneer Derrick Morrgan.

Anybody knows where one can get his movies?

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