The Yardbrooms , The Skatalites - If You See Jane (Test Pressing) /Jazz Walking (7")

On the A-side we find The Skatalites with “Jazz Walking,” a moody reading of Count Basie’s 1957 jazz composition “Splanky.” The Skatalites were largely schooled musicians raised on jazz, and that background comes through clearly on this single, which leans heavily toward the jazzy side and therefore doesn’t really sit under the ‘ska’ banner. Recorded in the early 1960s, the track remained unreleased until it finally surfaced on CD in 1999. Although billed to The Skatalites, it was in fact a gathering of session players — including Tommy McCook, Ernest Ranglin and Rolando Alphonso — cutting this jazz session for Duke Reid.

On the flip we hear the virtually unknown Yard Brooms, who released only a handful of singles in the late ’60s, delivering a little gem of a rocksteady tune with “If You See Jane.” The Yard Brooms were an obscure studio vocal group, or vocal pseudonym, created specifically for Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle sessions. Produced in 1968 by Duke Reid, it was originally issued on Duke’s Treasure Isle label as the B-side of “Mary Poppins” by Danny Simpson with Tommy McCook & The Supersonics. Some sources whisper that Sly Dunbar and Barry York were part of the lineup, but those details remain lost in the misty history of Jamaican music.