Tommy McCook

Early years

Thomas Matthew McCook was born on 4 March 1927. Some sources give his birthplace as Havana, Cuba, with a move to Jamaica in 1933; others give Kingston. He entered the Alpha Boys School in 1938 and took up tenor saxophone at eleven. He cited jazz players John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins and Lester Young as his main influences, and played in Eric Deans' orchestra before spending several years working in Nassau, Bahamas.

The Skatalites

Back in Kingston in the early 1960s, McCook became a founding member of the Skatalites in 1964 alongside Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond and Lester Sterling in the horn section. "Freedom Sounds" is among the Studio One sides associated with him.

The Supersonics

After the Skatalites split in 1965, McCook led Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, the house band at Duke Reid's Treasure Isle studio. The Supersonics backed Treasure Isle's rocksteady singers, including Alton Ellis, the Paragons and the Techniques, and cut instrumentals such as "Ska Jam", "Down on Bond Street" and a version of the Beatles' "Michelle".

Later work

In the 1970s McCook recorded widely for Bunny Lee as part of the Aggrovators studio band and continued to work with Coxsone Dodd, appearing on dub and instrumental albums credited to Tommy McCook and the Aggrovators. He received Jamaica's Order of Distinction in 1975 and toured with the reformed Skatalites from 1983. After a heart attack in 1995 he stopped touring. He died of pneumonia and heart failure in Conyers, Georgia, on 5 May 1998.