ROOT DIAMOONS – With Other Eyes – CD

Label: Brixton Records (Silver Bullets)
Code: SB-005-CD
Format: compact disc, album
Release: 21/12/2008

Those lads who, back in 2001, with more enthusiasm than skill on their respective instruments, set out under the name Short Skankers in the Horta-Guinardó neighbourhood of Barcelona, are now known as Root Diamoons. They are an award-winning, well-established and seasoned project that draws on the legacy of traditional ska, rocksteady and genuine ska jazz from the Jamaican geniuses of the 1960s – namely Jackie Opel, The Skatalites and Justin Hinds & The Dominoes – with the same passion as they do for the American revivalists of the 1990s, of the calibre of Hepcat, The Articles, Jump With Joey and The Slackers.

Elegance is something you either have or you don’t. It’s not enough to show off in brand-new suits by Giorgio Armani or Adolfo Domínguez, or to make a futile attempt to emulate the pioneers. Style with a capital ‘S’ cannot be feigned; it is acquired and internalised after long years of obsessive listening to the classics and of brilliant ideas brought to life on stage. Of hours invested, for a noble cause, in figures such as John Coltrane, Charlie Mingus, Charlie Parker, the Soul Vendors or Lyn Taitt & The Jets. On labels such as Blue Note, Atlantic, Studio One or Treasure Isle.

All in all, a sure-fire hit from the Brixton Records-Silver Bullets stable: 14 dance-oriented tracks, encouraging you to face life with a different philosophy – with positivity and a desire to dig deep, with a cat’s claws, right down to the very depths. Like a seeker of Jamaican roots in search of their very essence to bring it into the realm of jazz, or like a teenager in love who’s head over heels for a girl from uptown, who might well be called Laila or Mary Ann.