World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

David Madden

Artist. Ska, reggae, roots

Active
1960-present
Sunrise
December 7, 1943, Kingston, Jamaica
Also known as
Dave Madden, Im and David

David Madden is a trumpeter, composer, arranger and singer whose horn playing is on a long run of Bob Marley's records and on sessions across Jamaican music from Studio One onward.

He learned trumpet at Alpha Boys School and had joined the Jamaica Military Band by seventeen. He said he had no "inborn God-given talent": it took him two weeks to get a sound, and four years before someone told him, "you sorta can blow that thing." With the saxophonist Cedric "Im" Brooks he formed the duo Im and David, recording instrumentals for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One, among them "Money Maker" and "Candy Eye," and he also worked at Brentford Road as a session player and arranger; he was turned away at the door until Bob Andy had him admitted, and he played a session that same day.

He was a founder of Zap Pow and wrote its breakthrough, "Mystic Mood." With Zap Pow's Glenn DaCosta, and with Vin Gordon, he played horns on Marley's records, about nineteen of his hits by one count, and he was at Hope Road with DaCosta during the weekend of the 1976 shooting. The same section, with Dean Fraser, Headley Bennett and Bobby Ellis among others, played on the Gladiators' records, and Madden recorded with Ernest Ranglin, Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh and Dennis Brown, among many others. When Zap Pow broke up in 1982 or 1983 he joined the Wailers.

His solo records, issued on his own Large, Medium and Small label, run from Going Bananas and Reggae Trumpetaa to Cyber-Charged Ska (2000), Long Live Reggae Music (2008), and a series of EPs, from Pon di Internet (2013) to Nice We Met (2015), on which he sings. "Each of us has a voice," he said of coming to it late. "If you spend time dealing with your voice you will reach somewhere."

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. "David Madden (Musician)," Wikipedia, accessed October 21, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Madden_(musician), citing Howard Campbell in the Jamaica Observer (2013, 2015) and Cecelia Campbell-Livingston (2014).
  2. "David Madden (Musician)."
  3. Mel Cooke, "Madden Goes Back to His Musical Roots," Jamaica Gleaner, April 12, 2009, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090412/ent/ent1.html; "David Madden: Petrol 02/2007," Rebelbase, February 4, 2007, https://rebelbase.be/interviews/detail/david-madden---petrol-022007. Cooke, "Madden Goes Back to His Musical Roots."
  4. "David Madden (Musician)." "Roll Call: Trumpet," Alpha Boys School Radio, accessed October 21, 2026, https://alphaboysschoolradio.com/post/roll-call-trumpet. The Rough Guide singles out five Im and David instrumentals on a Soul Defenders compilation. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 97.
  5. "David Madden (Musician)."
  6. "Roll Call: Trumpet." Tyrone Downie, in Steffens's oral history, names "the horn players Glen DaCosta and Dave Madden" among those at Hope Road. Roger Steffens, "The Night Bob Marley Got Shot," Rolling Stone Australia, July 10, 2017, https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-night-bob-marley-got-shot-1877.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 211. On the other artists: "David Madden (Musician)."
  8. "Roll Call: Trumpet," which calls him "a floor member of the Wailers in 1982-83."
  9. "David Madden (Musician)." "Roll Call: Trumpet" gives the label's name as Large, Medium and Small Music. Cooke, "Madden Goes Back to His Musical Roots."

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