World of Jamaican Music

Discover artists and hear songs from everyone on the site! Log in to Spotify in this browser to hear full songs. SourcesYour Voice

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 →

Don Drummond

Artist. Ska

Active
1959-1969
Sunrise
March 12, 1934, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
May 6, 1969, Bellevue Asylum, Kingston
Also known as
The Genius, The Don

Donald Drummond was a trombonist and composer, the most prolific writer in ska and probably the finest jazz musician Jamaica has produced. He was also, from 1965, held at Bellevue, the island's psychiatric hospital, after the killing of his partner, Anita Mahfood; a jury found him guilty but insane. The two facts have been inseparable in accounts of him ever since.

He was born at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston to Doris Munroe, a domestic worker from Westmoreland, and Uriah Adolphus Drummond, and educated at the Alpha Boys School, the Catholic institution whose music program trained a remarkable proportion of Jamaica's important musicians. He studied trombone and theory there through the 1940s and was good enough while still a student to sit in with the Eric Deans Orchestra at Bournemouth. He later taught music at Alpha himself.

His playing was jazz playing. He handled bebop lines at speed with a fluency that trombonists generally do not have, and a widely repeated anecdote has the pianist George Shearing naming him among the five best trombonists in the world, though the story has never been sourced properly. He was as much an arranger as a soloist. Dodd gave him free rein at Studio One, Bradley writes, and his sessions had the discipline of the Alpha schoolroom: every player followed his meticulously drawn charts, so that the band in instrumental mode could be as formal as the Ellington orchestra. His real strength, though, lay in hearing the music from outside and directing it as a feeling or a mood rather than a technical exercise, and the mood was often dark.

Drummond spent a great deal of time at Count Ossie's camp in the Wareika Hills, where Rastafarian drummers played through the night and musicians came up to reason and play. What he learned there is audible in his compositions. Anita "Margarita" Mahfood, a rhumba dancer of Lebanese Jamaican descent, was also a regular; her one recording, "Woman a Come," was made in tribute to him with Lloyd Knibb on burru drums.

The Skatalites came together in 1964 and played their first show at the Hi-Hat Club in Rae Town. The founding members were Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, Drummond, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, Lester Sterling, Jerome "Jah Jerry" Haynes, Jackie Mittoo, Lloyd Brevett, and Lloyd Knibb, with Jackie Opel among the vocalists. McCook named the band. They had been playing together for years before that as Studio One's session musicians, backing the Wailers, the Maytals, Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis, and virtually everyone else Coxsone Dodd recorded.

Drummond was the group's principal composer and among the most prolific in ska, with estimates of his output running from two hundred to three hundred titles. "Far East," "Eastern Standard Time," "Man in the Street," "Confucius," "Don Cosmic," "Green Island," "Occupation," and "Schooling the Duke" are among them. The minor-key modal writing that got called his Far East sound is what separates the Skatalites' instrumentals from ordinary dance music: the tunes are melancholy and harmonically odd in a way that ska otherwise was not.

He had been treated for mental illness for years, with repeated admissions to Bellevue. Early in January 1965, Mahfood's life was taken at the room she and Drummond shared at 9 Rusden Road. He walked to the police station and reported it himself.

At the trial in 1966 the medical evidence was contradictory, with one doctor testifying that the wounds were consistent with either homicide or suicide, and there was extensive testimony about his psychiatric history. His counsel was P. J. Patterson, later prime minister of Jamaica. A fellow musician, Leonard Hibbert, told the court that Drummond was the finest trombonist in Jamaica and among the best anywhere, and that he had visited him in hospital. The jury returned a verdict of guilty but insane, and the judge ordered him held in strict custody at the Governor General's pleasure. The Skatalites had already broken up, in August 1965, and Drummond's arrest is generally cited as the immediate cause.

He was held at Bellevue and departed there on May 6, 1969, at thirty-five. The circumstances have never been satisfactorily established, and at his funeral the drummer Hugh Malcolm stopped the service, demanding a post-mortem. He was buried in an unmarked grave at May Pen Cemetery.

Last updated October 31, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide says his abilities "were recognized by leading international jazz figures such as George Shearing, J.J. Johnson and Sarah Vaughan." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 42.
  2. He was arrested and confined in January 1965 but tried and found guilty but insane in 1966. Sybil E. Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty of Lover's Murder by Reason of Insanity," Jamaica Observer, November 25, 2012, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2012/11/24/musician-don-drummond-guilty-of-lovers-murder-by-reason-of-insanity/; "Don Drummond," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Drummond.
  3. Augustyn, who obtained his birth certificate, gives his name as Donald Willis Drummond, born March 12, 1934, and says the Alpha Boys School record giving 1932 "is a mistake"; she found his mother's and father's birth records, which place both in Westmoreland: Heather Augustyn, "Happy 82nd Birthday Don Drummond," SkaBook (blog), March 12, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/03/12/happy-birthday-don-drummond/; Heather Augustyn, "Mama Drummond," SkaBook (blog), October 1, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/10/01/mama-drummond/.
  4. Bradley says the Alpha Boys' School was run by nuns, taught "theory, composition, space and arrangement," and that Drummond "was such an outstanding student that after he left he was persuaded to return to Alpha to teach music." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 101. David Katz says that "according to official records, he left Alpha six weeks early to join Eric Deans' band"; the Observer says he "first played with the Eric Deans All-Star Band." David Katz, "The Skatalites: The Birth of a Genre," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, March 2013, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/03/skatalites-feature/; Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty." None of these mentions the Bournemouth Club in this connection.
  5. The Observer, reporting the trial, calls him the man "said to be rated by George Shearing as one of the five best trombonists in the world." Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty." See also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Augustyn names Shearing and Dave Brubeck among the jazz musicians Drummond played with when they came to Jamaica: Heather Augustyn, "Playboy Jazz All-Stars Minus Don D.," SkaBook (blog), August 16, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/08/16/playboy-jazz-stars-minus-don-d/.
  6. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 101.
  7. Bradley calls him "a fierce black nationalist and a devout Rastafarian." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 101. A review of Heather Augustyn's biography describes Count Ossie's Wareika Hills sessions as the place where "the truly innovative playing" happened and names Drummond and Mahfood as regulars. "Don Drummond: Genius and Tragedy," Ancient to Future, September 18, 2013, https://ancienttofuture.com/2013/09/18/don-drummond-genius-and-tragedy/.
  8. The same review says her one record, originally "Ungu Malungu Man," was retitled "Woman a Come" by Duke Reid and was "her paean to Drummond," with Lloyd Knibb on drums. "Don Drummond: Genius and Tragedy," Ancient to Future, September 18, 2013, https://ancienttofuture.com/2013/09/18/don-drummond-genius-and-tragedy/. The Observer calls her a twenty-three-year-old "rhumba dancer." Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty."
  9. The Skatalites' own history says they first performed as a band at the Hi-Hat in Rae Town. "History," The Skatalites, accessed October 1, 2026, https://skatalites.com/history. Wikipedia dates that first show to May 1964. "The Skatalites," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skatalites. The Star of June 27, 1964, which Augustyn reprints, says the band had already been playing the Bournemouth "for the past few weeks" and had "made four public appearances so far": Heather Augustyn, "Skatalites Go Into Orbit," SkaBook (blog), January 29, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/01/29/skatalites-go-into-orbit/.
  10. The Rough Guide says the band was "officially formed in June 1964, at a meeting in the Odeon Theatre," where Knibbs suggested "Satellites" and McCook is said to have answered that "we play ska," proposing "the Skatalites" instead. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. It lists Ernest Ranglin and Harold McKenzie as guitarists alongside Jah Jerry, and Jackie Opel, Lord Tanamo, and Doreen Shaffer among the singers. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Katz and the band's own history spell Jah Jerry's surname Haynes; the Rough Guide has Hinds. Katz, "The Skatalites." "History," The Skatalites, accessed October 1, 2026, https://skatalites.com/history.
  11. Bradley describes the "loose collective of master musicians" at Brentford Road in 1963 who "were about to organize themselves as the Skatalites." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 100. The Rough Guide says they backed "most of the top singing stars of the day, including the Maytals, Stranger Cole, Lord Creator, Jackie Opel, the Wailers and Delroy Wilson." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42.
  12. The Observer names "Occupation," "Scrap Iron," "Far East," "Eastern Standard Time," and "Green Island" among his big hits. Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty." The Rough Guide credits "Confucius" to the Yaps' Top Deck sessions and lists "Schooling the Duke" among the Skatalites' Studio One classics. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42-43.
  13. Bradley says his tunes were "all minor-key material," and groups them with the "East of the River Nile" sound, "horn led, minor-chord loaded." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 101-2, 193. The Rough Guide says his "taste for minor chords" anticipated "the 'Far East' sound of Augustus Pablo." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42.
  14. Bradley says "he would regularly check himself into the sanatorium, emerging slightly more detached on each occasion"; Katz says he "voluntarily checked himself into Bellevue psychiatric hospital on several occasions." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 102; Katz, "The Skatalites."
  15. Bradley places the killing "in the early hours of New Year's Day 1965" and says Drummond gave himself up at Rockfort police station "the next day." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 102-3. Heather Augustyn and the Observer's trial report place it in the early morning of January 2, 1965, at 9 Rusden Road; at Rockfort station Drummond told the duty officer, "Ah woman in di yard stab herself." Heather Augustyn, "9 Rusden Road," Heather Augustyn (blog), October 8, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/10/08/9-rusden-road/; Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty."
  16. The Observer reports that two pathologists testified that the wounds could indicate homicide or suicide, and that the Bellevue medical officer believed Drummond had not understood what he was doing on the day of the killing. Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty."
  17. Augustyn says Patterson "served as Don Drummond's legal counsel during his murder trial": Heather Augustyn, "Foggy Mullings," SkaBook (blog), August 8, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/08/08/foggy-mullings/.
  18. In the Observer's report, the musician who gave this testimony was Leonard Hibbert, who called Drummond "Jamaica's number one trombonist" and among the top five in the world and said he had visited him at Bellevue about three times; Tommy McCook is not mentioned. Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty."
  19. The Observer says Justice Fox ordered that he be kept "in strict custody as a criminal lunatic until the Governor General's pleasure was known." Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty."
  20. The Rough Guide says the band played its farewell show shortly after Independence Day in August 1965; it notes a suggested rivalry between McCook and Alphonso but thinks the blow of Drummond's incarceration "more likely." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Bradley says that after Drummond's departure "it became very easy for the group to fall apart"; Katz cites both Drummond's detention and "internal rivalries." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 102; Katz, "The Skatalites."
  21. Wikipedia says the official cause was "natural causes," possibly heart failure from malnutrition or improper medication; the Observer says he died "reportedly of natural causes." "Don Drummond," Wikipedia. Hibbert, "Musician Don Drummond Guilty." Augustyn reports that the drummer Hugh Malcolm stopped the funeral at Madden's on May 14, 1969, demanding a post-mortem, a relative saying Malcolm had heard that Drummond "was beaten by four men in the institution"; Sonny Bradshaw and other musicians paid for the funeral and Sister Ignatius for the burial, on May 18 in grave A346 at May Pen Cemetery, in an unmarked section "reserved for paupers, criminals, and lunatics": Heather Augustyn, "Ska Funeral Mash Up," SkaBook (blog), November 1, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/11/01/ska-funeral-mash/; Heather Augustyn, "Maypen Cemetery," SkaBook (blog), October 4, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/10/04/maypen-cemetery/.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map