World of Jamaican Music

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

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Johnny "Dizzy" Moore

Artist. Ska, rocksteady

Active
1962-2008
Sunrise
October 5, 1938, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
August 16, 2008, Kingston, Jamaica (cancer)

John Arlington Moore was the trumpeter of the Skatalites and one of four founding members who came out of Alpha Boys School. His nickname is explained variously as a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie and as a reference to the intricacy of his soloing.

Moore was raised in a strict Seventh-day Adventist household in Kingston and made his first wind instruments out of papaya stalks and pumpkin vines. A neighbor had learned to play at Alpha, a Catholic institution for wayward boys, so Moore behaved badly enough to be sent there himself. He took up the trumpet at the school and studied composition under the bandleader Ruben Delgado. He then joined the Jamaica Military Band and was dismissed after three years as not amenable to military service, played with the Mapletoft Poulle Orchestra and with Eric Deans's band, and was put out of the latter for growing dreadlocks. He was a regular visitor to Count Ossie's camp at Wareika Hill. He practiced Gillespie's repertoire as a boy and allowed that early on he may have sounded something like him; Herbie Miller called him the "most creative thinking musician of the ska period."

By the early 1960s he was working sessions and playing in a band called the Cavaliers, and it was out of the Cavaliers that he, Jackie Mittoo, Lloyd Brevett, and Lloyd Knibb joined Tommy McCook in the Skatalites. His trumpet is on "Guns of Navarone," "Ska La Parisienne," "Dick Tracy," "Nimrod," and "Ringo," the last cut for Justin Yap's Top Deck label. When the band split in 1965 he went with Roland Alphonso into the Soul Vendors, and later played with Tommy McCook's Supersonics at Treasure Isle.

He continued as a session player, including the trumpet solo on the Wailers' "I Know," released on their own Wail 'N Soul 'M label. He was part of the reformed Skatalites from 1983 and was made an Officer of the Order of Distinction in October 2007. He departed at a friend's home in Kingston at sixty-nine; the cause was cancer.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. In the Rough Guide Moore says, "I was born in October 1938 and spent my learning days at Alpha Boys School." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 25. The Gleaner says McCook, Drummond, and Sterling also attended Alpha. Howard Campbell, "Trumpeter Dizzy Moore Is Dead," Jamaica Gleaner, August 18, 2008, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080818/ent/ent3.html.
  2. The Gleaner says he was "nicknamed 'Dizzy' after the great American trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie." Campbell, "Dizzy Moore Is Dead." In the Rough Guide Moore gives another origin: when he told Coxsone's circle that the new music could make money, "they laughed at me. Figured I was a nut ... That's where this 'Dizzy' ting came from." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 25. Katz says the nickname "stemmed from his intricate soloing": David Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore," Guardian, October 3, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/oct/03/jazz.
  3. Moore: "a friend of mine was at Alpha ... And I said, 'I've got to go there.' But he said, 'You have to be bad.' And I say: 'That's easy, man.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 25. Katz tells the same story: Moore "gained entry by pretending to be out of control," over his Adventist parents' objection to the school's Catholic foundation: Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore."
  4. Wikipedia, citing the Times obituary. "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Moore_(trumpeter).
  5. In the Rough Guide Moore says he was kicked out of the Military Band "because of not being amenable to military discipline," then joined Eric Dean's, "Jamaica's top dance band," until "this came along [dreadlocks]." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 25. The Mapletoft Poulle Orchestra and the three-year term are from Wikipedia. "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)." Katz says he was thrown out of the Military Band "for playing bebop and refusing to shave," and later fired from an uptown jazz orchestra for refusing to cut his hair: Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore."
  6. Wikipedia. "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)." The Rough Guide says ska musicians "such as Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore and Don Drummond developed their approaches" at nyahbingi gatherings. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 172.
  7. "Jamaica All Stars: Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore and Noel 'Skully' Simms," interview, Rebel Base, February 5, 2005, https://rebelbase.be/interviews/detail/jamaica-all-stars-johnny-dizzy-moore--noel-skully-simms---vk-022005.
  8. Campbell, "Trumpeter Dizzy Moore Is Dead."
  9. The Rough Guide calls the Cavaliers "never-recorded." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 37. Moore recalls that "from the Cavaliers we picked ... myself, Jackie Mittoo, Lloyd Brevett and Lloyd Knibbs." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 25. The Rough Guide dates the Skatalites' official formation to June 1964; Bradley dates the band to 1963. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 100.
  10. The Gleaner names "Guns of Navarone" among the band's recordings with Moore. Campbell, "Dizzy Moore Is Dead." Moore says, "I think Top Deck got the best from the Skatalites." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 25.
  11. Katz says he stayed at Studio One with Alphonso and Mittoo as the Soul Vendors, touring Britain with Ken Boothe in 1967, then joined Tommy McCook's Supersonics at Treasure Isle: Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore." The Rough Guide notes that among the Skatalites and Soul Vendors players on Alphonso's Studio One sides, "Johnnie Moore always impresses." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 44.
  12. Wikipedia lists a Wail 'N Soul 'M singles collection in his discography. "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)."
  13. Wikipedia gives 1983; the Gleaner dates the re-formation to 1982 and says Moore "never figured for long in the revived band, reportedly due to differences with McCook." "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)."; Campbell, "Dizzy Moore Is Dead." Katz says he played the 1983 Sunsplash reunion and on Return of the Big Guns (1984) but, with most of the band in New York, was usually absent from it later, and was active in the Jamaica All Stars with Justin Hinds: Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore."
  14. Wikipedia, citing the Jamaica Observer. "Johnny Moore (trumpeter)."
  15. The Gleaner says he died on Saturday, August 16, "at a friend's home," at sixty-nine. Campbell, "Dizzy Moore Is Dead." Katz gives colon cancer. Katz, "Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore."

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