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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Roland Alphonso

Artist. Ska, rocksteady

Active
1960-1998
Sunrise
January 12, 1931, Havana, Cuba
Sunset
November 20, 1998, Los Angeles, California

Roland Alphonso, who called himself the Chief Musician, was a tenor saxophonist, a founding member of the Skatalites, and for many years an arranger and bandleader for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One.

He was born in Havana to a Cuban father and a Jamaican mother, who brought him to Jamaica in 1933, and he learned the saxophone at the Stony Hill Industrial School in the hills north of Kingston rather than at Alpha, where most of the Skatalites trained. He left school in 1948 for the Eric Deans Orchestra and the hotel bands, made his first records in 1952 with a group led by Baba Motta, and around 1958 played in the touring stage act of the comedians Bim and Bam. His first sessions for Dodd, in 1956, were lost somewhere between Kingston and the mastering rooms in New York; by the late 1950s he was in Clue J and His Blues Blasters on Dodd's rhythm and blues sessions, and by 1960 he was also recording for Duke Reid, Lloyd "Matador" Daley, and King Edwards, with the Alley Cats, the City Slickers, and Aubrey Adams and the Dew Droppers.

In the Skatalites, from 1964 until the break-up in August 1965, he traded solos with Tommy McCook and wrote and arranged alongside Jackie Opel. Katz singles out his "fast solo flourishes" on "Tear Up," against McCook's taste for the lower notes of the scale. Much of the Studio One repertoire came from Latin records that Dodd handed him to adapt, at least a dozen of them by Mongo Santamaría; jazz supplied the rest, as in "Skaravan," from Ellington's "Caravan," and his version of Horace Silver's "Forest Flowers." He recorded for Reid, King Edwards, and Prince Buster as well, but he was the one under contract to Dodd.

When the band broke up he stayed at Studio One, forming the Soul Brothers with Jackie Mittoo, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, and Lloyd Brevett as the new house band. "Phoenix City" (1966), adapted from Santamaría's "Hammer Head," came from that group, which in 1967 became the Soul Vendors and toured Britain that year. He also led a run of rocksteady B-sides for Leslie Kong at Beverley's. His first album under his own name appeared on Studio One in 1973.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s he led the Ruinaires, the house band at the Ruins restaurant and nightclub in Kingston, until a stroke at forty-one ended the engagement. He recovered quickly, moved to the United States at the end of 1972, and worked the New York circuit with Jah Malla and at the Apache restaurant in Brooklyn while continuing to record in Kingston, much of it for Bunny Lee. He was made an Officer of the Order of Distinction. He took part in the Skatalites' reformation for Reggae Sunsplash in 1983 and toured and recorded with them from then on, including on Hi-Bop Ska (1994), with Doreen Shaffer, Prince Buster, and Toots Hibbert as guests; in the 1980s he also made the solo album Roll On.

On November 2, 1998, a blood vessel burst in his head during a Skatalites show at the Key Club in Hollywood. He departed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on November 20, after a second rupture and four days in a coma, aged sixty-seven.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The annotation for the Heartbeat compilation gives his parents as Gertrude Russell and Bernardo Alphonso, says he came to Jamaica with his mother at two, and calls him "the only Skatalite who attended Stony Hill," adding that four Skatalites were educated at Alpha. "A Remembrance of the Chief Musician," annotation for Rolando Alphonso, Something Special: Ska Hot Shots (Heartbeat, 2000), Tallawah, accessed October 5, 2026, http://tallawah.com/liner-notes/linernotes7/.
  2. On Eric Deans (January 1948) and Baba Motta's group, which recorded at Stanley Motta's studio "starting in 1952," "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." The Rough Guide lists him in Bim and Bam's band in 1958, "regularly bringing the house down with a version of Louis Prima's 'Robin Hood.'" Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 19. Augustyn says Stanley Motta employed him as a studio musician for his calypsonians after he played with Baba Motta (no relation), and that he is a featured soloist on "Reincarnation" in Motta's Authentic Jamaican Calypsos series: Heather Augustyn, "Stanley Motta, Recording Pioneer," SkaBook (blog), January 3, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/01/03/stanley-motta-recording-pioneer/.
  3. Bradley reports Dodd's account that his "first-ever commercially minded session, with a band led by saxophone colossus Roland Alphonso, disappeared somewhere between the mastering rooms in New York and Kingston harbour." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 47. In the Heartbeat annotation Dodd dates the session to 1956 and says the tapes were "lost on their way to get mastered." "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  4. The Rough Guide calls him "one of Coxsone's earliest session musicians" and "a core member of the Blues Blasters," whom it dates to 1958-61. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 24; see also Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 50. On Daley, King Edwards, Reid, the Alley Cats, the City Slickers, and the Dew Droppers, "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  5. The Heartbeat annotation dates the break-up to August 1965; Katz says the group "was officially together for only 14 months from June 1964" and describes McCook and Alphonso trading solos. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."; David Katz, "The Skatalites: The Birth of a Genre," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, March 20, 2013, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/03/skatalites-feature/. The Rough Guide says Alphonso and Opel "were credited with many of the arrangements" and mentions the suggestion that rivalry between McCook and Alphonso contributed to the break-up. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42-43.
  6. Katz, "The Skatalites."
  7. Katz reports that "for Coxsone, they adapted at least a dozen numbers" by Santamaría and attributes "Forest Flowers" to Horace Silver. Katz, "The Skatalites." The Rough Guide notes that Santamaría's "Watermelon Man" album provided "several tracks." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 43. Discogs identifies "Forest Flowers," issued on Studio One in 1965, as "a cover of Charles Lloyd's recording." "Lord Brynner & Norma / Roland Alphonso & Studio 1 Orch. - Malika / Forest Flowers," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/3601807.
  8. Alphonso told Katz: "We work with Duke Reid and King Edwards also. We did some for Prince Buster too, but Coxsone get the most 'cos I sign contract with him." Dodd said that "Don Drummond and Roland was contracted to me." Katz, "The Skatalites." In the Heartbeat annotation Alphonso says he broke the contract "within a week." "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  9. The Heartbeat annotation names Alphonso, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Brevett, Jackie Mittoo, Bunny Williams, and Wallin Cameron as the Soul Brothers by the end of August 1965. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." The Rough Guide dates the band's best work to 1965-67. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 74.
  10. Katz reports that Santamaría's "Hammer Head" became "Phoenix City." Katz, "The Skatalites." The Heartbeat annotation places the Soul Brothers' sessions in 1965 and 1966 and says that by 1967 they had become the Soul Vendors, whom Alphonso led on a tour of England backing Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, and Owen Gray. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  11. The Heartbeat annotation says he recorded for Leslie Kong, Bunny Lee, and Dodd in the late 1960s. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." Wikipedia names his rocksteady instrumentals for Kong. "Leslie Kong," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Kong.
  12. The album was "The Best of Rolando Alphonso." "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  13. The Heartbeat annotation spells the band "the Ruineers" and says the Ruins was "a new restaurant and nightclub" that "opened in Ochi Rios" in 1969, not Kingston; Alphonso recalled being taken first to the St. Ann's Bay hospital. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." On the stroke at forty-one, "Roland Alphonso," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Alphonso, citing Richie Unterberger.
  14. The Heartbeat annotation dates his departure to "just before Christmas in 1972" and places him at Brooklyn's Apache restaurant "by the early eighties." "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." On Jah Malla and Bunny Lee, "Roland Alphonso," Wikipedia.
  15. The Heartbeat annotation dates the award to 1980. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." Wikipedia, citing David Moskowitz, gives 1977. "Roland Alphonso," Wikipedia.
  16. On the 1983 Sunsplash reunion, "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." The album credits Doreen Shaffer among the Skatalites and Prince Buster and Toots & the Maytals as special guests. "The Skatalites - Hi-Bop Ska," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1168977.
  17. The Heartbeat annotation says he had finished "Roll On" for Wackies by 1986. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." Wikipedia dates it to 1984. "Roland Alphonso," Wikipedia.
  18. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician."
  19. The Heartbeat annotation says that on November 17 he suffered a second burst vessel and "slipped into a coma," and that after he was "nonresponsive for three days" life support was ended. "Remembrance of the Chief Musician." Ink 19 reported that he had fallen into a coma "two days prior." Julio Diaz, "Roland Alphonso," Ink 19, December 1998, https://ink19.com/1998/12/magazine/features/v5kloq-roland-alphonso. Wikipedia, citing Richie Unterberger, gives four days. "Roland Alphonso," Wikipedia. The Rough Guide dates his death to 1999. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 44.

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