Tommy McCook

Tommy McCook was a Jamaican saxophonist born in Havana in 1927 who began his career in the 1950s and was a founding member of The Skatalites, working across ska, rocksteady and reggae. With a jazz-informed tenor saxophone approach, he adapted jazz phrasing to Caribbean rhythms, moving from upbeat ska through the smoother rocksteady era into reggae and helping to establish the horn-driven sound of modern Jamaican popular music.