Blurb:

Well before they began to record, Count Ossie and his Nyabinghi drum troupe
were born of – and would become central to – Rasta identity. Oswald Williams
was born in 1926 in Saint Thomas Parish. Mentored in Rastafarianism and
Nyabinghi drumming by a Rasta elder by the name of Brother Job, the young Williams
would soon move to live in a Rasta community. By the late 1950s, Jamaica’s
best jazz musicians, as well as others visiting from abroad, would routinely come
to Ossie’s Rasta camp. There they would sit in with him and his drum troupe, the
Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, on a grounation, as these jam sessions were called.
With this musical openness, it’s no wonder that Nyabinghi music frequently
included a guest jazz instrument, not to mention welcoming collaboration with
an entire R&B or reggae band.