Why Jamaican Mento Music Has Been Called Calypso (videos and excerpts)

TheBluesfan12, Jan 12, 2012

Lord Messam - Take Her To Jamaica (1952) Mento
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"Take her to Jamaica/where the rum comes from".

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases three YouTube examples of  Jamaican Mento music (including Harry Belafonte's original 1956 recording of "Banana Boat (Day O"). 

This post also  presents some online excerpts about why Jamaican Mento has so often been referred to as Calypso.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owner.

Thanks to all those artists who are featured in this pancocojams post. Thanks to the composers of these songs that are featured in this post. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these sound file on YouTube.
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I was motivated to publish this post by the news of Harry Belafonte's passing. Rest In Power, Mr. Belafonte.

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SHOWCASE SOUND FILE  #2 -Harry Belafonte - Day-O (Banana Boat Song) (1956) [Digitally Remastered]

Classic Mood Experience, Sep 28, 2013

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SHOWCASE SOUND FILE #3 - JAMAICAN MENTO - Island Champions (1958)

INVIGORATION, May 16, 2017
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Here are the time stamps for these songs from that sound file's discussion thread:

Diego Hemken, 2019
"A1 00:00 Reincarnation

A2 03:45 Coolie Gal

A3 06:54 In De Land Of America

A4 09:41 Wrong Man

A5 12:31 Adams Fault

A6 15:15 River Dem Come Down

B1 18:25 Caroline

B2 20:21 Big Bamboo

B3 23:17 Charlie's Cow

B4 25:38 Jamaica Banana

B5 28:27 Rock You Baby In Time

B6 30:54 Daphne's Bebop Walking"

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AN EXCERPT ABOUT MENTO MUSIC
From http://www.mentomusic.com/WhatIsMento.htm  ,
Michael Garnice  (Mento Mike] website editor

..."The Secret History of Mento Music

Mento music had its beginnings in Jamaica in the 19th century, and was  uniquely Jamaican fusion of African and European musical traditions. In mento's recorded history pre-history, from the 1920s through the 1940s, a number of Jamaican songs were put to wax by Caribbean jazz artists. In the 1930 and 1940s, Slim and Sam, a mento group who performed in Kingston, gained renown and are recalled today. They're  remembered for their originals, and sold "tracts" -- printed lyrics -- at their performances. (The book "Reggae Routes" by Kevin O'Brien Chang and Wayne Chen lists the names of some of these originals, and  has additional information and even a picture of Slim and Sam.)

But it wasn't until the early 1950s that true mento recordings first began to appear on 78 RPM discs. This decade was mento’s golden age, as a variety of artists recorded mento songs in an assortment of rhythms and styles. It was the peak of mento's creativity and popularity in Jamaica and the birth of Jamaica's recording industry.

These recordings reveal mento to be a diverse musical genre, sometimes played with reckless abandon and other times with orderly precision. In addition to mento's African and European roots, by this time, it had also encompassed pan-Caribbean influences, as well as from American jazz. Although it was informed by a world of music, mento is clearly, uniquely Jamaican. And as Jamaica's original music, all other Jamaican music can trace its roots to mento.

Some styles of mento would evolve into ska and reggae. (As a matter of fact, some mento songs are still being recorded inna dancehall stylee today.) Other styles, while purely mento, seem to have done less to contribute to the development of later Jamaican music.

During this time, Trinidadian calypso was the Caribbean’s top musical export, and the term "Calypso" was used generically applied to Jamaican mento as well. Far more often than it was called by its proper name, mento was called "calypso", "kalypso" or "mento calypso". Adding to the confusion, Jamaica had its own calypso singers that did not record mento, such as Lord Creator. (The Trinidad-born Creator later became a ska singer for Studio 1.) And mento artists would often perform calypso songs in the mento style, or record a mento song with calypso influence. Some mento artists followed the calypsonian practice of adding a title such as "Count" or "Lord" to their name. But make no mistake, mento is a distinctly different sound from calypso, with its own instrumentation, rhythms, pacing, vocal styles, harmonies, and lyrical concerns."....

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JAMAICAN OBSERVER ARTICLE EXCERPT 
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/mento-v-calypso/ Mento v calypso
written byRohan Budhai, Jan 12, 2023
 …."Most musicologists agree that mento and calypso are two different genres. All have agreed that mento is authentically Jamaican. However, mento has suffered the ignominy of being called names like mento calypso, kalypso, and calypso itself. So it seems mento was considered to be sub-genre of calypso. This, even though the most successful island song to this day is a mento rendition, not calypso. More on that.

So what has caused the conflation of these two distinct genres?

The real issue is more about the similarities of both genres and less about the differences. So what are these similarities that are causing the conflation? First, mento and calypso are similarly rooted in African musical culture, which influenced oral/vocal expressions. Second, mento's vocal patterns are similar to calypso's, with the usual storytelling, social discourse, and call-and-response African traditions.

Both genres developed from the fusion of African and European music, except that mento did not have the French influences that calypso did. Also, they were both considered folk music of their respective countries and were played with rudimentary instruments. The Jamaicans mastered the rhumba box, while the Trinidadians introduced the Latin-influenced horn section and developed the steel pan.

Nevertheless, the two genres, given the above-mentioned similarities, can easily be confused.

The differences between the two are subtle. Mento has a more rural feel, and the musical instruments utilised give a distinct "rootsy" sound. Mento has a more acoustic sound with the rhumba box, banjo, and fiddle versus calypso's syncopated rhythms and song patterns. In the end, both genres fed off each other.

But what made the conflation favour calypso over mento?

As mentioned before, calypso was introduced to the North American market before other Caribbean music, so it stood out as the standard-bearer for island music, and other styles were considered mere sub-genres. To the North Americans, all music from the Caribbean was considered calypso. As a result, calypso as an international genre progressed while mento remained rural and subdued. This was especially evident with the introduction of vibrant horn sets in calypso.

Jamaican music producers were timid in the early days. They hesitated to invest in mento, which limited the audience reach of the genre. Meanwhile, some of these same producers were comfortable producing calypso songs because of their international. This environment delayed mento's progress, and the genre continued to be seen as just another calypso style.

However, in retrospect, the most tremendous disservice done to mento was by singer and actor Harry Belafonte. Even though it was chock full of mento songs, he named his debut album Calypso. And the album was the first to sell one million units in the USA. In addition, the album's signature mento hit, Day-O, became the most famous folk song from the islands. One wonders what would have happened if Belafonte had called the album Mento.

With Belafonte's success, calypso ruled the Caribbean music roost. Soon hotels were demanding entertainers perform calypso instead of mento. Entertainers who couldn't conform were out of a job. According to the famous mento balladeer Lord Flea, "If the tourist dem waan calypso, mi wi gi dem calypso." That said, Lord Flea and his mento ensemble seamlessly transitioned to calypso.

The circle of conflation was complete.

So mento got a lousy deal. But that's the way it goes in this music business. Also, we forgive Belafonte; after all, his efforts were a plus to Jamaican and Caribbean culture. Additionally, he remains an honorary ambassador of our African diaspora.

[…]

As for the mento-calypso conflation, old-time Jamaican people would say, "Wha gwaan bad a morning, cyaan come good a evelin" "

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TWO COMMENTS FROM A QUORA DISCUSSION THREAD ON THIS SUBJECT
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-musical-difference-between-mento-and-calypso-music

1.  Dario Smagata, 2016
Reggae fan and collector of Jamaican vinyl records
"I am a collector of all Caribbean music and have listened to a lot of both genres in question :)

 There biggest difference to me is in the instruments. Mento music uses unusual instruments, such as the Rumba box and bamboo saxophone, which are nowhere to be found in Trinidadian music. Banjo and fiddle have also been used in many mento songs, and again, they do not appear in the calypso genre. The most famous instrument used for calypso is the steelpan, which is not used for traditional mento music. (Jamaican steelbands have existed since the 1950s, but they rarely covered mento songs.)

I am not a musical expert, and I know nothing specific about timing, beats and other such things. But after listening to many mento and calypso recordings, you may notice that mento songs (particularly those of the 1950s) often have a pre-reggae kind of rhythm, while calypso songs from the same period do not. 'Ethiopia' by Lord Lebby and 'Big Bamboo' by the Hiltonaires are good examples of mento songs with a reggae sound, years before reggae came on to the scene.

All that said, mento was very strongly influenced by calypso, so there are many mento songs that sound just like Trinidadian calypsoes. 'Maintenance' by Cobra Man and the 1980s version of 'Water the Garden' by Count Lasher are examples of that."

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2.  Chase Muckle, 2018
Into history, immigration, Zizek and goats.
"Dario Smagata is spot on about the primary difference being in the instrumentation. However, it’s also a matter of semantics, in that similar music styles go by different names from island to island in the Caribbean.

The foundation for calypso/mento/benna/shanto, etc is from the musical styles of the Kingdom of Kongo, present-day Nigeria. Some ethnomusicologists refer to these Kongo musical styles under the umbrella term ‘kaiso’. During the trans-Atlantic slave trade, kaiso then developed within the contexts of the various Caribbean islands to which European slavers brought enslaved Africans. With the French, Dutch, English, Spanish, and Danish colonizing and thus influencing the various islands over different periods, each island’s music developed a distinctive feel. The backbone was always African but, over generations, that became mixed with the popular European styles of the day.

One of those styles was the French quadrille. From the mid-eighteenth into the nineteenth century, plantation owners throughout the Caribbean employed European musicians to perform at the quadrille balls/dances on their plantations. Eventually, enslaved Africans replaced the European musicians for the balls. They were trained on European instruments in the Western European approach to music theory. When they mixed all of that with the stronger, driving rhythms of kaiso is when the seed of calypso/mento, etc was sown.

Perhaps some of the eventual differences between the islands’ styles had to do with the infrastructure for music training on each island. T&T’s traditional calypso music is for the most part more complex than many other islands. (Music, I said, not necessarily lyrics.) Guyana is similar, which may show how strong the European and even Indian influences are on those two countries. Jamaican mento music is usually more driving, more repetitive, simpler.

If you’re curious to know more, check out the website mentomusic. The guy who runs it, Mento Mike, is a great source for more info.
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The first excerpt in this pancocojams post is from that mentomusic website.

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