CHIN'S: Chin's Calypso CD 2

Chin's

Chin's Calypso CD 2

© 1955 Ivan S Chin (634479018558)

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Classic roots mento/calypso recordings from one of Jamaica's earliest labels.

notes

All CHIN'S CALYPSO/ MENTO Recordings were produced by
Chin's Radio Service of 48 Church St. Kingston Jamaica
in the 50s. Producer Ivan S Chin

All Rights Reserved. Un-authorized Copying Prohibited.

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Here are some E-Mail comments received.

This is Mento or Jamaican Calypso from the golden age, and I am thrilled that it became available on CDs.It is remarkable that the same guy who recorded the original 78s
redid them in CD format 50 years later.

Excellent track selections and the series flows together very well indeed, it is so good to hear some of these tracks again.
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I appreciate the time and effort you have put into them, I love the authenticity of the music, I am looking forward to receiving Cds 3 & 4. Thank you Mr Chin for making your whole collection available to all mento fans again.
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I have bought all 4 of the Chin's CDs, and I have found them to be absolutely amazing, thanks very much for
releasing all this material.I have about 7 chin's tracks on original 78s and it is great to hear other tracks off the label.
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I can't thank you enough for the 4 Cds,I play them continuously whenever I can, my favourite is 4, I love the Quadrilles and the ring tunes best. The history in the notes are really helpful.
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If you love Jamaican music as I do, this cd is essential.If you have a passing curiosity and are looking for slick sound quality, maybe this is not for you.Are you a die hard reggae and /or ska fan?,Ivan Chin's recordings will provide some clues that are difficult or impossible to find elswhere. I have exchanged a few E-mails with him and have found that he is also a kind and genuine human being.

-----------------PRICELESS, HISTORIC and (most importantly) a joy to hear.
Please realize that if you have a million bucks, a staff of a thousand and one hundred years to turn the world upside down in search of the original 78 rpm singles, you still could not acquire this collection of historic Jamaican recordings that Ivan Chin is releasing on five inexpensive CDs. Mike Garnice.

How lucky we are that Ivan is still around and was inclined to re-release these tracks 49 years after he first recorded them. (INCREDIBLE!).There's a great variety of tracks, including many great songs I've never heard before. I hope reggae fans world wide check out these crucial mento sounds.Reggae is roots, but this music is the SEED! for more comments, visit www.mentomusic.com/chins.htm.

-----------------BEAUTIFUL AND RARE MUSIC. I have all four CDs in this set.
This one CD3, has the best sound quality of the four, my favourite tunes are the big boy instrumental, (you can really hear the interplay of the instruments), and Adina, (it has an interesting polyrhythymic sound with the banjo strumming in 12/8 although the tune is basically in 4/4.Beautiful music; most of which might have been sadly lost if not for these CDs.
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Great Priceless,Jamaican Heritage Music.Chin's CD3 took me back many years to an enchanted period of my youth. This is priceless authentic Jamaican music. Dreams do come true.

-----------------The most diverse CD in the set is CD4. This CD shows hints of the diverse cultures that have influenced Jamaica and how mento or Jamaican folk music has influenced reggae and ska. The rarest two cuts are probably the quadrilles;

Based on traditional Europian dance styles featuring fiddle.
The play ring tunes have been borrowed by Yellowman and other raggae artists. Farm yard cha cha is so funny, I can't help but smile. Highly recommended.

-----------------A very important landmark CD4. Though the sound quality of this issue isn't too great, it's one of the most important collections of Jamaican music I own, in that, finally there is a recording of quadrille figures on it, and indeed ring play songs,giving a rare insight into Jamaica's musical heritage and history.

Finally I'am able to hear the links between quadrilles , tailored to the colonists needs and string band music of North America. Perhaps formed in some of the same melting pots of ethnic cultural cross pollination.

The musical styles are EXTREMELY similar. This CD is a rare thing, a truly historic document that no amateur musicologist, or West Indian musical student can do without, add to all this, track 7 farm yard cha cha cha which is one of the sweetest most evocative and stylish tunes you will ever hear. TRULY SUBLIME. Thank You Ivan Chin.

-----------------Thanks for the work you achieved concerning the mento music, this is very very hard to find especially the originals, so I am deeply grateful to you, I am a long time fan of calypso and mento music and you satisfied my desires.
I hope you will issue other CDs of this class.

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Thanks very much for your e-mail, I very much enjoyed the 4 Chin's CDs I bought. It was a great pleasure to hear the other recordings on the cds and I was surprised that you had recorded so many.

This really is an outstanding set of recordings, I think that collectors of Jamaican Music owe a real debt to you for preserving this music for future generations.

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I have tremendously enjoyed the CDs,I especially like the
bamboo sax.I was traveling recently on Air Jamaica and passed through Montego Bay.

I was reading a magazine on the air plane that featured you
and mentioned the CDs.I had heard some of the recordings in
years past and was familiar with your band and music.

I was thrilled to be able to get copies of the CDs to add to my collection.

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From the News Reader--Chin's Calypso Sextet Mento
Filthy Rich Chin's Calypso Sextet and M. Garnice.

Anyone with the slightest interest in the facinating music that has originated from Jamaica over the years, should check out this Website. Mento Music.com. and CD Baby search Chin's.

You can listen to the tracks yourself, they are simply
wonderful. Rich,

There are so many Gems in this collection
of 4 CDs, with a surprising range of styles, some tracks
sound so much like accoustic reggae, but these recordings
were made the decade before the term "ska" was even minted.
Mike Garnice.

Worth every cent and penny. Filthy Rich Music House.

Then go and order your copies of these outstanding Historical CDs that capture an age gone by.

If you do, you will get a personal E-mail from Ivan Chin asking whether you have enjoyed listening to his recordings from 50 years ago, and the opportunity to reply to him with your comments.

In all my years I have never had that rapport with the creator of the music I have bought, it is truly a joy.

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A TREASURE, anyone who loves ska and reggae should have.
My favourite tracks are, Honeymoon, Look before you leap,
Monkey's opinion, Riddle me this, and Melda.

It amazes me that this music is 50 years old, not scratchy
and still makes me, a 45 year old white guy, smile and tap my foot. Miles Gehm.
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EVERARD FRANKLYN WILLIAMS

In a rare printed interview from the mid-1950s, Everard provides some info about the history of his writing. This was in response to government criticism of and threat to ban (!) risqué mento songs. (Bedasse's and Everard's hit "Night Food" and "Night Food Recipe" spurred minister of trade and industry, Willis O. Isaacs, to attack calypso in Parliament.) Williams would write two tracks about this issue: "Why Blame Calypso" and "Calypso Opinion".

I am indeed sorry if my song is causing any trouble, but why blame me alone? When I started writing these songs, I used to write very high-class calypsos -- calypsos entitled "Mother You Break My Heart", "I'll Tell God", etc., and all together I did not sell 200 copies.

Then I started out with "Satan's Wife", "We May Hear After Six", and there I started to make headway. Obviously, that was what the public wanted. I later proceeded to make very, very clean calypsos for Stanley Motta, [see the Harold Richardson page for examples of the fine "clean" songs Williams wrote for The Ticklers -Mike] which sold fairly well, but I didn't make a hit until I wrote "Night Food".

The response to this record was very great, as thousands upon thousands of the record were sold both here and abroad. I am a poor man and work for a living. That is my way of making a living and I thought that I was giving real entertainment to the public -- because they accepted it -- but it seams that I was mistaken.

But I am going to write different calypsos now and hope the public will think them very clean; but since it is my living I hope they will buy them as well as they do the ones some say are not so good.

I am very very sorry to have to be such a bad fellow, to drag the Minister's children in the mud with my songs, but I am going to do better. I now make songs for Chin's Radio Service, and on his advice, I am preparing to make records even for children's birthnight parties and other similar functions. [This may refer to such Chin's songs as "Riddle Me This", and the four Ring Songs.]

I hope the public will buy them and keep me from writing another "Night Food Recipe". But even now, I am wondering what is there in "Night Food Recipe" to spoil an innocent child? Anyway, I must be ignorant, and I bow to superior intelligence.

You May Order By Phone Toll Free 1-800-289-6923. From CD Baby
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reviews

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  • author: Yeo Diarrassouba

    I got a great pleasure listening this old time calypsos in jamaican mood (mento--cd 1& 2) I am longing to get the next 3 & 4 cds rapidly;Thanks in advance for making this possible. Yours Truly.

  • I bought both CD1 and CD 2 and found them to be GREAT

    The recordings are very good, it is a pleasure to play them over and over again.

  • Priceless, historic and (most importantly) a joy to hear
    author: Mike Garnice

    Please realize that if you had a million bucks, a staff of a thousand and one hundred years to turn the world upside down in search of the original 78 RPM singles, you still could not acquire this collection of historic Jamaican recordings that Ivan Chin is releasing on four inexpensive CDs. How lucky we are that Ivan is still around and was inclined to re-release these tracks 49 years after he fist recorded them. Incredible! There’s a great variety of tracks, including many great songs I’ve never heard before. I hope reggae fans world wide check out these crucial mento sounds. Reggae is roots, but this music is the SEEDS! For more comments, visit www.mentomusic.com/chins.htm.

  • A wonderful slice of Jamaican music history
    author: Wallace Pryor

    This is Mento, or Jamaican Calypso, from the golden age, and I am thrilled that it became available on CD. It is remarkable that the same guy who recorded the orginal 78s redid them in CD format 50 years later. Most of these songs are available only on scratchy old records that are next to impossible to find. I can't wait for the other 3 CDs to come out. It's a little odd that 2 came out before 1, but I guess that's not important.

  • I found this CD to be very good

    I found the tone of the music to be different,it has a lot of nice bass and a lot of variation with my bass and treble controls. I can vary them to suit my own taste if I wish, but there is no need for that, it sounds very good as it is.

  • I like the sound of this calypso cd and it's 50 year history.

    It is different, it is worth keeping.

  • This Cd is great

  • Further to the above
    author: Mike Murphy aka Bmd

    I contacted Mr. Ivan Chin the producer of this material who was politeness personified, he offered me a replacement which I declined.

  • Cd Baby Thumbs Up Sound Quality of Chin's is weird.
    author: Mike Murphy aka Bmd

    Cd Baby gets the thumbs up for service, but the sound quality of the Chin's cd is weird, not particularly poor, just weird. I of course wasn't expecting any hi-fi nonsense, but a fairly straight transfer of these mono tunes, however many of them sound like they were once MP3s ... ! and they've been given an 'out of phase' fake stereo delay that gives them a phasing effect and a roomier sound than they require. Disappointing really. I wonder who did this ? The story is that Decca transferred them for Chin and sent them to him, did they create this strange sound?, I doubt it. The treble frequencies have a metalic sound affecting them on many if not the majority of the tracks, this may be caused by the 'stereo' effect of course and I'm going to experiment first with turning them into Mono tracks, then if that doesn't work moving them back into phase as stereo tracks and then turning them mono. Still they're as rare as sparrow poos so in a way I'm just glad to have them, and so that's why I've given them a medium rating, not for the product, but because this is the ONLY place I can get them at any quality.. ! If you get this cdr , don't bother with the cd case, or think you're going to get some lovely artwork... In all I'm a bit sad about the purchase, but happy to have the rarities, don't think I'll get the others at $16 a hit, I'm sure they'll come out on something that gets the restorer's touch eventually,... or at least I hope so. Cd Baby does get a higher rating though... friendly nice, alternative, not the usual compnay thank goodness, and refreshing to spend money with people with a sense of humour...

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