Blue Glaze Mento Band: Hotel Roots, Repertoire, Later Revivals, Influence & Legacy

Discover the Blue Glaze Mento Band, a North Coast ensemble that brought mento to hotels in the 1950s and revived it decades later, preserving Jamaica’s folk traditions for new generations.

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Introduction

Among the many groups that animated Jamaica’s hotel and tourist circuit in the 1940s and 1950s, the Blue Glaze Mento Band holds a special place. Based primarily on the North Coast, this ensemble embodied the dual mission of mid-century mento groups: to entertain visiting tourists with a polished “island sound” and to preserve Jamaican folk traditions through live performance.

What makes Blue Glaze remarkable is their long continuity. While many hotel bands faded from memory after ska and reggae dominated Jamaica’s music scene, Blue Glaze returned decades later to record revival albums in the 1970s and 1980s. These later recordings gave scholars, tourists, and Jamaicans themselves a chance to hear mento’s authentic sound preserved.

As Bilby (2016) notes, “revival groups like Blue Glaze remind us that mento was never a forgotten relic, but a living tradition nurtured by hotel musicians and folk custodians.”

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Formation and Early Background

The Blue Glaze Mento Band emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, performing primarily in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios hotels. Their instrumentation followed the classic mento setup: banjo, guitar, rumba box (bass lamellophone), maracas, and hand percussion, sometimes augmented with clarinet or bamboo sax.

Their early audiences were largely tourists, as hotels recognized mento’s charm as a “folk souvenir” in sound. Blue Glaze’s musicians played barefoot or in tropical whites, embodying the staged rusticity that appealed to visitors while also keeping authentic Jamaican repertoire alive.

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Career Highlights

• North Coast Hotel Circuit (1950s): Regular performers in resorts catering to foreign tourists.
• Tourist Entertainment: Blended humor, folk storytelling, and double-entendre lyrics into stage performances.
• Revival Recordings (1970s–1980s): Released mento albums that captured traditional repertoire in studio form.
• Cultural Preservation: By continuing into the revival years, they preserved folk songs that might otherwise have been lost (Manuel, 2006).
• Bridge Across Generations: Performed for both 1950s tourists and later world-music audiences during the roots revival era.

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Notable Repertoire / Performance Staples

The Blue Glaze Mento Band became known for a repertoire of Jamaican folk songs and mento standards, many of which they recorded in later revival albums:

1. “Linstead Market” – Classic folk ballad.
2. “Hill and Gully Rider” – Dance-driven mento song.
3. “Evening Time” – Evocative folk melody, sentimental favorite.
4. “Slide Mongoose” – Folk tale song, performed with wit.
5. “Solas Market” – A Kingston-themed marketplace tune.
6. “Big Bamboo” – Double-entendre staple.
7. “Matilda” – Caribbean comedic folk number.
8. “Yellow Bird” – Adaptation popular with tourists.
9. “Rough Rider” – Double-entendre mento piece.
10. “Coconut Woman” – Blending humor with folk imagery.

These songs placed them squarely within the traditional mento canon, while their revival recordings gave these pieces new life on vinyl.

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Influence & Legacy

The Blue Glaze Mento Band’s contribution to Jamaican music can be summarized in several key areas:

• Tourist Circuit Ambassadors: Helped define mento as Jamaica’s cultural brand for visitors in the 1950s.
• Revival Preservationists: Unlike many hotel groups, they returned in the 1970s–80s to record albums that serve as primary documents for scholars (Bilby, 2016).
• Cultural Continuity: Proved that mento was never extinguished, only overshadowed by ska and reggae.
• Educational Resource: Their later recordings remain teaching tools for schools, folklorists, and global audiences exploring mento.
• Influence on Revival Bands: Paved the way for The Jolly Boys and other late-20th-century groups that brought mento to new stages.

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Expansionary Content: The Revival Dimension

Blue Glaze’s revival work highlights an important theme: mento as cultural memory.

• Revival Albums: Their 1970s–80s recordings paralleled the roots reggae revival, situating mento alongside Rastafarian music as part of Jamaica’s heritage.
• Scholarly Interest: Folklorists and ethnomusicologists seized on these recordings as rare documents of older folk traditions.
• Tourism vs. Authenticity: While hotel performances staged mento for tourists, revival albums framed it for Jamaicans and global audiences seeking roots authenticity (Scarlett, 2008).

Thus, Blue Glaze exemplifies how mento bands served both immediate entertainment and long-term preservation.

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Conclusion

The Blue Glaze Mento Band bridged the 1950s hotel era and the 1970s–80s revival, making them unique among mento ensembles. From their North Coast hotel shows to their later studio albums, they ensured that mento’s soundscape was not lost to history.

Their legacy is one of continuity: playing for tourists, preserving for scholars, and inspiring future generations. In honoring Blue Glaze, we see how Jamaica’s folk tradition survived changing tastes and contributed to the island’s enduring musical identity.

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References

Bilby, K. (2016). Jamaican mento: A hidden history of Caribbean music. Caribbean Studies Press.
Bogues, A. (2014). Music, politics, and cultural memory in the Caribbean. University of the West Indies Press.
Henriques, J. (2011). Sonic bodies: Reggae sound systems, performance techniques, and ways of knowing. Continuum.
Manuel, P. (2006). Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae (2nd ed.). Temple University Press.
Moskowitz, D. (2006). Caribbean popular music: An encyclopedia of reggae, mento, ska, rock steady, and dancehall. Greenwood Press.
Nettleford, R. (1979). Caribbean cultural identity: The case of Jamaica. Institute of Jamaica Publications.
Potash, C. (1990). Reggae, rasta, revolution: Jamaican music from ska to dub. Schirmer Books.
Scarlett, G. (2008). Jamaican folk traditions and the roots of mento. University of the West Indies Working Papers.
Stolzoff, N. (2000). Wake the town and tell the people: Dancehall culture in Jamaica. Duke University Press.
Taylor, T. (2012). Global pop: World music, world markets. Routledge.