Leslie Butler — Ja-Gan
First appearing in the mid 70’s, Ja-Gan is a mellow & tuneful collection of instrumental dub reggae. The twelve-track album blends upfront melodica (a blowable electronic instrument that sounds akin to accordion or harmonica), with organ, piano, guitar, & percussion. Here, from Doctor Bird is an expanded CD reissue of the album, taking in eight bonus tracks, and a glossy sixteen page booklet- featuring a six page write-up, single labels, studio logs, and pictures.
Ja-Gan was the second and last album from reggae pianist/ organist Leslie Butler- it was released in 1975 on Trojan. For the album, Butler is joined by Joe White- melodica, Earl "Chinna" Smith & Albert 'Tony' Chin- guitar, Asley Cooper & Carlton "Santa" Davis-Drums. The sound is as you’d hope with a dub/reggae album groove based, but with in its makeup we have elements of upbeat easy listening, making for a distinctive, if at points fairly similar sounding record.
The original album kicks off with “Expressions In Dub”, here we find a steadily strutting dub beat topped by the tuneful/ bright & breezy melodica playing. As the album unfolds, we have the track “Ganja” which is basically “Stand By Me” but more upbeat, with a mellow blues guitar tone and wishful melodica tones.
As we move into the original second half, we pared back bass tone jive, wailing melodica, and mellow organ lines of “Naked Spectrum”. And “Roosevelt Dub” with his cuffing/ hacking drums, bare bass line, and jaunting organ/ melodica touches. All in all, the original Ja-Gan is a tuneful/approachable dub record, and you can certainly see how/ why it was popular- the problem is that quite a few of the tracks set-up/ sound is rather interchangeable.
The eight bonus tracks do add some variety to the pot, both in their instrumental profile, and the addition of vocals on a few tracks. There’s “God Bless The Child” with its strutting blues/reggae crossbreed, and piecemeal female soul singing. And “Hail O Blue Skies” which moves from sounding fairly apocalyptic/brooding with it’s merchine like churnings /ominous male voices, to stripped back bass, stark chugging guitar, hissing & hitting percussion, melodica traces, and moody male spoken word elements.
If you're looking for where dub meets tuneful/ bright easy listening, then Ja-Gan will appeal, and the extra tracks really add a nice bit of variation to what is an approachable, if sonically unvaried record.