TROMBONE MAN: A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY
TROMBONE MAN tell the story of Jamaican jazz musician and composer, Don Drummond, one of the most important and enigmatic figures in the birth of ska. A founding member of The Skatalites, Drummond was a virtuoso trombonist whose compositions and playing helped define the sound of early Jamaican popular music.
Told through graphic storytelling, the project explores Drummond's extraordinary musical talent, his relationship with rhumba dancer Margarita Mahfood, his experiences at Alpha Boys School, his rise to stardom and the mental illness that destroyed him and his lover.
This is a story about a pivotal moment in Jamaican cultural history: through Drummond's life, TROMBONE MAN explores the creativity, ambition, and social change behind the birth of ska.
It explores themes around talent, recognition and the fragility of creative lives. By looking beyond the mythology surrounding Drummond, the project seeks to reveal a complex human story behind the birth of ska.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Trombone Man combines historical research and magic realism with visual storytelling, placing Drummond's personal story within the wider cultural world of 1950s and 1960s Jamaica.
The completed work will bring together the existing published material with new chapters exploring Drummond's life, music, relationships and death.
Alongside Drummond's story, the project shines a light on the musicians, artists and overlooked figures who helped shape the emergence of ska, creating a vivid portrait of a pivotal moment in Jamaican cultural history.
With support from Arts Council England, the project will develop the next stages of the graphic biography, creating new work towards a complete book-length story.
The ambition is to create a work that is deeply researched and emotionally engaging, allowing readers to experience the people, places and creative energy behind the music and encounter Don Drummond as more than a footnote in Jamaica's rich musical history.
THE STORY SO FAR
The first chapter, Barefoot Boy, about Drummond's childhood, was successfully crowdfunded and published in 2024, attracting more than 200 supporters. The second chapter, Music Is My Occupation, was subsequently crowdfunded and is now in production.
The project has already received international attention, including coverage in The Guardian (see below), and has been featured in specialist music publications such as Echoes and Riddim. The creative team includes illustrator Costantinos Pissourios, editor Devin Arscott and Jamaican music historian Heather Augustyn, whose biography of Don Drummond provided an important foundation for the project.
TROMBONE MAN serves as a companion piece to SISTER SKA: GODMOTHER OF JAMAICAN MUSIC, a new ACE-funded stage musical about Sister Mary Ignatius, Alpha Boys School, Don Drummond and the birth of ska, featuring a book by Roy Williams OBE and score by Gary Crosby OBE with Tomorrow's Warriors.
