SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (22)
By:
December 16, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… ska records! PLAYLIST HERE. Series edited by Josh Glenn.
It’s an instrumental, man, what can it mean? Well…
Count Basie’s “Topsy” from 1937 is an instrumental — co-written and arranged by trombonist Eddie Durham — that was also a pop hit for Benny Goodman and 20 years later, a worldwide smash for Cozy Cole. Ringo Starr — who played Frank Zappa in the movie 200 Motels and took the cover photograph of T. Rex’s The Slider — has said Cole’s recording includes his favorite drum solo.
Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest’s “Night Train,” an R&B hit in 1952, is also an instrumental, and the theme song of boxer Sonny Liston, a fellow St. Louisan who won the heavyweight title from Floyd Paterson in September 1962 and lost it to Cassius Clay in February 1964. Clay, who soon became a Black Muslim, was Muhammad Ali when he beat Liston again in May 1965 with a first-round knockout, a fight many believe was fixed. Maybe so but it was Liston not Ali who appeared in the Monkees’ movie Head, which opened Wednesday November 6, 1968 — the day after Richard Nixon was elected the 37th President of the United States.
This is the world into which Django would return, though very few Americans were aware of it. In Jamaica, from whence the song — and subsequently the album — came from the fertile mind of songwriter and producer Lee Perry, the Prime Minister was Hugh Shearer, of the Jamaica Labour Party. In England, Harold Wilson of the Labour Party was Prime Minister when “Return of Django” became a hit, peaking at #5 for two weeks in November 1969.
On Saturday November 15, 1969, while an estimated 500,000 people were in Washington D.C. marching in the Moratorium Against the Vietnam War, President Nixon reportedly watched college football on television.
If Nixon knew anything about Django, it was likely the ur-Django, Reinhardt, the brilliant Belgian-born gypsy jazz guitarist. Though he mostly recorded in Paris, France, with fellow Europeans, one 1937 session included Black American expatriates Bill Coleman, of Paris, Kentucky, and Eddie South, from Louisiana, Missouri. In America, Reinhardt recorded with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in Chicago on November 10, 1946 — just five days after Richard Nixon was first elected to Congress.
Nixon was Vice President when Reinhardt died in 1953, and the following year, John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quart composed an instrumental song honoring the musician. Titled simply “Django,” it became both a jazz standard and the title of an MJQ album often reissued with some startlingly different covers over the years.
Indeed, such is Django’s strength and elasticity, it became the title of an incredible spaghetti western co-written and directed by Sergio Corbucci. The picture opened in Italy in April 1966 and came to the United States, and likely Jamaica too, that December.
If, as the old gospel song goes, “My Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb,” cinematically speaking, Django was the Big Bang itself. More than 20 Django-inspired sequels would follow (Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is the best), none directed by Corbucci, starting with A Few Dollars for Django and including Django Shoots First, Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! and Return of Django, which opened in Italy in May 1967.
When and where Lee Perry saw Return of Django is unknown but the slinky, bluesy track — which is closer to gutbucket Jimmy Forrest than suave MJQ — was first released on Perry’s own Upsetter label in late 1968.
A subsequent issue on the Trojan label catalyzed its British popularity and has ever since made the film seem more fascinating than it is: a neat trick by Perry and far from his last.
Lest anyone think Perry’s inspiration wasn’t in Italian movies, the Upsetters’ 1970 follow-up album was titled Clint Eastwood.
SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lucy Sante on Margarita’s WOMAN COME | Douglas Wolk on Millie’s MAYFAIR | Lynn Peril on Prince Buster’s TEN COMMANDMENTS | Mark Kingwell on The [English] Beat’s TEARS OF A CLOWN | Annie Nocenti on Jimmy Cliff’s MISS JAMAICA | Mariane Cara on The Selecter’s ON MY RADIO | Adam McGovern on The Specials’ GHOST TOWN | Josh Glenn on The Ethiopians’ TRAIN TO SKAVILLE | Susannah Breslin on The [English] Beat’s MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM | Carl Wilson on Prince Buster / Madness’s ONE STEP BEYOND | Carlo Rotella on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ THE IMPRESSION THAT I GET | Rani Som on The Bodysnatchers’ EASY LIFE | David Cantwell on Desmond Dekker’s 007 (SHANTY TOWN) | Francesca Royster on Joya Landis’ ANGEL OF THE MORNING | Mimi Lipson on Folkes Brothers’ OH CAROLINA | Alix Lambert on The Specials’ TOO MUCH TOO YOUNG | Marc Weidenbaum on Dandy Livingstone’s RUDY, A MESSAGE TO YOU | Heather Quinlan on Fishbone’s MA & PA | Will Hermes on The [English] Beat’s WHINE & GRINE / STAND DOWN MARGARET | Peter Doyle on The Skatalites’ GUNS OF NAVARONE | James Parker on The [English] Beat’s SAVE IT FOR LATER | Brian Berger on The Upsetters’ RETURN OF DJANGO | Annie Zaleski on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ SOME DAY I SUPPOSE | Deborah Wassertzug on The Bodysnatchers’ TOO EXPERIENCED | Dan Reines on The Untouchables’ I SPY FOR THE FBI | PLUS: AL Deakin on SKANKING FOR YOUR LIFE.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!