Montego Joe


Roger "Montego Joe" Sanders was an American jazz percussionist and drummer.

Career

Sanders as a teenager played with a number of bands, led by top jazz musicians, including Babatunde Olatunji's Art Blakey's Afro-Drum Ensemble, also with Ted Curson, Max Roach, Monty Alexander, Phil Upchurch, Dizzy Gillespie, Willis Jackson, Herbie Mann, Harold Vick, Teddy Edwards, George Benson, Jack McDuff, Rufus Harley and Johnny Lytle. Under his own name he recorded the album Arriba! Con Montego Joe for Prestige Records prior to which he worked with Chick Corea with Eddie Gómez and Milford Graves, followed by the album Wild & Warm.
During the 1960s he worked with a group of Black youth in Harlem, known as HAR-YOU, founded by sociologist Kenneth Clark. Montego Joe worked with the Harlem Youth Percussion Group for four years before taking them into the studio to record their debut album, HAR-YOU Percussion Group: Sounds of the Ghetto Youth for ESP-Disk in 1967. The reunion album was released in 1996 featuring many of the same personnel that were on the debut album. He subsequently worked with Cornell Dupree, Ralph MacDonald and Curtis Mayfield on the album Voices of East Harlem: Right On, Be Free, which was released by Elektra Records in 1970.

Discography

As leader

Arriba! Con Montego Joe
  • ''Wild & Warm''

As sideman

With George BensonThe New Boss Guitar of George Benson George Benson/Jack McDuff
With Ted CursonPlays Fire Down Below I Heard Mingus
With Willis JacksonNeapolitan Nights Shuckin'
With Illinois JacquetThe King! How High the Moon
With Roland KirkSlightly Latin Kirk's Works
With Babatunde OlatunjiDrums of Passion Afro Percussion Flaming Drums! High Life!
With Nina SimoneAt Carnegie Hall Folksy Nina
With others