Joey Altruda

Joey Altruda is an American musician, composer, producer, and bandleader from Los Angeles. His involvement in the L.A. music scene began in 1981 as a founding member of the post-punk experimental group Tupelo Chain Sex. In 1989, he created the band Jump With Joey, performing American Jump Swing music and early forms of Jamaican Ska. The group became a keystone in reviving traditional Jamaican Ska, Rocksteady, and Reggae. Throughout the '90s, the band broke musical barriers by introducing heavier elements of Afro-Cuban and Jazz into the Ska idiom and gained further notoriety for backing pioneering Jamaican musicians such as Roland Alphonso, Laurel Aitken, Ernest Ranglin, Rico Rodriguez, Ken Lazarus, et al. In 2006, Altruda was awarded a lifetime achievement award for the Preservation Of Jamaican Music and Culture. Altruda has been an avid record collector, holding a wide interest in genres including Americana, Afro-Cuban, Jamaican, Brazilian, Exotica, Novelty, etc. Throughout his musical trajectory thus far, the music he collects has always pushed him forward to learn how to perform and create in these various idioms. In the past 35 years, he has worked with a broad spectrum of artists, including Seu Jorge, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Bo Diddley, El Gran Fellove, Joe Houston, Don & Dewey, Rose Maddox, Levi Dexter, Tom Waits, Joe Strummer, Plas Johnson, Les Baxter, Sir Coxson Dodd, Roland Alphonso, Ernest Rangin, Rico Rodriguez and many more.