Ska
By the mid-1960s American popular music, in particular rhythm and blues, commanded the airwaves and dancehalls of urban Jamaica. As mento filtered from rural areas to urban settings, the "country" instruments were replaced by modern equipment commonly found in jazz swing era dance bands, namely saxophones, brass instruments, drum set, piano, electric guitar, and acoustic bass. Although urban mento maintained a focus on the vocalist, the instrumental offspring of rural mento was ska, a faster-tempo dance music that used saxophones and trumpets to carry the main melody. Ska is a dance-oriented popular style with repetitive themes and improvisational solos that became popular in Jamaica during the 1960s.