"It hard to find any person at a Skatalites concert who isn't moving some part of their body, whether they're 5 or 85 years old," according to Ken Stewart, the band's keyboard player and manager. Stewart is speaking via phone from the UK, where the group was taking a rare break from its vigorous 2005 European tour. He still marvels at ska's enduring appeal since it became Jamaica's first commercial musical form. "What's amazing to me is that young kids will come out and see an instrumental [ska] group," Stewart says. "To see 12-year-old kids going out to hear something like this rather than Britney Spears is great."

There's not much of a rebellious spirit in ska's relatively unforced melodies, where softly percussive horn sections answer to a sweet, bass-driven beat. Still, generation after generation of young rebels keep turning to ska for lifestyle and musical cues. In the UK, the mods nabbed part of their look and motorcycle style from Jamaican immigrants. Teenage mod Rod Stewart's recording debut was playing harmonica for Jamaican-born ska star Millie Small's first UK hit, "My Boy Lollipop." Later, skinheads would ironically latch on to ska's accouterments.

But these were only small ripples compared to the global tsunami launched by Jamaica's own edgy youth. "Reggae came from ska," Stewart reminds — indeed, members of the Skatalites were in the studio playing tracks for fledgling reggae musicians like Delroy Wilson, Desmond Dekker, the Wailers and Lee Perry.

Ska's universal appeal has come in multiple waves of popularity since the 1950s. First the music celebrated the independence of Jamaica. Then it roared out of the UK, with groups like the Specials leading the two-tone movement. Now it's a global music form, with groups like No Doubt, the Mighty Bosstones and hundreds if not thousands of neophyte groups latching onto its infectious sound.

Here in Prague, ska is being locally redefined by punk-oriented groups like Fast Food, the Chancers, Tleskač and Fidel Basta. It is no empty boast when Stewart says, "Every single country we have ever been to, there are always bands trying to emulate ska."

If you like the danceable sound of horns, it's hard to find a better introduction to ska than the two-time Grammy-award winning Skatalites. If you like reggae, then you also owe it to yourself to discover what Stewart describes as the "perfect blend of reggae and jazz."

Jamaicans "certainly are proud of their own music," Stewart notes. "Look how far it [has] spread from a tiny, 250-mile-wide island to all over the globe." Despite the country's turbulent history — or maybe because of it — ska has had an impact that's amazed people around the world, as Stewart puts it, "that [Jamaicans] can come up with a music that can put so much joy into people."