Carlos Malcolm OD (born c. 1934) is a world renowned Jamaican trombonist, percussionist and bandleader who helped cultivate the infamous Jamaican genres of music known as Ska and Reggae.

Carlos Malcolm was born in Panama c. 1935 to Jamaican parents and grew up in Kingston. His father, Wilfred Malcolm, went to Panama and worked as a bookkeeper in the Panama Canal Zone. He became a prominent business man in the city of Colon, established homes in both countries and sent his five children back to Jamaica to be educated. Having studied the liturgy and music of the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church, Wilfred Malcolm was an Anglican church choir director for many years. He also played trombone in the "Jazz Aristocrats," a Panamanian Dixieland band for which he was manager, and he took the band to Jamaica in 1936.

Wilfred Malcolm had quite a collection of eclectic music that extended from Bach and Handel to Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Reflecting upon this period of his life, Malcolm often mused that he probably "subliminally osmosed" the musical styles and arranging formats of various composers as he whistled back at the music wafting through the house every evening his father came home. This probably accounts for Malcolm's notoriety among peers as a "Musical Chameleon" because he arranges music and functions comfortably in a variety of musical cultures and genres. His father and a few prominent West Indian businessmen in Panama formed a committee that brought to Panama world-class Black-American artists in the performing arts. As a child, Malcolm recalls listening from the bedroom to conversations and laughter from guests, including celebrated artists Paul Robeson (baritone), Marian Anderson (contralto), Hazel Scott–Powell (wife of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., of Abyssinia Baptist Church of Harlem) as they came to late dinners after recitals at a local theatre.

Malcolm's father taught him to play the trombone. He also recognized Malcolm's natural gift for creating and arranging music and supported his son's desire to pursue an education in the arts. Malcolm holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Music from the Union Institute & University located in Cincinnati, Ohio.   

He studied music at the Conservatory of Music in Panama. From the late 1950s Carlos Malcolm worked professionally as a musician in conjunction with his "other job" as a photo journalist with the West Indian Review magazine in Kingston. His first music "gigs" were with the Vivian Hall All Stars which featured Don Drummond on trombone. Malcolm and Drummond became good friends and quite often would practice the trombone together.

With independence looming in the future the Government of Jamaica resolved to develop its native talent in the visual and performing arts. Malcolm (invited by Sonny Bradshaw) was among the first cadre of writers, producers and musicians to develop and showcase local talent in the performing arts on live shows broadcast from local theatres, produced by the newly constructed Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. As Head Arranger in the Variety Department, Carlos Malcolm was the first arranger to write formal arrangements of Jamaica Ska music. Many of the early Ska musical arrangements for singers were "head arrangements" improvised by the accompanying musicians "at the mike." Malcolm would transcribe music from 7-inch 45 rpm records and formally re-arrange the music for the JBC Studio Band to accompany singers on live shows. The popular Jamaican Hit Parade program partially developed by Malcolm, spawned and influenced the careers of many Jamaican artists such as Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley, who later became international Jamaican music icons.

Along with musicians such as Bertie King and Lennie Hibbert, Malcolm formed a short-lived school of jazz with the aim of producing home-grown jazz musicians who could make music that would sell overseas; recorded music at that time was mostly imported.

In addition to his contract at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), Malcolm also worked as a composer and arranger for other clients such as the Jamaica Little Theatre Movement for whom he created the original musical for the libretti of two pantomimes: Banana Boy in December 1958 (libretto by Ortford St John) and Jamaica Way in 1960– libretto by Samuel Hillary. In 1962 Malcolm became the first musical director of the Jamaica National Dance Theatre Company created by Dr. Rex Nettleford of the University of the West Indies, for which Malcolm and Oswald Russell created original works for the debut performance of the Company at the Inaugural Celebrations of Jamaica's Independence.