Jazz guitarist Jackie King comes out of a Texas music background that not
only included jazz, big band and swing, but also country-and-western and
rhythm'n' blues. Those other styles now crop up in his music as subtle
tones and creative inflections that give him a distinctive and soulful
sound all his own.
King's masterful guitar-playing is showcased in a traditional jazz trio
format (with bassist Wilbur Krebs and drummer/percussionist Michael Aragon)
on Moon Magic, an album of nine classic jazz standards that contain the
word "moon" in the title. "The moon has always been a very big thing to
me," states King. "I feel a real inspiration when the nighttime comes
around. There's magic in moonlight so it seemed like a natural theme to
me, especially since so many great jazz melodies were written about the
moon." The nine tunes include "Moon River," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Blue
Moon," "Moonlight in Vermont" and "How High the Moon." But King takes
these melodies where they have never been before with each song lasting
five-to-eight minutes and containing virtuoso picking.
Moon Magic, on the Indigo Moon/Freefalls Entertainment label, is King's
third solo album. He also has a duet jazz album with Willie Nelson, with
whom he has played in concert and on television many times. King spent
more than a year each playing with Chet Baker, Martin Fierro and Dick
Turner. Jackie also has performed occasionally with jazz greats such as
Bill Evans, Sonny Stitt, Hank Crawford, Richie Cole, Tony Bennett, Joe
Turner, Barney Kessel and Ray Charles as well as with rock artists such as
Doug Sahm, Jerry Garcia, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Jackie is a native Texan and his heritage includes the Cherokee and
Comanche tribes. His grandmother, whom he was close to when he was growing
up, was considered a modern-day "medicine woman" who dealt with the
spiritual and psychic aspects of life. It is her crystal ball that Jackie
is holding on the cover of the new album.
The son of a guitar player, Jackie at age eight learned to play mandolin
from his father and then switched to guitar a year later. Jackie's
earliest influences were Bob Wills, Les Paul and Chet Atkins, but soon
Jackie was studying jazz pioneers Django Reinhardt and Charlie Parker, and
then other early jazz players including Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Herb
Ellis, Johnny Smith, George Barns, Jimmy Rainey, Hank Garland, Wes
Montgomery, Joe Pass, Johnny Griffin, Cannonball Aderly, and Sonny Stitt.
"At first I only paid attention to the guitar, but after awhile I started
listening to the other instruments and tried to re-create their sounds on
my guitar."
When he was 12-years-old, Jackie began playing professionally. "My parents
had to go before a judge and get a special permit for me to play in places
that sold alcohol and even then one of my parents had to accompany me. I
also got an honorary union card." Two years later mutual friends
introduced him to Willie Nelson and they jammed informally. Close friends
from that era included Doug Sahm, Ernie Durawa (drummer with the Texas
Tornados), fiddle player and mentor J. R. Chatwell and sax player Spot
Barnett. King also got to know other guitarists playing the San Antonio
scene such as T-Bone Walker and Gatemouth Brown.
Early in his career Jackie played in country-and-western groups and swing
bands, but his first love was always jazz. "Texas had a great music scene
from the mid-Fifties to the early Sixties when many different styles of
music were accepted and the sounds often merged. There wasn't that much
difference between western swing and big band, and sometimes the same horn
sections also played with rhythm'n'blues bands or Tex-Mex-Tejano groups.
Country players back then would sometimes incorporate jazz licks. Ray
Price used 'Cherokee' as his theme song and that was a Charlie Parker jazz
tune."
In those days King played at bars, clubs, lounges and military bases.
"Since San Antonio is a big military town with a lot of bases, they were
always bringing in big-name national acts to perform, and I was part of the
group that was hired to back them up." Jackie got the opportunity to play
with Joe Turner, George Jones, Ray Price,
Roger Miller, Minnie Pearl and countless others. Some of the great jazz
players Jackie was playing with during that period included Nick Adams,
Jimmy Ford, Heron B. Smith, Cullen Offer and many others.
Jackie left Texas to tour the country for a year with the Billy Gray Band
(Gray wrote "HonkTonk Angel" for Hank Thompson). King also spent a year at
The Celebrity Club in Illinois playing jazz six nights a week. In the
second half of the Sixties, the San Francisco music scene was the place to
be. Doug Sahm moved there and encouraged Jackie to follow and Sahm put him
together with sax player Martin Fierro to form the jazz-fusion band The
Shades of Joy. The band played all the great Bay Area venues of the time --
both Fillmores, the Avalon Ballroom and The Family Dog -- and recorded two
albums (the first self-titled and the second the soundtrack for the film
"El Topo").
In the early Seventies, Jackie backed Jimmy Witherspoon for a week at the
Jazz Workshop and played with Sonny Stitt before playing for a year with
Chet Baker. In San Francisco, King became a studio session guitarist for
Mercury Records and recorded with acts such as Merle Saunders. Jackie also
spent several years playing jazz at the Mark Hopkins Hotel and then at The
Fairmont Hotel. He was considered one of the "first call" guitarists when
touring acts came to town and they needed a first-rate backing band. In
this capacity he has made special appearances with Tony Bennett, Frank
Sinatra Jr., the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler conducting, the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Joffrey Ballet.
In the Eighties, King went to Hollywood and recorded an all-original jazz
album, Skylight, which featured Martin Fierro and pianist Don Haas (Benny
Goodman). He did some guitar seminars with legendary jazz guitarist,
Howard Roberts, who later founded the Guitar Institute of Technology (now
part of the Musicians Institute). While in Los Angeles, Jackie taught for
a year at G.I.T. and also wrote some of the curriculum. This led to King
opening his own Southwest Guitar Conservatory in San Antonio which he ran
for seven years. Many top jazz guitarists -- such as Herb Ellis (who
joined the staff as Associate Director), Barney Kessel, Pat Martino, Tal
Farlow and Lenny Breau -- came to teach special classes there and performed
with Jackie for the students and in public concerts.
Jackie signed with Columbia Records for two albums in the Eighties. The
first was Angel Eyes, a duet jazz album with singing by old friend Willie
Nelson (although Ray Charles sang on one tune). The second project was a
solo jazz album by Jackie called Nightbird with mostly original material
and a few covers including John Lennon's "Imagine." King's renewed
friendship with Nelson led to a tour of Japan together, an HBO-TV Special
with Jackie as Willie's "Special Guest," a CBS-TV special where they were
joined by Ray Charles, a PBS-TV Special called "A Tribute to Django
Reinhardt" with Asleep at the Wheel, another CBS-TV Special that featured a
duet with just Jackie and Willie performing, a bit part for Jackie in the
movie "Songwriter" with Willie and Kris Kristofferson, a couple of "Austin
City Limits," the Turner Network's "The Legends of Country Music," several
Farm Aid festivals and Willie's infamous Fourth of July Picnics, and other
assorted concerts over the years. Jackie and Willie also have recorded
additional material together for future release.
Jackie has always enjoyed working with other guitarists. In Texas he
occasionally played with Stevie Ray Vaughn and in San Francisco with Jerry
Garcia. Currently based in Northern California, Jackie still returns to
San Antonio on occasion and has been performing and recording in recent
years with The West Side Horns, playing blues and "Tejano jazz"
incorporating a Southwestern element. King also has taught guitar
extensively -- with individual lessons, seminars, master classes, a video
for Hot Licks, a Hot Lines book and a soon-to-be-published jazz guitar
method book. In addition, King hosts the syndicated radio show "Jazz From
the Wine Country."
Now Jackie King has taken all of his knowledge and expertise, and put it
into play on his Moon Magic recording. "The idea was just to play," he
states. "Some of the best playing I have ever heard was when some
musicians were
just sitting around in a living room, a garage or a basement playing for
the joy of it. That intimate atmosphere and the magic of those moments are
difficult to capture in a recording studio, but this is as close as we
could get. I wanted to do a guitar, bass and drums album because the jazz
trio is a classic format that goes with these classic songs. It also gives
us a chance to showcase our playing as much as possible, and it gave me a
lot of freedom, a lot of room to improvise. I've always loved trio albums.
For example, my favorite Wes Montgomery album was Boss Guitar when he
played with just a trio, and I always liked the Bill Evans Trio. With
larger ensembles, you can lose some of the little inflections and
subtleties. With a three-piece band, nothing is hidden. Every note is
exposed."
On the recording, Jackie played his favorite guitar, a left-handed
hollow-body 1974 Gibson "Byrdland" model. For Moon Magic, King chose a
rhythm section he has performed with numerous times -- drummer Michael
Aragon (Chet Baker, Jon Hendricks, Harry Connick Jr.) and bassist Wilbur
Krebs (Donald Byrd, Joe Williams, Alphabet Soup).
King says, "I love playing standards because these compositions are an
important part of our musical heritage. When you tackle this material,
it's like you're going out on sacred ground because these tunes have been
played by so many great artists. But it also gave me the opportunity to
demonstrate what I can do as a guitarist within song structures that so
many people are familiar with. There were no restrictions on the music.
We were able to stretch out and develop each theme. We also wanted to
retain the magic of the moment so we didn't go back and overdub any solos
later. These were all first or second takes so we wouldn't lose the
freshness. Any ideas we had during the song, we just aired them out. I've
been doing this material forever, and these are some of my favorite jazz
guitar tunes of all time, but when we were recording, I took the
opportunity to create my own new versions.
"By choosing this classic material, our roots were well-grounded in
tradition. But then when we started to play, we tried to incorporate the
sky and the heavens, and make a more cosmic connection."
