D.D. Jackson
Web Site
December 2001

"Sometimes it’s been overstated perhaps, but I’m very aware of rhythm. I’m very aware of when something isn’t grooving. I’m very aware of the feel of different drummers and how that might impact what I’m trying to express."

Sígame
Justin-Time
2001

Jim Santella

By Craig Jolley

Columbus, Ohio concert

I’m here performing the “Rhapsody in Blue” with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. It’s a program that includes the premier of an Oliver Lake composition--the World Saxophone Quartet is performing it also with the orchestra. The concert is a jazz/classical hybrid event. The music is being recorded—it will be out on ProMusica’s own label.

Sigame (Justin Time)

Sigame means “follow me” in Spanish. By that I mean follow me on my musical journey perhaps. I think it’s particularly pertinent in light of some of the recent developments that have happened to me career wise. I just gravitated back from a major label (RCA Victor) to the independent label (Justin Time). Apart from the obvious—they basically axed their jazz department—esthetically towards the end they wanted to pigeonhole me and have me do the same thing over and over again. The previous regime at RCA had allowed me to do these very diverse albums (Anthem and …so far) I was pleased to have gotten out. The new people wanted me to do a string of trio albums a la Brad Mehldau or something. My whole approach has always been to try to express as many different facets of music that is meaningful to me as I can. I never really try to overtly repeat myself. Getting back to the title Sigame I’m hoping people will follow me on the path—wherever I’m going. I composed all the music on the CD. I consider myself as much a composer if not more so than pianist.

It’s basically a trio album with some guests augmenting a couple of the tracks. I wanted the focus to be on me as an improviser as well as a composer. I wanted to contrast my previous album Anthem which was very much an electric album and which I had always wanted to attempt. Sigame is with a great Cuban drummer, Dafnis Prieto. He’s only been in New York for about a year and a half, but has made incredible waves playing with Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill’s big band, and Claudia Acuna. He’s a very diverse and virtuosic musician. He has Latin chops but approaches them with surprisingly a jazz sensibility. He reminds me in his approach in many ways of somebody like Jack DeJohnette in that he has assimilated so many different things (particularly the Black idiom) but brings something fresh and spontaneous.

The bass player’s Ugonna Okegwo who I chose because he’s such an excellent counterpart musically to somebody that plays as Dafnis does. Ugonna is almost minimalistic in his approach but has impeccable time and groove. This ability has lent itself well to Leon Parker’s groups and Jacky Terrasson’s for many years. I just wanted to have him in the mix. I have worked with him before—in fact he participated in this “A Canadian in New York” suite [a take-off on “An American in Paris?”] for 15 musicians that I premiered in the Prospect Park band shell in Brooklyn on Canada Day (July 1), 2000. The guests on the album are Christian Howes on violin who played electric violin on my previous album Anthem. I wanted to demonstrate and feature his acoustic side, his beautiful, rounded classical tone. He also plays the bass violin which is not terribly audible live—it’s mainly a studio instrument that’s miked a certain way. While it resembles a regular violin, it sounds very rich like a cello. There’s one cut in particular, “Summer”, where I had him overdub two tracks of bass violin and two tracks of acoustic as well as soloing. It was the only hyperproduced track on the album, but I wanted to hear that sound so I couldn’t resist. He also solos on the title tune, “Sigame”. The final guest is Freddie Bryant. He’s been on the New York scene for a few years now, but he’s still relatively young (around my age). He has a reputation for being an expert on acoustic guitar, classical and Latin-oriented. When I decided to I wanted to add that flavor I asked around. I think it was Sam Newsome who recommended him. I ultimately had him play electric guitar on one cut as well. I actually heard him a week before the recording session playing with Tom Harrell’s group at the Vanguard. There was this one cut where he was playing a burning solo with a wa-wa pedal. I decided I might as well throw that in too.

Notated music

It’s an area I’ve been increasingly exploring. For the concert I’m doing this week in Columbus I’ll be playing the “Rhapsody in Blue” which is a strictly notated piece. It’ll be a chance to get back to my classical roots. My background is very much in classical, by the way--my bachelor’s degree was in classical piano. I have a degree from Indiana University where I studied with Menahem Pressler. It’s always been very much a part of what I do. I had a certain amount of resistance, particularly from that teacher at Indiana, towards improvising and jazz. Eventually I sort of rebelled. I really didn’t explore my classical past for about ten years. In just the last two years I got the nerve to readdress what at the time was a very frustrating experience. I’ve started to go back and perform strictly notated pieces live and even to compose in a more classical vein. I just premiered a commissioned piece at the Minneapolis New Music Festival (Dancing in Your Head). It was basically a variations form piece called “Ten Inspirations on a Simple Theme.” I’m working on an opera commission right now which will combine elements of notated music and jazz. This other hybrid work, which has become a little more timely in light of what happened at the World Trade Center, is this piece I mentioned earlier called “A Canadian in New,” subtitled “Suite for Large Jazz/Classical Ensemble.” It was a large, 80-minute work that dealt with my experiences as a Canadian living in New York. The different sections are “The City,” “Hopes and Dreams,” El Barrio” (dedicated to Tito Puente), and “Brooklyn Lullaby.” In light of the World Trade Center disaster I’ve been thinking of resurrecting the work (I had been thinking about it anyway.): recording it with an extended string section as my next CD.

Classical music inspirations

It’s hard to say whether I’ve been inspired more by recent composers. The whole history of the music, particularly Bach and Beethoven, was sort of in my bones growing up: Chopin, later on Rachmaninoff, all those people. It’s become quite typical, it’s true, for a jazz musician who’s been overtly influenced classically to have been influenced by twentieth century composers: Bartok, Stravinsky, and Ravel. I’m no exception, but there are a lot of threads of older forms. For example the tune on the new album Sigame “For Desdemona” has what could be described as a classical sensibility. It’s not so much twentieth century-sounding as romantic at times. It’s hard for me to evaluate my own work, but it’s maybe Bach-like--somewhat in that style. There’s a tune on my first CD called “Canon”--basically just a canon. A lot of ideas echoed two bars later and were done with three or four voices: tenor sax (David Murray) and piano trio. I’ve enjoyed exploring classical forms in different degrees and in different ways.

Lessons learned from other jazz composers who incorporated classical elements

Definitely--when I wrote this “Canadian in New York” piece I took it upon myself to become aware of as many different hybrid works (both from the classical and the jazz perspective) as possible. I ended up listening to a whole gamut of things from the classical composers’ attempts in this genre. There’s a good piece by Milhaud called “La Création du Monde.” It’s actually on the program here, and it’s a precursor to the “Rhapsody in Blue.” It has a lot of jazz elements successfully incorporated into the classical idiom. From the other perspective I listened to Mingus’ resurrected Epitaph that Gunther Schuller has gone back and redone just as an example of a relatively successful large-scale work with notation but also with a lot of jazz. Some of John Zorn’s stuff, anything that kind of explores the hybrids. One of my favorites is Hannibal Peterson’s “African Portraits” which successfully combines those two worlds as well as African music. It has a boys’ choir, soloists, a full chorus, a traditional jazz band. It sort of traces the history of the African-American experience from slavery to the present. That was deeply influential.

Religious music background

Not directly really. I’ve never really been an overtly religious person per se, in part due to my diverse background. My mother is from China originally; my father is an African-American. He was raised a Baptist; my mother was raised a reincarnationist, a Buddhist. I have tried to absorb that sensibility indirectly. A lot of jazz musicians, Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) for example, has a gospel (soulful) sensibility that he combines with South African expressionism of his homeland that has affected me. Also growing up I listened to non-jazz musicians with gospel and blues orientations such as Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. I guess it was just something I somehow felt a connection with: the blues, gospel, and swing.

Musical categories

It’s definitely a continuum. It depends on what you’re trying to express. That “Canadian in New York” piece has many different elements in it, sometimes within a single movement. The first movement which is thirty minutes long has back beat, Bartok string quartet stuff, poetry, bebop riffs, sections of free jazz. I try to be as open as I can and do whatever is appropriate without regard to externally imposed stylistic boundaries.

Close connection with drummers

I feel certainly connected with the bass also, but I think because I’m a very two-handed pianist (as some people describe me) -- I often assume the role of the bass in some ways. There’s a group I play in, Bluiett-Jackson-El’Zabar (We recently released an album on Justin Time, The Calling.), in which I basically play the bass part (other than moments when Bluiett takes it over on baritone sax to free me up.) Actually I’m playing bass keyboard—I play a keyboard that has a bass panel. I have a lot of connection with the bass intuitively. I did a regional tour last year with this great violinist Christian Howes again just to play the electronic organ. I wanted to see what that would feel like. Sometimes it’s been overstated perhaps, but I’m very aware of rhythm. I’m very aware of when something isn’t grooving. I’m very aware of the feel of different drummers and how that might impact what I’m trying to express.

Favorite drummers

Jack DeJohnette. It was thrilling to be able to record with him on Anthem. He was able to assimilate an awareness of the music he was exposed to while growing up which includes rock-oriented grooves and to incorporate them into a jazz sensibility. Joey Baron. Because of his minimalistic but perfectly placed sense of rhythm and because of the contexts I’ve heard him play in. Leon Parker. Has an impeccable sense of time. Makes anybody he plays with sound better. Dafnis Prieto. Has become one of my favorite drummers almost overnight for the same sorts of reasons as the others. There are many other drummers I respect and love.

Jazz Education

It’s something I want to get into more heavily. I have done the odd master class here and there. I used to teach privately also. I found that the busier I got the harder it was to maintain a roster of students. Because you’re away it’s hard to maintain a sense of continuity. I would like to do it at a higher level. I can anticipate attaching myself to a university at the appropriate time. I’d like to do that for other reasons: to broaden (if I can be so presumptuous) the attitudes people have towards jazz—how it’s taught in the university. I don’t know to what extent it’s changed since I was in school. People have always gravitated toward teaching things that are easiest to quantify: you can transcribe a Charlie Parker solo very efficiently because he’s playing eighth notes. You can figure out where they are and where they fall. You can study Charlie Parker--as well we should. At the same time the fact you can’t necessarily transcribe very well a David Murray solo doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have people try to understand conceptually what David Murray is all about. And there are many of these other great players that have emerged since the cut-off point which seems to be 1969. There’s this whole other realm of incredible players that have not been addressed as much as they should be. I’d love to encourage people to deal with a much greater diversity of conceptual approaches: to respect the fact that jazz is as much about tradition as it is about personal expression.

Web site http://www.ddjackson.com

I do it myself--that’s why it looks low-tech. There’s a lot of information--bio, itinerary, my albums. I’ve had it up for about five years.

What’s next

David Murray used to tell me to explore my roots. My background is so diverse--the Chinese aspect, the African-American aspect. Right now I’m thinking about the Asian aspect. It will be explored to some extent in this opera commission. I was recently in Hong Kong for the first time. I performed as a leader in Japan as well as with David Murray. For the immediate future I’d like to just get out there and perform music from the new CD.