Jazz Articles about Keefe Jackson

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This

by Jerry D'Souza
February 13, 2008

Why does tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson call this band Project Project? Is it because he gives composition and improvisation separate identities and the merges them skillfully? That's just a thought. His ability to write and orchestrate music that sings and celebrates, and then have members of his band incise it with an unabashed sense of adventure, makes for glorious listening. There is never a dull moment, with inspiration constantly nudging surprise.

Jackson is helped along on this project by a ...

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This

by Troy Collins
January 19, 2008

Arriving in Chicago from Fayetteville, Arkansas in 2000, multi-instrumentalist Keefe Jackson has been steadily making waves in the Windy City's vibrant jazz community. His recent offering, the swinging and adventurous Just Like This, showcases Jackson's historically aware writing as well as the astute abilities of his collaborators.

Ready Everyday (Delmark, 2006) was the adventurous post-bop premiere of Jackson's sextet, Fast Citizens. Just Like This is the debut of his large ensemble, Project Project. Comprising a dozen of Chicago's ...

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This

by John Barron
January 19, 2008

Just Like This, Chicago-based saxophonist/composer Keefe Jackson's second recording as a leader for Delmark Records, is a vivacious, provocative musical statement featuring the 12-member collective, Project Project.

With hints of Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington, Jackson's compositions are ripe with thick chord clusters, swinging rhythms and jarring, yet lyrical melodies. Interspersed amongst orchestral flourishes and stand-out themes are free-flowing improvised sections, performed by Project Project's unique roster of bold, musical daredevils uninhibited by harmonic boundaries.

The animated, unaccompanied conversation between ...

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This

by Mark F. Turner
January 11, 2008

Like an elephant dressed in a tuxedo, its hulk swaying to the tempo of some infectious beat; so too is the audacity and undeniable presence of Just Like This by Keefe Jackson's Project Project. The liner notes refer to the twelve-player ensemble as a circus. And rightly so, for it's a bodacious, colorful sound spectacle, led by saxophonist Keefe Jackson. Jackson is one of many young rising stars in the ever-thriving Chicago music scene, which is home ...

Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens: Ready Everyday

by Nic Jones
March 6, 2007

Here's another instalment of vibrant, stimulating listening out of Chicago, and as with the work of Ken Vandermark's various groups, this programme blurs the line between composition and improvisation to the point of extinction. The resulting music is the product of a highly cohesive group.

Cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm seems to have adopted the recording studio as a kind of second home lately, and what's most remarkable about the level of exposure this has afforded him is how consistent ...

Keefe Jackson: Ready Everyday

by C. Michael Bailey
March 4, 2007

Fayetteville, Arkansas native Keefe Jackson left his Ozarks home and bobbed to the surface in Chicago in 2001. Since that time, the multi-reedist has performed with many local musicians and has been the part of several jazz projects, including the Lucky 7s, the 774th Street Quartet, the Chicago Luzern Exchange, and his present Fast Citizens on Ready Everyday.

There is nary a single standard on Ready Everyday, giving evidence to the burgeoning Chicago jazz scene, a cutting edge zone of ...