Jazz Articles about Keefe Jackson

Keefe Jackson Quartet: Seeing You See

by Troy Collins
May 5, 2010

The vibrant Chicago jazz scene has been home to many impressive young artists, most of whom collaborate in a rotating roster of collective ensembles. This communal approach has yielded a deep pool of talented individuals intimately familiar with each other's working methods, providing them with a sort of regional shorthand. Multi-reedist Keefe Jackson is one such up and coming Windy City resident, whose striking quartet debut, Seeing You See is every bit as compelling as his work with his large ...

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This

by Nic Jones
April 9, 2008

This one could almost be a working definition of what Delmark exists for, documenting as it does an aspect of Chicago's seemingly ever-evolving creative improvised music scene and in so doing giving further exposure to a group of musicians surely destined to make an impact far outside the city's environs.

If anything Jackson's writing for this large ensemble is even more telling than that of his work in smaller group contexts, hence from the off the galumphing “Dragon Fly" balances ...

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 ...