He’s a guitarist’s guitarist with an almost-famous name who has been around long enough to leave a big influence on peers as notable as Bill Frisell, and today he continues to show younger avanteers how it’s done.
Michael Gregory Jackson first got going with Clarity — which was a ballsy effort in 1976 — playing acoustic guitar nearly the whole way and not bothering with a rhythm section. Sounding more like an AACM date with Wadada Leo Smith, David Murray and Oliver Lake on board but with a rich melodiousness that flowed forth naturally from a group improv dynamic, Jackson’s first album immediately established him as a guitarist like no other. Only Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life rivaled it in its innovative approach to jazz guitar for guitar player debuts that eventful year. (Metheny himself even cites Jackson as being “one of the most significantly original guitarists of our generation.”)
Jackson has made quite a few albums since then, but as his passions lie all over the musical spectrum, so has his albums: Michael Gregory Jackson has shown real aptitude as a singer-songwriter, too. Lately though, he’s returned to where it started for this multi-faceted artist and Whenufindituwillknow is the second release made with his Dane-laden Clarity Quartet in the last four years.
This ensemble has bass (Niels Praestholm) and drums (Matias Wolf-Andreasen) to go along with Jackson and a sax player (Simon Spang-Hanssen) and Jackson sticks with electric guitar, which along with a forty-three year span should place this music light years apart from Clarity but the breezy harmony of “Theme-X” reaches straight back to the naturally inspired sentiments found on that debut. Spang-Hanssen is even given a stage to bolster the tuneful qualities of the song, and he does with gracefulness befitting this waltz.
From there, it gets further outside. The sax/guitar unison lines of “Clarity 6” suggest Ornette Coleman but Ornette never had a such a rubbery bass line backing him. When Spang-Hanssen enjoins Jackson in battle, it’s done without clichés, though Sonny Sharrock comes bleeding out on Jackson’s guitar. The band is delineated along Afro-Cuban bass/drums and sax/guitar lines in the spunky “Spin” but when Jackson breaks apart to lay down an intimidating solo, it enters a new level of intensity.
“Blue Blue” suggests blues and Nashville but more so in texture than in structure. Jackson spars with Spang-Hanssen on “Clarity 3” much in the same way Reggie Lucas tangled with Miles in the mid-70s, with the rhythm deeply ingrained in the melody. “Ah Yay” is a festive samba, awash with wordless vocals but enlivened further by barbed guitar lines.
“Collectors of Social Dismay” is an esoteric creeper with a nocturnal hue. “Souvenirs” is the freest tune of this group, but Praestholm is able to forcefully set the parameters as the two front-line players show off sharp jazz improv chops and interplay.
The soft, meditative “Meditation In E” brings this aircraft down to a soft landing, after a flight that’s had its share of turbulence and visits to far flung musical territories but devoid of boring moments. The Michael Gregory Jackson Clarity Quartet’s Whenufindituwillknow is a listening adventure that pulls together the many musical threads of Jackson into a richly diverse basket of songs held together by his incisiveness and daring. The same incisiveness and daring he displayed in 1976 and sounding just as fresh today.
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