Jackson, Joe

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Joe Jackson

Singer, songwriter, pianist, composer

Self-styled eclectic artist Joe Jackson has been a prominent name in modern rock since his seminal new wave albums Look Sharp! and I'm The Man were released in 1979. Since then, the chameleonlike Jackson has experimented with various styles of music and production, including instrumental albums and film scores. After roaming the terrain of popular music for two decades, Jackson released Heaven & Hell (1997), which placed him on the Sony Classical label and returned the artist to his roots at London's Royal Academy of Music, where he had studied as a teenager. There has always been a strong rock influence in his work, but Jackson has continued to mix a stew of assorted genres into each album.

While going to primary school in Portsmouth, England, Jackson took up violin lessons at the age of eleven as a way to avoid taking school sports. He soon developed an interest in creating his own compositions, and talked his parents into buying him a piano. Joe gained a love for Beethoven along with rock and jazz, and from the beginning his musical appetite was notable for its diversity. When he was 16, Jackson began taking formal lessons and started to perform in public. Within two years, he entered the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London on a piano scholarship. During his sojourn at the Academy, he focused on composition, piano, percussion, and orchestration by day, and played in a string of fleeting Top 40 cover bands in the evenings.

One of these bands, Arms & Legs, was signed in 1976 by the MAM U.K. label, and quickly released three singles. After spending only one year together, members of the group went their separate ways, and Joe headed home to Portsmouth to perform at the Playboy Club, where he began to assemble a collection of demo tapes. After inviting back the previous bass-guitarist from Arms & Legs, Graham Maby, and collecting Gary Sanford for guitar and Dave Houghton for drums, Jackson composed enough material to confidently craft his solo debut. Jackson was signed to A&M records and began recording in August of 1978. His debut album, Look Sharp! (1979), was packed with catchy singles, and captured the energy of punk and new wave, also showing the clear signs of an ironic, subtle songwriter.

Fresh from the studio, the Joe Jackson Band toured the London area in the fall of 1978, supporting a local band named the Pleasers. Meanwhile, Jackson's band recorded "Is She Really Going Out With Him?," releasing it in 1978. While the song would later become a new wave staple and one of Jackson's signature tunes, it failed to make the U.K. charts its first time around.

Look Sharp! resulted in invitations for the band to create BBC sessions for the John Peel and Kid Jensen radio shows, both crucial showcases for new talent in the United Kingdom. From April until June of 1979, the Joe Jackson Band continuously toured the United States and Europe, pushing "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" to Billboard's Top 40, where it reached number 21. The single was subsequently re-released in the United Kingdom due to public demand, and this time peaked at number 13. Jackson gained appreciation from critics, who gave kudos to the performer for the freshness of his songwriting and for the energy of his live performances.

Jackson and his outfit went on to make two more albums in as many years. The first, I'm The Man, hit number five hit in the United Kingdom with "It's Different For Girls," and the album snared Jackson the prestigious Edison Award for music, from Holland. A New Musical Express writer claimed that the album "refines, expands, extends, and finally surpasses its creators' opening gambit." Beat Crazy was the next, as well as the last, album to feature the original Joe Jackson Band lineup for the next 25 years. Showcasing a blend of influences, including ska and reggae, Beat Crazy failed to chart heavily with its singles, and by 1980 the group had split up.

For the Record …

Born David Ian Jackson on August 11, 1954, at Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. Education: Attended London's Royal Academy of Music, 1972-75.

Played in pub cover bands Edward Bear and The Misty Set, 1972-75; joined band Arms & Legs; signed recording deal with MAM UK for three singles before break-up in 1976; Joe Jackson Band formed, 1978; released debut album, Look Sharp, 1979; with Joe Jackson Band, released I'm the Man, 1979, and Beat Crazy, 1980; recorded Jumpin' Jive, 1981; Night and Day released in 1982; played piano for Suzanne Vega's single "Left of Center" from movie Pretty in Pink, 1986; Jackson band signed onto Virgin America for two albums, Blaze of Glory, 1989, and Laughter and Lust, 1991; switched to Sony Classical for Heaven & Hell, 1997; published memoir A Cure for Gravity, 1999; recorded New York City-inspired Night and Day II, 2000; reunited with bandmates from Joe Jackson Band to record Volume 4 and embarked on world tour, 2003; released Afterlife, a live album of the Volume 4 tour, 2004; recorded piano-based CD Rain, 2008.

Awards: Grammy Award, Best Pop Instrumental Album, for Symphony No. 1, 2000; Royal Academy of Music, Fellowship Award.

Addresses: Record company—Rykodisc, phone: 212-287-6116. Web site—Joe Jackson Official Web site: http://www.joejackson.com.

Pop Innovator Stretched the Boundaries

Never an artist to become crestfallen after commercial letdowns, Jackson forged ahead. In between I'm The Man and Beat Crazy, Jackson produced three tracks for reggae artist Lincoln Thompson, as well as an album for the reggae group The Rasses titled Natural Wild. These interactions bolstered Jackson's growing interest in music other than contemporary pop. In addition, while he was recuperating from a long illness in 1981, Jackson began listening to 1940s jump and swing music. He decided that it would be fun to make a cover album of that era's music, and took a holiday from his own writing to record the album Jumpin' Jive with longtime associate Graham Maby and a group of professional jazz musicians. As Hi-Fi News & Record Reviews commented, Jackson "obviously loves and understands the music with which he is dealing and is not merely content to employ it as this year's gimmick." The project received positive reviews, but fell flat commercially.

Jackson returned to his own writing for the next album, 1982's Night and Day, which was conceived and recorded in New York City. The melancholic urban romance of that city influenced the flavor of Night and Day, which was an instant success in the United States. While hinting at the somber coolness of intimate club jazz, the album stayed for the most part within the parameters of the pop music format, perhaps one reason for its strong commercial reception. In the words of a critic writing for the Italian magazine Mucchio Selvaggio, Jackson "shows us his eclecticism, intelligence, and respect for the New York musical history," and called him a "real sound poet." The Joe Jackson band, with a new roster of members, supported the album with an eleven-month tour, and the re-release of "Steppin' Out" in the United Kingdom and the popularity of the moody ballad "Breaking Us in Two" raised Night and Day to number three on the charts.

During the Night and Day tour, Jackson accepted an invitation to score the film Mike's Murder, a fairly forgettable thriller starring Debra Winger. While some of the soundtrack's material got a decent amount of radio play, the film was cut so harshly that most of Jackson's score did not make the final product. Nevertheless, the project became the first in a number of successful film collaborations for Jackson.

Body and Soul, released in 1984, featured the number 15 single "You Can't Get What You Want." Widespread critical acclaim for the album bolstered Jackson's reputation as a composer breaking ground between pop and "serious" music. After the album's promotional tour, Jackson was again invited to compose a film score, this time for a Japanese IMAX film called Shijin No Ie (House of the Poet). Comprised of a 20-minute piece with a full orchestra, the score was reworked and released later on the album Will Power as "Symphony in One Movement."

In January of 1996, the album Big World was recorded live at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City. The expansiveness of the record allowed Jackson to include the same songs twice, but in radically reorchestrated versions that showed his imagination in arranging as well as songwriting. Stretching the boundaries of pop to the extreme, Big World may have been a preparation for Jackson's next album, which was a decisive deviation from the pop world.

Charted a New Course

Jackson's studio band was mostly kept intact, but was buttressed by a full piece orchestra for the album Will Power, which contained all instrumental material, presenting a surprise for those expecting standard pop radio fare. Taking yet another step in this direction, Jackson swung back to another soundtrack project when film maverick Francis Ford Coppola gave him the opportunity to use some well-known British jazz performers in creating a score for the film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, which was released by A&M in 1988.

Following the 1988 album Blaze of Glory, which essentially went unpromoted, Jackson took a break to recoup. While lying low, Jackson spent time at small clubs trying out material for what would become his next album, Laughter & Lust, released on the Virgin record label. Between recording and touring, Jackson wrote the score for the 1991 movie Queen's Logic.

The album Night Music (1994) received positive critical reviews, but little air play. The press volleyed the album back and forth, saying it was too old for their audiences, or chided Jackson for his refusal to create another pop single. Along with these troubles, some commentators thought he was taking himself too seriously. An article in Stereo Review stated that Jackson had "abandoned regulation pop music instrumentation, as if conventional pop structures would unfairly rein in a prodigious, sweeping talent such as his."

Heaven & Hell (1997) brought Joe Jackson home to his compositional roots. It was released on the Sony Classical label, severing it from the milieu of commercial popular music. A concept album whose music worked off the theme of the seven deadly sins, Heaven & Hell featured introspective pop singer Suzanne Vega, classical soprano Dawn Upshaw, and Crash Test Dummies' lead singer Brad Roberts, and became a testament to Jackson's vibrant eclecticism. Despite the album's challenging nature and the length of the songs, which averaged over six minutes each, the album climbed to the number three spot on Billboard's Top Classical Crossover chart.

Musical Wanderings Lead Full Circle

In October of 1999 Jackson released both a book and CD. Jackson's memoir, A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage, which chronicles his early musical career and ends with the recording of his debut album Look Sharp!, revealed his passion for divergent forms of music. Jackson noted on his own Web site that music spared him from a life as "one of those sad [people] you see milling around outside the pub at closing time, looking for a fight."

His 1999 CD release of Symphony No. 1 built upon his continuing interest in musical experimentation. The album, though not entirely a hit with critics, garnered Jackson his first Grammy Award, for Best Pop Instrumental Album, in 2000. The album faced the same sort of criticism that had hampered the reception of his earlier instrumental compositions. Frank Ahrens of the Washington Post summed up Jackson's conundrum: "A pop star's orchestral music doesn't have much credibility with classical fans, and pop fans wondered what the heck he was doing." Jackson characteristically dismissed such negative appraisals, commenting in the San Francisco Chronicle, "I'm used to being judged harshly for things I've done.… I don't know why people can't just appreciate things for what they are rather than weigh it against their own bloody agenda."

In late 2000 Jackson released Night and Day II, a sequel to his 1982 homage to New York City, making a return to the pop genre and incorporating Afro-Latin percussion, strings, and keyboard. It included performances by numerous well-known performers, including British singer and actress Marianne Faithfull.

Jackson surprised himself and his fans in 2002 when he announced that the Joe Jackson Band, with its original lineup of Jackson, Maby on bass, Sanford on guitar, and Houghton on drums, would reunite for a new studio album and tour. The reunion, prompted by the 25th anniversary of the band's first recording, Look Sharp!, produced the 2003 studio CD Volume 4 and the live album Afterlife in 2004. The CD and world tour received positive reviews for their inclusion of both older tunes and new songs. Rick Reger of the Chicago Tribune praised the exuberance of the band in its live performance, concluding that the "unabashed punk fury with which Jackson and crew delivered ‘Got the Time’ [proved] there's an edgy young lout still kicking beneath Jackson's ‘great composer’ veneer."

After the release of Afterlife, Jackson toured solo, having claimed the reunion was a one-time offering. In 2008, however, he teamed up with bass player Maby and drummer Houghton to record Rain. The album was recorded in what had once been an East German radio station in Berlin, where Jackson had moved in 2007. The album earned kudos as representative of Jackson's enduring achievements as an accomplished shape-shifter in the pop realm, whose solid musicianship has continued to evolve over more than three decades. Will Layman noted in PopMatters that "Rain is less a New Start for a great pop tunesmith than it is a continuation and honing of that artist's craft." Jackson has continued to listen to what he calls the "divine sanity" of music, and to share his passion with a grateful audience.