Javon Jackson gives Peter Bradley's art a swinging soundtrack

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

LP: I came to you as a performing artist embarrassingly a little bit late, but I saw you back in 2016 with Ron Carter and Billy Drummond at the Iridium. And what a great night of music.

Javon Jackson: Yeah, I remember that. So you're in New York?

LP: I was. That was actually the last show I saw in New York before I moved to Seattle a few days later. So it was a fitting send-off.

Javon Jackson: Wow. Okay. Yeah.

LP: We're here to talk about With Peter Bradley, which I had the good fortune to be able to watch this weekend, and I'm still metabolizing it, if it's fair to say that. Like a lot of people, I wasn't familiar with his work. It's so beautiful. As I was prepping for this discussion, one of the notions I came across a few times as people started to write about the soundtrack was the way you and your collaborators channeled the music and the feel of the music that Peter loves.

As a way into that discussion, I wanted to set a bit of context because it's probably hard to have a conversation about all this without talking at least a little bit about Art Blakey, or maybe it's a good starting point regardless. You look at the alum list of The Jazz Messengers, and it's so incredible to read the list of names. I'm curious about what you learned or took away for your own approach to finding talent and putting together an ensemble, either from your personal experience being recruited or chosen for The Messengers or what you saw while you were there. Was there a lesson about talent that you took from Blakey?

Javon Jackson: Absolutely. Number one is the artist itself, the person that you're building that relationship with professionally when you travel with them or the music. How you can grow together, how you can support one another in terms of helping each other know some of the things that you like or the tendencies that, not that you'll fall into, but the ability to be open-minded.

And so that was something that Art really appreciated: open-mindedness. Also, he wanted each musician to be as unique as possible to the best of their ability. So Art really didn't want anybody to be like anybody else. He appreciated if you liked someone else or if you, quote-unquote, came from somebody else in terms of influences. But he really liked people to be their own people and very much the way he was. He was his own man. He had a lot of different artists that he liked as a drummer, whether it be Big Sid, Papa Joe Jones, or Chick Webb. But he took them all, and he made them art. So that's what he appreciated in the musicians: trying to do whatever they could to be themselves. That's something that I appreciate in any group that I have is the artists just trying to be themselves. And I'm not trying to get them to be like somebody else. Cause you can't be like anybody else.

And there are other things about Art, such as his commitment. He was committed to the music, and it wasn't a superficial way. Music was his life. So he was committed to the music, and he appreciated musicians who were all in and committed to learning whatever the music that we might be playing, really delving into it and really being committed to swinging.

LP: Did you have a sense at the time as to what he saw in you, or was that ever articulated to you?

Javon Jackson: Not really. Every artist he sees that they hopefully share some of the joy of playing the music that he shared. I've been around every artist that you can imagine. Because I was in the band, I was just lucky enough to do that. But in terms of me knowing specifically what he liked about me, I would never have asked him. I know he liked my tone. But beyond that, the fact that I was there was good enough.

LP: I don't want to belabor it for too long because there's so much I want to talk to you about, but I'm curious about that list of names I alluded to and the family, if you will, that it puts you in or the company it puts you in. Is there a sense of being an alumnus? Do you recognize that in the other people who are still with us who played in the Messengers over the years? Is that a thing?

Javon Jackson: Absolutely. It's a fraternity. It's a family, a brotherhood, or not a brotherhood because they have sisters in the band. Joanne Brackeen was in the band, along with other women, but I use the word brotherhood as in the humanity of people.

But sure. While I was in The Messengers, I remember he wanted to play, he mentioned, and mentioned, and he helped rendition of "Children of the Night," which was written by Wayne Shorter. God rest his soul. And so when I saw my man Wayne, he could see the reverence I had for Wayne. He said, "Listen, don't worry about Wayne. That's why you're here." In other words, "Don't let the reverence that you have get in the way of you being you. And it's your time now, and then after that, it'll be somebody else." But for me, it'll be past, but I'll sit with it.

But the idea that sure, there's an incredible lineage. If I play the Village Vanguard, and I play there annually, well, John Coltrane was on that stage somewhere. Sonny Rollins was on that stage. Thelonious Monk was on that stage. Dexter Gordon, so forth, and so on. Bill Evans. You have to be careful, and early in my life, I fell into that, where you are such in awe that you can be a prisoner of the history, as opposed to allowing the history to motivate you and inspire you to be yourself. And for a while, you might not be able to get out of your way because you're so in awe of the history, which you should be in awe of the history, but you still have to live it. The best way you can, if that makes sense.

LP: It's always seemed to me that it's unique and almost special. I want to choose my words carefully. I'm going to say like a special burden that a jazz artist bears in terms of the history because so often if I'm a classical pianist, I don't have to compete with Mozart. There's no actual evidence of what he left behind as a performer or whomever it is. A lot of the original interpreters, or at least earlier in your career, were still alive, and they're still out there working. And then you go into this context, like with our, and you're playing a Wayne Shorter song. And I guess the point he was saying was, "I could go get Wayne Shorter if I want Wayne Shorter." Wayne Shorter could play with Art Blakey.

[00:09:05] Javon Jackson: Oh, that's not what he was saying. What he was saying is, "Wayne did it. Now, we're going to build upon it. Don't worry about Wayne because that's why you're here." In other words, time has moved on. So whatever your rendition is, make sure you love Wayne Shorter, but things have to move on.

And as you begin to be a little bit more me, I'm saying that, and so rhetorically, as you begin to understand this, you're not competing with anybody. We're creating. So, we create with Those individuals in mind. I could never beat Coleman Hawkins. I'm standing here because of Coleman Hawkins. Coleman Hawkins is smiling down on all of us because we're trying to push forward what he did.

What starts to happen, though, is we have publications, and no disrespect to them, they get us, okay, well, who's number one this year? Who's number one this year? None of that really matters. All that matters is, are you doing your best to honor tradition, honor the tradition in your way? And you leave it up to whoever else to make comments. "Well, I didn't like this." That's none of my business, but for many years, a man in his 20s, it did affect me in a way. When I read an article, man, I worked really hard to get it, and then the article says I sound like so and so, so and so. Yeah, but it takes a lot of work to sound like so and so, so and so. So what I've been able to do is, that's none of my business. Even if you like me, that's really none of my business. So we make it our business if people like us, but if they don't like us, then we don't want to make it our business. That's none of our business. Our business is to be the best version of ourselves—every single day.

And so you have people where they are for whatever reason that they have to make a critique, but it's the same in basketball. Someone's always going to be compared to Michael Jordan and other artists areas. There's going to be, people are always going to say, well, you're not as good as this Baryshnikov or something. So that always happens. But it's the artist who has to make a decision for themselves to say, I'm not going to be concerned with that.

All I can do is be the best version of what I can be. So, Peter Bradley — I met him when I was with Art Blakey. He liked Art Blakey. Some of the music might have hints of Art Blakey. Well, I love Art Blakey, which has some hints of Miles, and I love Miles, which has hints of John Coltrane. But as you might mention, I'm a collaborator. But I knew that these were things that would evoke a certain feeling that would help tell the story because those are the kind of folks that Peter Bradley was friends with, and he enjoyed their music. So we made it have some of that flavor. Does that make sense?

LP: Absolutely. And as an artist who has now accomplished enough and honed their sufficient craft and been on the scene long enough that you've gone through a lot of those stages, You were the young man who worked hard just to be perceived as sounding like so and so, and because I think that's just an artist's evolution, right? You find your voice over time. From where you are now, to create this soundtrack where you almost intentionally want to evoke some of those influences and let them seep in a little more consciously or specifically, was that intimidating, or is it scary because you don't want to mimic? It must take a very high degree of craft to be able to call on that stuff and utilize it without getting subsumed by it. Would that be fair?

Javon Jackson: Well, it'd be like asking me to write a piece of music based on a color, which is what Peter talks about in there. If the color was blue, I might play something, but it might evoke a certain sound of an artist that could be reminiscent to human beings and ever-evolving artists. We're going to come from somewhere. Everyone comes from somewhere. People say I don't sound like anybody. Yes, everyone sounds like or has a tone that resembles somebody. I don't know what your parents look like, but you look like one of them. That's just the way this thing works. But over time, you have your thoughts, but you still come from somewhere.

So it's not a bad thing. I think it's important to come from someone anyway because we all have to be happy to say, okay, if you ask Bob Dylan, did he love Josh White? He's going to say, of course, I did. And so he has some of that in him, but he's still Bob Dylan. Another artist we can mention is Aretha Franklin, who loved Dinah Washington. Did she have Dinah Washington to her and her style? Of course, she did. But she was still Aretha. You have some special people who are able to find their voice quicker than others. And that's a special thing about certain artists. But most artists that you listen to, you can say, "Oh. It reminds me of this person." That's natural in the trajectory of the way this thing called music progresses.

So, yeah, it means that you listen to a lot of styles of music. And so if the filmmaker says, Hey, right here, I'd love to have this kind of inflection. There was one piece that he wanted something that would evoke Pittsburgh, maybe the style that could get us to think about Erroll Garner. So, there was a piece that we called "Easy Peasy," which pays tribute to the style of Erroll Garner. But in the end, you have to be yourself. Again, some people are able to do that quicker than others, but it's not that much of a challenge once you realize that we're all on the same side of the field.

See, we're running the race together. So Art Blakey runs the race. Once he can run the race, he passes the baton to the next era or drummer, and then they run the race, and then they pass it. And then, whether it's Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, and so forth, Branford Marsalis. Then to Javon and on to somebody, it's, but we're all running the same race, we're not really competing. But sometimes we get caught up in the music because it is about commerce. Everyone's making money. You have to make money to survive. It's more than art. It's a commerce. It's commercial. It's commerce. If you go into the music store where you used to be, or if you go online and you want to buy something, you have all these artists.

You can buy Javon, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Art Farmer, and Louis Armstrong. See what I mean? So they, oh, we'll buy this over this, and all of a sudden it feels, oh wait, am I competing? No, I'm not competing. I'm hopeful that someone will consider me, but I've come to the point that I could never compete with Louis Armstrong. You're going to lose seven days out of seven days, and as you should. Armstrong started the music, and he was a big proponent of what we know today and what he stood for in the whole sphere of him as an individual. So all we can do is aspire to that, but we have to be able to be ourselves and be comfortable with what that sounds like or what that is. And be comfortable and be okay with not everybody liking you because it's not going to happen. That's something, as you get a little older, you're more comfortable with. But again, you're younger, and you read these articles; oh man, this guy said this thing, that wasn't my intention. Yeah, but what's been written that's none of my business.

I'm not trying to be cold with it, but I didn't ask the writer's opinion before I did the music. So why does their opinion per se matter now? But it's propaganda for us to be able to have a conversation about that. There's a topic that can have a larger consequence than just making a CD, and that's it. There's gotta be a talking point. So, a talking point is not bad, but the talking point does not need to have the value placed on the artist that sometimes we do place on it. Does that make sense?

LP: Yeah, absolutely. And something you said earlier ties into it, which is If you're going to listen at all to what's being said, there's going to be good things said, and bad things said. And then you put yourself in the position of deciding, am I only going to believe the good stuff? And I disagree all the time with the bad stuff. You're better off not having to have that negotiation with yourself constantly. And it would ultimately just lead to second-guessing. It would undermine your work if you let it seep in.

Javon Jackson: Well, but even the great Deion Sanders, the college coach from Colorado. I saw a press conference where a reporter said to him, "Hey, I remember you. I read some of that stuff you said." We're all guilty at some point of reading those things and can't wait to see what that situation is and if there's a winner and a loser.

But I don't believe anybody that makes music is losing. Yeah. See, that's why on American Idol and those kinds of things — I'm not sitting there against those because a lot of people watch that and enjoy that —. Still, competitions that we have would be like saying we're about to get Erroll Garner and Art Tatum as young men to sit them in a room and all these incredible artists and pianists during that time. Who wins? Ridiculous. I don't believe there should be a winner or a loser. It can't be. How can I say that my empathy, or the way I feel about a certain piece of material, what I bring to it, is any worse or any better than another person has had their set of experiences? Because we're all hoping to bring our particular ancestral stream to it.

Whatever the history that we have lived or we're experiencing, we're trying to bring that, hopefully, and we're emoting. And there's enough emotional girth to it and intellectual girth, and then also that it's swinging, which really doesn't come up enough, and Wynton says it all the time, but it's true. Is it swinging? Does it feel good? Every time we play it, it should be, but okay, wait a minute, he played that here, oh, let's analyze this, wait a minute. If we look back at what the music has really stood for and what the best have done, does it come in that spirit? But again, that's not for anyone to say that, well, this person didn't have a certain amount of personal joy from it. So I won't rob them of their joy. Because it might not have moved me the way it moved that individual. We leave it for the folks who spend the money to support us, and hopefully, there'll be some appreciation there for what we all do.

LP: It's something I've talked about with other artists here, which people often forget. It's actually coming back around with a lot of contemporary music. Still, I think we forgot for the better part of a generation or more that jazz was dance music, and it was in dance halls and before it was in the small club being analyzed with everybody watching every note and then writing about it and talking about it. It was the dance and the party and the swing. Ultimately, there have been so many greats who have been able to do both and combine them. And it's not an either-or thing. I certainly don't view the world that way, but that disconnection from that lineage and from that knowledge of the lineage. It made everybody very inward for a while. Does that resonate with you?

Javon Jackson: It does resonate. You have people sometimes say, "Oh, man, they're playing jazz in their suit and tie." Why can't I wear a suit and tie? It was good enough for Edward Ellington. It was good enough for some of the great artists we'd like to see. They want to wear a nice suit and tie. What's wrong with that? What does that mean? You're trying to be like something that you're not. Well, how do you know what I am? What should we do? Do you want us to wear jeans? No, we don't want to wear jeans to the stage. The best way to represent this art form is to say we want to put on a nice vine.

That was good enough for Count Basie. It was good enough for Coleman Hawkins. Why can't we celebrate that when someone says, Oh, one of you guys is wearing a stooped tie? What are you trying to prove? We're not trying to prove anything. And that comes from people of all different colors, no one particular color, but the point of it is, that's how I want to present. But again, I've learned that more and more. Yeah, a suit and tie; I think the audience likes that. When they spend a certain amount of money, that's how I want to present it. And I want to let them know that's the way we want to present the music. But it's none of my business. I know I've worked hard.

There's a great book I love. It's called The Four Agreements. The four agreements are as follows: Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Always do your best, and don't make assumptions. It's pretty good.

LP: That's an aspiration.

Javon Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. It's a great book. But that second one is good. Nothing is personal. And if someone says something about me, it's not personal, but that's a very tough one. And you've tried to work that at any part of your life, nothing is personal. It's a hard concept.

LP: It's a colossal amount of empathy, too, that is required to have that view.

Javon Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah. We do have a certain sense of support or patience when we're at our best, and so I think that's what it's trying to get you to aspire to, that notion of being at your best and realizing, well, hey, oops, they made a mistake too.

LP: One of the things that I read that you spoke about was bonding with Peter over the love of clothes. In the film, he talks about his love of clothes being instilled in him by his mom at a very early age, and he has an expectation of how he would look and present himself. And I wonder, where did your love come from?

Javon Jackson: Watching my parents, my father liked to go to certain social events and parties that my mother and father would go to. And for Christmas, my mother and I would get together and buy him a nice pair of shoes. Shoes and things like that. so that's where I came from. I used to watch him. He was good at putting colors together.

As I've gotten older, I do colors and different stylistic things. So, it probably came from there. And it's the typical thing in my family. I had another uncle, in addition to my father's brother, who liked to dress and things like that. And year-round, great musicians, and you've seen them, pictures, and there was a lot of suave that you could see that was attached to them. So, in that way.

LP: A lot's been made in the early commentaries I've seen about the film around Peter's quote that every sound has a color. Have you previously given any thought to that idea? Has that resonated with you in the past, or is it just curious about the relationship between sound and color for you?

Javon Jackson: I agree with that, actually. I remember having conversations with other musicians about maybe when you play, do you see a color or is there a color in your mind or when you write, is there a color that comes to mind depending on what you write or maybe what key you're in, could you equate that with a color? Certain instruments, certain keys, gave me a sense of a color. For some reason, G major makes me think about green, or G sus, or something like that. Or D flat makes me think of, like, not brown, what's the color that's a little darker, and tad, but not brown, that kind of color, because it's very soulful, like an earth tone. I do agree with the idea that a color can — for me, anyway — work that way.

LP: Do you ever use color or any other prompts as a tool for directing musicians around an improvisation? I've talked to other artists here who use all kinds of prompts. They'll pick a theme or an idea or a headline or just something to say, "Let's start with this in our consciousness." And it's not something we have to meditate on or obsess over, but this is the thing. It's going to color where we start. And I wondered. Does any prompt, color, or otherwise, have a role in improvisation for you?

Javon Jackson: Sure. I'm not going to say color, but we could be playing a song, and I might say we're going to pretend we're in the jungle on this section. In this section, we're going to pretend we're in the city. You always have little prompts and Ways to give another perspective on something that just denoted self or just a figure. I've had that before.

LP: When you were talking about how you got to know Peter as an artist over the years, how there was a section of time where you really weren't aware of that side of him, and you referred to him as almost like a big brother or uncle figure.

Javon Jackson: Yeah. Uncle.

LP: I hear those words, and everybody brings a different idea of what that means, but. Those are specific words like an uncle has a role in someone's life. What did that mean for you? What did having another uncle like Peter Bradley imply?

Javon Jackson: So, you have to remember, when I started playing professionally in Denver, say I'm 16 or 17, you're hanging out with guys who are your father, or they could be the same age as your father, the same age as your uncle, the same age as your aunt. And so sometimes Peter would say things that my uncle would say to me, the same kind of phrases, the same kind of thoughts, or, don't do that, or you're 21 years old, and you're getting direction because you're a young person. Like I said, I became a man working with Art Blakey. I joined at 21, I didn't know anything. I literally went through my manhood working with The Messengers and traveling, getting my first apartment, getting my first credit card, and getting things like that. I didn't have any of that. You're literally with him and him being able to help you get those things. So he's like a grandfather because Art was the same age as my grandmother, right?

My grandmother was actually born in 1919, and so was Art. So it's like a grandfather. And again, you've been African American. There were some things that he said I heard before. A lot of musicians in the band had heard Art. And, he had a spirit that he was still the same age as me, but then sometimes he could say some things. Based on his history and experience, you'd realize that he obviously was from a different generation. Same with Peter, where I would be with him, and I remember one time he had a beautiful ascot. He took it off and gave it to me. I only know a few peers that would have done that, but my uncle would have.

So, in that way, those are the kinds of things that he would do. Or if we would go out to eat, he would always buy the meal or something like that. So that's what I mean by being this kind of a special kind of individual, whereas even when I see him now, it's still, "Hey, what do you need? Or how are you doing?" It's that kind of a family perspective where he's really interested in how I'm doing. It's not, "Hey, how are you doing?" and he's moving on. He actually looks at you. "How are you doing?" He wants to discuss that. "And how's the family? How's your children?" That's what I mean. Like the way family members spend quality time together. We just never talked about it. He was always a little busy trying to learn music because he loved to talk about Miles. He loved talking about Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Max Roach. So, it was always a musical conversation.

After Art passed away, I'd say, "Hey, I'm doing a recording." He said, "Where are you going to be recording?" I remember it was a recording once with Cedar Walton, Jimmy Cobb, and Christian McBride. It was a quartet record. He said, "Where is it going to be?" Well, he showed up. He just popped over. After that, we'd get something to eat. Then, after a while, we just fell out of touch. I moved to New Jersey, and then he moved to upstate New York. We just fell out of touch. And then, as fate would have it, we ran back into each other. I went to his house, and then I saw the studio, and I said, wow, I never knew that. It was innocently that he just never really discussed himself.

LP: There's something really beautiful in how you described the role that an older man can play for a young man. And I feel like it doesn't get talked about enough amongst men. I think a lot of men are looking for that, even if they have a strong father — and lots of men don't. This idea is that more male figures of your parents' age in your life can bring so much because your parents can give you a lot, but you know they're still your parents. They might not tell you that your new composition sucks and you got to work harder, or they might not tell you all the things you need to hear because they're your parents. But having those other voices, it's so powerful for a young man in particular to have that. I'm very happy for you that you have that.

Javon Jackson: Well, consider Wynton Marsalis. There was a time when everybody in the band was older than him. So, for me, for many years, in every band I was in, I was the youngest person in the band. When I worked with Art, I was the youngest. And then when I became, yeah, well, Peter Washington, yeah, Peter's a year older than me. And when I started working with Elvin Jones, I was the youngest. When I played with Charlie Haden, I was the youngest. When I played with Freddie Hubbard, I was the youngest. Or Cedar, I was always the youngest person in the band. You're watching, and you're listening, and you're learning, and you're picking up on things that inherently you want to aspire to, and some of it you don't want. You leave that alone. Well, that's just like in life.

But you're right. If my mom heard something she didn't like, she'd say, "Hey, you ain't playing pretty." My mom, God rest her soul, always says, "Hey, play pretty." And she'd go to the club and say, "You're not playing pretty. That's not pretty up there." Yeah, but I'm working on that. "Yeah, but it doesn't sound pretty." And then she'd put on a John Coltrane ballad. "See how pretty that is?" See, my mom loves Ahmad Jamal. And I heard all these things going on in the house, and she said, "See how pretty that is? You played pretty." My wife would tell you, she would always say, "Play pretty."

I did have some family members that would tell me that that's not really there. Check that vinegar. Yeah. You know, I mean, simple. But again, they're still your biggest supporter, but my parents would be honest because they were big jazz fans. So they knew the standard. At least sonically, maybe not the ins and outs, but they knew the music.

LP: Something else that stood out for me in watching the film, and I had to laugh, was Peter's sound system, right? Like those speakers and that wall unit — he has this beautiful stereo equipment. The thing that made me laugh was that I was thinking back to when I was a young man before I really had anything. I was just getting started in life. But I always managed to find a way to have a halfway decent stereo. And I can remember moving into an apartment, and the first thing that would get unpacked would be the room would get set up around the stereo. It's a real manifestation of this is how important music is to me, right? It's not about the stereo. That's just a delivery mechanism. It's the thing that allows you to channel all of that. I don't know. I don't really have a question there on that, but I do wonder, do you relate to that at all? I guess you were touring. You were always on the road. Did you have time to be a listener?

Javon Jackson: Yes. I still listen a lot. Yeah. I needed to be listening as much as I was playing. And there's a lot of great music out there. There are a lot of great artists, so it's important to be a big-time listener. To really listen for enjoyment, then we listen for a critical analysis of things, but I need to be listening. I think young people probably don't listen enough because now you can go on YouTube and listen for 20 minutes, but listening to one CD or one recording for a whole day and live with that one recording, in and out, every track. So the musicians were really doing that a lot more than, and really putting the music under the microscope. So yes, I definitely listen, absolutely.

LP: It reminds me of something I saw you say in another interview, and it also, something that, that was evocative in the film was, there was just, there was a moment where Peter was rifling through a stack of CDs, and he was picking them up and talking about them. I noticed in the pile of CDs that he had the jazz canon, right? He had the mid-century canon of stuff, everything you would expect, and more. But I saw that in the pile of CDs was Led Zeppelin IV. And people forget that a music fan doesn't necessarily worry about genre any more than an artist worries about genre, right? I've talked to so many artists who get presented to me. I see a press release, and it'll say, here's a jazz album, or here's an electro-acoustic experimental thing, or whatever it is. But as artists and listeners, it's just, does it enter my ear? You know what I mean? Or does my ear not want to hear it?

And you talked about how you grew up, you were surrounded by black music just because that's the radio stations and their parents loved jazz. But as you grew older, you became exposed to rock music. And again, I'm projecting a little bit of my experience, so I'm curious to hear how yours is different. There are always, throughout my life, people who turn me on to music, even if it's just for a short period or one record that opens a rabbit hole. And how did you learn to explore, basically, a boundless genre? Was somebody turning you on to music, or were you just killing time on the road saying, "I've heard of this band, but I never listened to their music. I'm going to check it out." How does that work for you?

Javon Jackson: A couple of different ways. First of all, you're in a band with people who are listening to different kinds of music. When we're in The Jazz Messengers, Robin Eubanks would listen to Led Zeppelin. The thing is called "The Crunge."

LP: Yeah, "The Crunge." It's funky as hell.

Javon Jackson: If they let me in, I said, "Oh man, that sounds kind of like, no disrespect, poor man's James Brown." They even say, "Take to the bridge." They don't want me to be mean that way. That's how I became aware of Led Zeppelin. Art Blakey's attorney loved Bob Dylan, loves him. He's gone now. He loved him a lot. So he started turning me on to Bob Dylan. But like I said, when I grew up, I just heard Temptations, The Four Tops, The Staple Singers, and then all types of jazz.

We had some Santana in the house, but beyond that, I didn't hear Pink Floyd. I didn't hear Van Morrison. I didn't hear those kinds of artists. Bruce Springsteen or whatever. I heard it in a way, but it wasn't in my house when I got up in the morning on Saturday when I had to clean. I would get up, and there would be Ahmad Jamal. That's what we literally swept the house to. My mom put on those records. She'd take that off, and then she'd put on Miles Davis, literally these records, Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. So then I heard that. Or, my dad loved tenor saxophone. I heard a lot of Gene Ammons. And I heard Sonny Rollins's Way Out West. My father had that, Charlie Parker. So, those are the kinds of things that I heard. But yeah, as you get older, you definitely want to expand and see what else is out there.

LP: Your parents had phenomenal taste.

Javon Jackson: My mother was not really any kind of professional performer. She used to play piano in church, and she was good enough on the piano. When my best friend in high school at that time had to do a recital, she played piano and accompanied him, so she was pretty good. She loved the music. You're right, so I heard all those things, and they used to go out and purchase a lot of records, and that's how it started for me.

I was upstairs practicing some of the little books that you get at 10 or 11, whether it's "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or whatever it was, and he just knocked on my door. I was practicing, and he said, "Hey, do you think you can play this?" And he gave me a record. It was a Gene Ammons record. He said, "Can you learn that? Can you play that?" I said, "I don't know." I had a little record player, and I put the album on, slowed it down because I couldn't hear the notes fast enough, and I started ruining the records and learning solos. But that was because of him.

But again, as I started going out. And you want to be able to say, at least I didn't want to be able to say, I've heard something, I'll start going to a restaurant someday. Hey, "Do you want to try some tiramisu?" I've never tried it before. Let me try it. Oh, I still don't like it. Whatever it is, try it. And the traveling is the big equalizer for me, was the big equalizer. Because you're going on in various countries, and you're used to just having chicken or beef, and you get these other places, some other exotic dishes, and you're in another country, and you want to try what that delicacy is.

And so, it's just like music. Or Blake would say, "If you put down another musician, you're putting yourself down." Why can't I listen to the Allman Brothers? Or other artists that I ended up recording. Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa. And recording the artists that I'd never heard from. Once I started listening, I said, "Wow, there's some stuff there I like." And sometimes, it's just the exposure.

And, like I might have said in the articles before, my parents weren't racist. They just had what they had. They were somewhat segregated in terms of the music they were listening to, and that's what they heard. So it's amazing to me that a lot of people don't know jazz artists, right? And I went to college, and I met musicians, I won't name their names. Hey man, who are you listening to, Javon? I'm listening to Jack McDuff. Oh, who's that? They hadn't heard of Jack McDuff. George Benson was the guitar player, but they hadn't listened to the record. So this person was of color, but it just depends on what you're exposed to.

LP: It goes back to something you said earlier because you can't escape the role that the commercial forces play in that, too, right? Radio gets separated into categories, and it's just the way, not just the commercial forces. It's the way our minds make sense of the world. We put things into buckets, and unfortunately, sometimes those buckets build walls around them, and that's where it gets dangerous. It's okay to have the categories as a shorthand for communicating, but when you start to, when they turn into barriers, that's the problem.

Javon Jackson: Yeah, but everything's coming from something, at the end of the day, this American music, coming from a few different places. Obviously, there are European influences and everything. But a lot of it's coming from a certain tradition, and it just, it's split and morphed out. But the biggest thing is to listen and see what you can get from it.

There's always going to be something that you can get from any music you're listening to. But if you want to take the time to tear it down, of course, you can do that, but you can also flip it and say, "Okay, wow, if I had to take something from Taylor Swift, What can I take and add or make this a part of my musical presentation? Or add something that's being done in that music that makes it successful on this large scale? What can I take from it?" Of course, you could take some things from it. You could say, "Oh man, that's just music for the masses." But you could take some time to see what made it have the success or have the viability it does.

LP: Will any of the music from this soundtrack make it into your live set? As somebody with the body of work you now have, how do you reckon with your lineage, your catalog? Will you perform this stuff, or how do songs come and go for you that way?

Javon Jackson: We're definitely performing some of those things now. But you go through a period in your life when you're performing certain things that you might record, and you feel a connection to, and you record those pieces for many, many years. Then, hopefully, you never lose the idea or the desire to keep writing and keep creating, and you'll have some other original pieces of music that you might want to play. That's in addition to other things that you might enjoy because everyone's not Thelonious Monk or Wayne Shorter. So sometimes you can utilize some incredible music that's been done before or written by some incredible artists, maybe a reharmonization or a reworking of it to fit.

Where I'm coming from as an artist, it's important to play your music again. You start to find out a lot about yourself when you start to compose because you're only going to start, you're going to start composing the things that, and the sounds that you hear and that you like, and then to get more of a broader perspective or as a writer or ability to write maybe in a more expansive way, what do you have to do?

I feel and listen to other types of music. So, other influences can come into it because if you're listening, it's like investing. If you're investing in one thing, and that one thing goes belly up, what's going to happen? So, the musician has to be just like the investor. What do you have to do? Diversify. So I have your money in eight or nine different things, or five or six, as opposed to one. So it's very much like that. You have to open yourself up and spread yourself across different situations.

LP: You've mentioned a few times in our conversation, as a lot of jazz artists do, the notion of tradition and lineage and being part of something that's come before you and that you're now part of passing that baton as well, and empowering young people. My perception is that you're also spreading this way in terms of other forms. The work with Nikki Giovanni and this work with Peter, how do you view not only the music tradition but this sort of, I don't, is it a black cultural tradition that you're now embracing more or exploring more or collaborating with more? Is there a there, or is it just a coincidence that there are two projects in a row with artists from other fields?

Javon Jackson: Well, yeah, there's a couple of other collaborations I have that are coming up that are definitely not of an African American connection per se, but with Nikki, I'm a fan. I met her at the University of Hartford, where I'm the chair of the Jackie McClain Institute. I invited her for Black History Month because I felt the university could be doing a better job in terms of bringing artists, so rather than complain, I just started bringing some artists. And Dr. Cornel West, I'm happy to say he's a friend. So he was the first person when I got there. "Hey, would you mind coming up to Black History Month?" But this is for the university, not just for the jazz department or music. So Cornel came. Then, the next year, Sonia Sanchez, the poet, as well. Then, Angela Davis came. Then, Michael Eric Dyson. Then Nikki Giovanni. I'm happy to report that Nikki and Angela both received honorary doctorates when they were there.

When I met Nikki when she was there, it just so happened that music was being played in the auditorium. It was Charlie Haden and Hank Jones. There's a record they did called Steal Away, and it's spirituals. And she was listening and loved it, said, "Wow, I'd love to hear more of that, jazz and spirituals." We went to dinner that night, and I said, "Hey, I'm getting in touch. I've got an idea for you." And in my mind, I already said, "Wow, what if she would be willing to pick some music, and I'll record the spirituals that she picked." So I called her two days later and said, "Hey, why don't you pick ten spirituals, and that'll be my next record." She said, "I'd love to." That's how that happened.

So yeah, she's had a lot of meaning in my life because I've been a fan, but she's a major jazz fan as well. The connection is closer than one would think. And again, when I'm around her, she talks as if we could be peers, but the next moment I go, I wait a minute, you sound like my aunt or my mom. She has that kind of connection with me. "Did you get home okay? Be careful there." She's not my mother, but there's a family with her. Does that make sense?

LP: That's beautiful.

Javon Jackson: And the same thing with Peter. It's that same kind of connection, so it might be looked at as cultural, but I do have some relationships with people who are not African American. It's a very family-oriented kind of relationship where they've seen me up close and personal with me and my family, and I've been with them, where it's really not guarded, if that makes sense.

I don't know how to qualify your question totally. I hope I did. But in this instance, there is some of that uniqueness that would happen to do with culture. But it's great because it's a collaboration that really helps. After all, some phrases use a lot of this interdisciplinary.

So it's jazz meets a poet or jazz with a painter, an abstract painter, but I see it as artistry. So, I still see these as artists. A member or somebody at the university said, "Why would Javon Jackson bring Angela Davis here? She's not a musician; she's an artist." But that's somebody who has another perspective about what she is and what I am instead of realizing that artists like Langston Hughes and the music go together like peanut butter and jelly. James Baldwin and musicians go together like peanut butter and jelly. I wouldn't say I like peanut butter and jelly, actually. But the point of it is they go together, but so someone, now it's wait, they don't fit. Of course, they fit.

LP: Of course, they fit. Artists and dialogue will fit.

Javon Jackson: Absolutely.

LP: Can you talk to me a little bit about the importance of being a label owner to you and your work? It's something I see more and more with artists of all types. Whenever I see that happening, my first reaction is, are we asking our artists now also to have to be business people and marketers and accountants? And I get everybody has support and infrastructure, but what is that experience like for you being now a business person and an artist and an educator and a father and all the other things you have to be?

Javon Jackson: It's funny that you say that. I come from both sides, And I've been with two or three labels. I was with Blue Note for five CDs. Then I was with Palmetto, and I did four or five with them. And I've been with other labels before that smaller. But let me say this: whether the musician knows that you're a marketer and you're a composer and you have to be your own agent, being a musician and a businessman, they're not separate. They're all there together. And so you have to understand you, you have to be your own accountant too. You have to make sure you do your taxes. All the things we're talking about, if you make it all art, you're going to miss out. You're going to be left out of the picture. So yes, if you can invest and you have the money to invest in your career regarding owning your own, your works, and having a label and such, sure.

But it's something that you can work toward, but a lot of the folks I watched, and Branford is a close friend of mine, he started a label. And other artists I've mentioned have said for a long time, "Hey, you should have your own label." Then, Sonny Rollins had a label for years and recorded his shows and things like that. So it's a natural progression. Again, there's an investment there. You have to invest in the musicians, you have to invest in the studio, you got to find the engineer. Then, you got to mass-produce the CD, and then you got to find someone who can help you make it available throughout the world. And then, if you really want to do it right, you want to have a publicist. That's how we found each other, because of my publicist. You have a radio person, so it's a machine, but you can say, "Oh man, I don't have the money." You got to invest in something, so why not invest in yourself? But that's something you build into that. But yes, you have to be everything.

I never thought of it, but when I look at some of these artists, they very much did things themselves or were very successful. The Art Blakeys of the world had agents from time to time. I think Dizzy Gillespie booked himself from time to time. But also, they knew how to do the business themselves if they needed to. So that's something that young artists need to think about more and more. Get involved with the business. And so I don't want to do that. I want to practice. One time, I was practicing at this particular part of my life when I had a group.

I was working with the great Les McCann, and we were doing a project called Swiss Movement Revisited, which is a famous recording he did with Eddie Harris. I knew Eddie; God rest his soul. So we started to do some performances with Les and Les's management, who I would always keep abreast of things that were going on because Les was gracious enough to go out on tour with me. One particular day, I was practicing and said it was four o'clock when I was supposed to reach back out to somebody, and I forgot to call a presenter. And then at that particular time also in the day, Les's manager called me and said, how's everything going? I said, I just missed a call. I was supposed to speak to a presenter. I said, "Man, I'm practicing all the time, and I forget, but you know, sometimes I don't want to make the calls. I just want to practice." That was funny, but it actually made sense as well. If you don't have anywhere to play, what's the sense of practicing?

When we were young, we wanted to practice a lot, but eventually, yeah, the bottom line is you want to play somewhere. So I was mad that I had to stop to make this call, but that's why you're practicing to be somewhere. It was a funny thing, and yeah, the young musician needs to know they need to do everything. And learn how it works on the ground floor. And if you're fortunate enough, or that's your destiny, and that's your goal, then you'll have an agent or a manager. And I have my feelings about how all those things work, but it depends on the individual. But the bottom line is you have to learn, and then after that, you need help. Because you can't do it all by yourself in a vacuum. You can miss out on some opportunities by not collaborating or working with other individuals who are connected.

We all need each other for this music to continue to grow. I need you. You need me. We need Anne Braithwaite. We need the other folks, the club and the club owner, and all that stuff. And within there, there's the folks who have all the highest quality, and you have some that are not of the highest quality, but they're all there for a reason. So you can't have only one 90-degree day. Well, you wouldn't appreciate 90 until you have a 10-degree day. So you have to have the 10 to appreciate the main. But you have to have the people with the highest professional standards with the folks that have no standards. You have to have both. Correct?

LP: Yeah. I just hope you get the mix right.

Javon Jackson: Well, yeah. But at some point, you're going to come in contact with all of it. But remember, even the person at the bottom. Believe it or not, they're doing the best they can.

LP: Thank you so much for making time for this. I've so much enjoyed talking with you, and I love the record. I love the movie, and it's just great to have more art. So thank

Javon Jackson: you. I appreciate you. And yeah, let's do it again. I'd love it.