This Is An Event

The Jazz Is Dead series and the return of Brian Jackson

When producers Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad launched the Jazz Is Dead series several years ago, the idea was simple: They’d invite “legacy” artists associated with jazz fusion of the early 1970s, many of them still active but inevitably under appreciated, into the studio for unscripted explorations with younger L.A. musicians fluent in hip-hop and current R&B.

Younge’s credits include production for Ghostface Killah and Kendrick Lamar; Muhammad is best known as part of A Tribe Called Quest. Their early sessions involved saxophonist Gary Bartz, Brazilian pianist Joao Donato, vibraphonist Roy Ayers and the multi-instrumentalist Brian Jackson — whose albums with Gil Scott-Heron revolutionized socially conscious music in the 1970s.

Jackson’s Jazz Is Dead set is Number 8 in the series, but he was the first to say yes to the concept. “He set the tone for the entire label,” Younge said in a press-release interview. “He turned our aspirations global. We never knew what this could all be, but with his inspirational character and musicianship, he led us on the right path.”

The Jazz Is Dead records are reverent, but manage to mostly sidestep ‘70s nostalgia. Partly that’s the sonics: The contributions of the featured artists sit in the center of a punchy, made-on-analog-gear sound profile. The drum patterns are hi-res modern, the textures have just enough subwoofer smack. The canvas is invitingly open — even when, as happens, the music has a drifty, diffuse quality.

One of the most interesting was the 2021 release involving Jackson — who is heard on flute, alto flute, clavinet, synthesizer and most importantly the Fender Rhodes electric piano. As he did on Winter In America, It’s Your World and other enduring titles with Scott-Heron, Jackson frames the loose narrative of “Mars Walk” and other jams almost invisibly, from the unobtrusive middle of the mix. He repeats stray phrases until they become scurrying motific themes. He injects polyrhythmic tension into the pulse through crisp jabs then smooths it out with ringing sustained chords.

In this exploratory environment, it takes no time at all to discover how alive Jackson is to the subtle ripples of rhythm — and how his ideas about the care and feeding of a rhythmic pocket have spread widely and evolved over decades. Through the tiny details of his playing and the overall openness of the music, Jackson offers something beyond mere iconhood — ideas about music that are relevent to the present moment.

Others heard this too — including Daniel Collas, found of Phenomenal Handclap Band. When they met, Jackson told Collas that he’d recently found tracks and notes for a solo project he’d begun in 1976, around the time of Bridges with Scott-Heron. Those decades-old seeds became the backbone of This Is Brian Jackson, which will be released in late May on the BBE (Barely Breaking Even) label. Check the two tracks posted to Bandcamp (link below).

The sultry, gorgeously unrushed This Is Brian Jackson didn’t happen by accident — it’s tempting to see it as a direct result of the Jazz Is Dead exposure. At the least, Younge and Muhammad deserve some credit for increasing awareness within the music community about Jackson — as well as others like keyboardist Doug Carn, whose early ‘70s sides on the Black Jazz label, Infant Eyes and Spirit of the New Land (both featuring his then-wife Jean Carne), are foundational works of the spiritual jazz movement. After being “disappeared” for decades, Carn’s Black Jazz titles were finally reissued in 2014.

Also on the horizon in late spring is Jean Carne’s Jazz Is Dead session. It situates Carne’s resolute, stirring voice in ethereal surroundings that pay open homage to those Black Jazz works, and, in that way, feels more experimental than others in the series. Carne is another legend ( she sang with Duke Ellington and had a string of plush Philly soul hits in the ‘70s) who’s a bit overlooked in the current torrential downpour of music. Her catalog should be heard, certainly, but so should her current endeavors — and that’s exactly what Jazz Is Dead is about: These titles remind listeners about what was while acting as a catalyst for what can be.

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