Ronald Shannon Jackson is an articulate, witty man who communicates quite well without the aid of drumsticks, thank you.
But when this diminutive giant of a percussionist sits behind his flotilla of snares, cymbals and bass drums, he really starts to talk. For two decades, he has been speaking the language of a jazz innovater-loud, forceful and sometimes downright revolutionary.
”You have to play the drums,” Jackson emphasized. ”They are not a tweedly-dee, tweedly-dum instrument. You have to hit them.”
It is for this reason that you`ll never catch Jackson`s act in a supper club: ”Folks sitting there drinking their martinis and eating their steaks . . . they`d better not eat their steak while I`m playing, because I`ll barbecue it in their belly.”
Jackson laughed mischievously, but he left no doubt that he takes his work seriously.
He has visited nine African nations in search of what he calls ”the secret drum societies,” trying to unlock their codes of communication.
”Listen to a dog bark when a person comes to the door, and he`ll let you know by the intensity of his alarm whether it`s a friend or an enemy,”
Jackson said.
”It`s the same thing with the African talking drums-there`s a certain extra level of intensity and excitement there when they`re pounding out a message like `White man coming,` ” Jackson chuckled. In the same way, Jackson uses his drums to converse, creating a polyrhythmic language that draws on Zairian tribal rites, New Orleans funeral marches, Texas blues and Manhattan art rock.
Since about 1975, when he embraced Buddhism and began a daily ritual of chanting, Jackson has devoted his life to that language. Before then, drugs and drink distracted him.
”If I hadn`t started chanting, my life would be in pretty big disarray,” he said. ”A lot of my friends who kept living that way are dead.”
Jackson, now 49, has been playing drums professionally since he was a 14- year-old prodigy in Ft. Worth. By the early `70s, he had recorded with such legends as Charles Mingus, Albert Ayler and Betty Carter. But his life was unfocused, day-to-day. Music was a job, not a calling.
Through chanting, he cleansed himself of his destructive habits and began to focus on his development as a musician: He taught himself to play other instruments, such as the flute, and for the first time he began composing his own music.
He also added to his college-level credits (he had attended Lincoln University in Missouri) by going to Paris in 1977 to enroll in ”Coleman University.”
Ornette Coleman, the legendary saxophonist who invented ”harmolodic”
free jazz in the early `60s, found a kindred spirit in the wildly inventive Jackson and brought him into his Prime Time band. Jackson established himself as a major force in new music by playing on Coleman`s groundbreaking synthesis of free jazz and funk, ”In Your Head,” and the superlative follow-up, ”Body Meta.”
His stint with Coleman culminated with an incendiary appearance on
”Saturday Night Live” (what jazz aficionado wouldn`t pay to have seen the look on guest-host Milton Berle`s face that night as the band began to wail?), and Jackson found himself back in New York and out of work.
”I was living on $8 a week and eating lots of egg sandwiches and Campbell`s soup,” Jackson said. But then, by chance, he met avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor.
Jackson proclaimed himself ”the best drummer around,” and-to his surprise-Taylor took him up on his boast by inviting him over for a jam session the next day.
”I had spent years working on ideas, writing down the rhythm of each day, practicing alone,” Jackson recalled. ”It was as if the spirits were saying, `You`ve been working hard-here`s the reward.` ”
The two began playing in Taylor`s loft, and the pianist was so taken by Jackson`s work that he wouldn`t interrupt their sessions for anything-even to speak to friends who called long-distance.
”Cecil had about five phones in this big apartment with no partitions,” Jackson recalled, laughing at the memory. ”He`d get these calls and then he`d take all the phones off the hook and just say, `Listen to this,` and we`d play for about half-an-hour. . . .”
The two collaborated for six months, making four outstanding albums. Among them is the hour-long opus ”3 Phasis,” in which Jackson`s drumming ignited ecstatic solos by the likes of Taylor and saxophonist Jimmy Lyons.
Soon afterward, Jackson`s Decoding Society was born. Its first album,
”Eye on You,” became an instant classic in 1980, featuring Jackson`s daring arrangements and a youthful octet studded with the future titans of postmodern jazz: guitarists Vernon Reid and Bern Nix, bassist Melvin Gibbs and violinist Billy Bang.
Jackson has gone on to record eight more records with the constantly evolving Decoding Society, the latest of which is ”Texas” (Caravan of Dreams), as well as an amazing solo work entitled ”Pulse” (Celluloid). In addition, he has become the drummer of choice on many superstar recording dates, most notably with a group called Last Exit.
With guitarist Sonny Sharrock, bassist Bill Laswell and saxophonist Peter Brotzmann as sidekicks, ”There`s never a need for a rehearsal, and even if there was a rehearsal, everyone would want to play their own thing anyway,”
Jackson laughed. Last Exit has acquired a reverant following in Japan and Europe, and its fifth album, ”Iron Path,” has just been released on a major U.S. label (Virgin), which may finally bring Jackson the exposure he deserves at home.
He has no illusions, however, about why his music is not more widely heard in America: ”Here, everything is controlled by the dollar, which controls the airwaves. In Japan, you turn on the radio and you hear Beethoven, followed by Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Albert Ayler. . . . Folks there are more open to music because they`re exposed to more music.”
Indeed, it has been difficult for Jackson to get even a booking in Chicago. He last played here four years ago-this despite a galvanic performance in the early `80s at the Chicago Jazz Festival that left many onlookers shaking their heads in awe and asking ”Who`s that?”
Last week, Jackson finally did bring his act to Chicago, at Biddy Mulligan`s, where he showcased a leaner, meaner version of his Decoding Society.
This new band (two guitars, bass and keyboards) is once again playing nothing but Jackson compositions, which mirror the drummer`s life and travels: a three-part blues suite called ”Crystal Balls”; another piece featuring an Eastern European wind instrument that Jackson himself played; a fusion-jazz
”Anthem”; and a delicious ballad that recalled an ocean sunset on some tropical isle.
Though the songs were ”highly structured and composed,” Jackson said,
”we try our best to play as if they weren`t. We play a continuation of moving melodies-the melodies don`t end but move from one solo to the next.”
With Jackson pounding out a steady stream of rhythmic inventions, guitarists Jack DeSalvo and Jef Lee Johnson and bassist Ramone Pooser never lacked for inspiration. Though the highlight of the evening came when Jackson unleashed a volcanic, but typically brief, solo, what is most impressive about his playing is the way it complements, rather than overwhelms, the ensemble.
”I think drum solos are some of the most boring things on the planet,”
Jackson said. ”I strive to play melodies on the drums.”
”There`s certain ideas that I have to do that I can`t do anywhere else, except with my own band,” he said. ”I could make a lot more money doing certain other kinds of music, playing with certain kinds of musicians, but that would mean someone was controlling me. I wouldn`t hear what I`m hearing if I were controlled.
”I feel there`s been a responsibility given to me, and I would be doing a big disservice if I didn`t play the music I want to play.”
In doing so, he is pushing the language of jazz forward, sometimes at ear-splitting volumes and lickety-split tempos that may offend purists, particularly those enamored of the back-to-bop movement led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
”My ideas extend beyond bop and acoustic jazz,” Jackson said.
”Spiritually, there`s not much difference between me and Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie. . . . But I`m glad to be born in this era.”
And those who love jazz innovation should also be glad, for Shannon Jackson is speaking their language.
