If Chicago jazz master Franz Jackson had his way, no one would know that he`s about to turn 80.
”I don`t make a big deal out of birthdays, because then people start to treat you funny,” says Jackson, who has been making sweet music in this city- and around the world-since the early 1930s.
”When you`re my age, if you tell someone your knee hurts or you can`t remember something, they say, `Well that`s how you`re supposed to be at that age.`
”So it`s better not to make a big deal out of it. Plus if I sat around thinking I`m 80, I`d realize that guys don`t live much longer after that. So I`d rather just keep playing and forget about it.”
Nonetheless, Jackson has particular reason to celebrate this time around, if only because his birthday present has arrived a little early this year. Though he doesn`t turn 80 until Nov. 1, he`s featured on a superb new recording, ”Snag It” (Delmark). Backed by Jim Beebe`s Chicago Jazz, with whom Jackson plays three nights a week at Dick`s Last Resort, he`s heard playing saxophones and clarinet exuberantly, singing rambunctious solos, talking, joking and otherwise summing up his gifts as a musical entertainer.
The idiom, of course, is traditional jazz, the straight-ahead swing and pre-swing styles that Jackson first heard in the Chicago storefront clubs more than half a century ago.
”See, originally, I was going to be a clarinet player,” says Jackson, who was born in Rock Island and moved to Chicago with his mother when he was 13. ”But at that time, all people wanted to hear was Hawk (tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins) and Prez (tenorist Lester Young). So if you wanted anybody to listen, you played the tenor.
”Well I went into the store to buy a tenor-I was about 14 or 15-and the guy said, `Man, you don`t learn how to play on a tenor-you learn on the alto.` So I bought an alto and tried to figure that out.”
Not having enough money to afford both a new horn and lessons, Jackson essentially mastered the instrument on his own, with a little instruction at age 16. As for reading music, ”I thought I knew how to do it, but it turns out I didn`t. It wasn`t until I was in high school that I started learning about counting time and reading the clefs.”
In a strange way, however, that may have been a blessing, because Chicago still was thick with New Orleans musicians, many of whom couldn`t tell you whether a piece of music was right side up or backwards.
”Most of those guys, those fantastic musicians from New Orleans, couldn`t read a note,” says Jackson, who was able to sit in with them as a teenager ”because I was a pretty big fellow and no one dared to bother me about my age.
”So if we were working on an arrangement of a tune, we`d say, `You`ve got that note, and I`ll take the next note, then Joe comes in with two notes after that.` That`s how we`d figure it out, one note at a time, and we`d play whole sets without any music, just remembering what we were supposed to do.
”The trouble was, if one guy left the band, that was about the end of the arrangement. So then I realized, man, this is no good-I`ve got to learn how to read and put it down on paper.”
Graced with a naturally lyric style on horn, Jackson found himself in constant demand even as a teen. Such was his reputation that by the early `30s he was playing for the artist credited with having virtually invented the big swing band, Fletcher Henderson.
”That was a great time to be with Fletcher, too,” says Jackson,
”because he was doing a lot of work for Benny Goodman`s band at the time. Basically, he was taking his great old charts and rewriting them for the Goodman band.
”So that meant he wasn`t too involved with his own band and encouraged me to start writing arrangements for the group. The thing to remember is that the Fletcher Henderson band was way different from the Duke Ellington band-they were two completely different outfits. Fletcher`s was a dance band, and Duke`s was a show band.
”The other incredible experience back then was playing with (trumpet great Roy) Eldridge. He was a musician`s musician, and you had to play up to a real high level if you were going to be with Roy.
”I heard Louis (Armstrong) around that time, too, but I never really got to play with him extensively. See, Louis tended to pick up guys for his bands who weren`t already working, but I always was busy,” adds Jackson, correctly noting that Armstrong`s bandmates often were well beneath their leader`s level. On some recordings, they audibly get in Armstrong`s way.
”Of course, Louis` star was so bright that almost anyone who played with him was bound to fade away into the background.”
By 1937, Jackson had married and moved grudgingly to New York, where his singer-wife, Maxine Johnson, wanted to go.
”But New York was way different than Chicago,” says Jackson. ”It was all `in,` real clannish, whereas Chicago was wide open. In Chicago, if you wanted to play, you could play. In New York, they`d try to keep you out.”
So Jackson busied himself around the Brill Building, a musical beehive, writing arrangements for visiting players. He jobbed in bands occasionally, too. After World War II he went to Europe, where American jazz musicians were receiving the kind of respect they deserved-and then some.
”I remember playing in Finland, and they really went nuts for me there,” Jackson says. ”They couldn`t believe it-here was a real live jazz musician right in front of them. I`d sit in with their bands, and they couldn`t get over it, they`d keep saying I must have memorized all their charts in advance. They didn`t even know I was faking it.”
By 1950, Jackson moved back home to Chicago, where he has been something of an institution ever since. His Jazz All-Stars attracted listeners to the Red Arrow club in Stickney for years, part of the draw surely being Jackson`s beguiling way with a lyric.
”Now I don`t really consider myself a singer-I`m really a horn player who can sing a chorus or two,” says Jackson, who probably sells himself a little short in that regard. To hear Jackson growl the lyrics to ”St. James Infirmary” or swing rhythms in ”Minnie the Moocher” is to understand a fundamental challenge of jazz singing: to create an inventive melodic line while keeping the lyrics crisp to the ear.
”In fact, I can`t imagine anyone introducing me and saying: `Here`s Mr. Franz Jackson to sing a song for you.` I`ve got to play a chorus or two on my horn before I can do the singing.”
In a way, these days are the sweetest for Jackson, who lives with his wife of more than 30 years, Virginia, in Michigan, but keeps a place in Chicago, too. His datebook is filled, audiences adore him and except for a gripe or two with certain musical developments, Jackson seems to be every bit as happy as his music suggests.
”A lot of guys didn`t like it when be-bop came along, but I liked it fine,” Jackson says. ”You could see what a complex thing this was that those guys put together. And I could understand it because I knew the be-bop guys like Dizzy (Gillespie) before they became famous; I played with them.
”But then rock came along, where anybody can turn on the amplifier, pick up a guitar and make a big chord. Big deal. To play a jazz horn, you`ve got to work six or seven years before you can even get a decent sound.
”But who cares? If anyone wants to listen to that stuff, that`s their problem.”
