Brian Jackson est l'un des grands de la Soul : c'est ce pianiste/multi-instrumentiste qui a collaboré avec Gil Scott Heron sur les 10 premiers albums de celui-ci. Mais il a aussi collaboré avec d'autres comme Kool and the Gang, Roy Ayers... et a décidé de sortir son premier album solo en 2000. Aujourd'hui Brian Jackson fait une petite tournée européenne. Alors pour ceux qui ne le connaissent pas encore, voici une très bonne façon de le découvrir !
French Vesrion on
onlygroove.
English Version / 24 March 2006 :
How did you begin the music? What gave you desire for making some? And Which are the titles of your childhood?My parents were big jazz fans. I used to sit in front of the family entertainment center and rock literally to Clifford Brown records, Miles Davis records. My mom used to take me to piano recitals that were put on by the lady who gave her piano lessons when she was a girl! By the time I was five, I started asking my mom if I could take lessons so that I could be in that recital too. She saved up and bought me a piano, and I was taking lessons from her childhood teacher by the time I was seven.
My first album was Walkin a Miles Davis album. I bought it with my allowance money.Later, I got into Stevie, Jimi, Otis, Sly Al Green, Aretha, and so many others.Ive always wanted to play music. I dont know why. I guess it was just what I am supposed to do.
You began your career with Gil Scott Heron, together you have carry out his ten better albums. How and where you are you met? When have decide to work together?We met at Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania. I went there because I wanted to go to the school where Langston Hughes and Kwame Nkrumah went to school. Later I found out that those two great men having attended Lincoln also factored into Gils decision to go there.
A fellow student, Victor Brown (you can hear his high tenor on many of our early Midnight Band albums), was planning to perform in the university talent show, and had already enlisted Gil to write a song for him he wanted to do something original and heard me in the practice room and thought that I should meet Gil. I think Victors intention was to have me play piano instead of Gil. When I heard the song Gil had written for Victor, I was blown away! The lyrics were outstanding. I picked up the chords immediately, and put my touch to it. After we perfected that, I played a few songs that I had been working on, and Gil got very excited. He said, Play that again, and he began writing something in a book. It was the beginning of a song that we did on the album, Midnight Band: First Minute of a New Day. It was called, A Toast to the People.
Well, we didnt win the talent show. But we really enjoyed hanging out and writing music. We continued writing music for ten years.
Can you tell us these ten years of collaboration?We saw ourselves as songwriters, primarily. But we were prepared for the reality that most popular entertainers would not want to sing about the subjects that we were interested in. And those who would want to do works like that usually wrote their own. So we were left no choice but to perform them ourselves. We started to improve, and soon we were getting paying gigs!
Gil is an Aries; I am a Libra. We are opposites, the yin and the yang; we had all bases covered. And in that opposition, we found common ground. We were brothers spiritually. There was a deep bond there. Even after years of estrangement, if we were to walk on to a stage together tonight, there would be magic. Its undeniable. We brought out the best in each other.
Why stopped working together?There were those who believed that Gil would be much better on his own. They pushed for it, wanted it to happen. Maybe it was around the same time that Gil started doing drugs a little too much. There were things going on that, as a partner, I should have known about, should have had a say in. I could see by Gils actions, and by the actions of people around us, that I was being seen as expendable, possibly even a liability. At some point I realized that the only way to make my presence understood was to leave. It was one of the hardest decisions that Ive ever had to make.
You remained in contact with him?Gil went on to sign a second deal with Arista without my knowledge. From that point on, he collected all of the monies, royalties, etc. and pretended that he didnt know where I was. I tried to reach out to him a couple of times in the early eighties; he had our accountant throw me a few dollars, but we didnt speak. You have no idea how sorry I am to have to say these things, but its the truth. I have been broke for twenty years, and, contrary to popular belief, Gil is not. vdI know how much people love Gil. I dont know how much theyll love what Im saying now. It gives me no joy to reveal it.
What it passed between this 'break' (if I then to say) and left your album solo in 2000? And why to have left an album solo so tardily?I have done work with Will Downing, Reggie Lucas, Bobbi Humphrey, Kool and the Gang, Roy Ayers, Phyllis Hyman, and other great artists. I have been able to express myself musically through other artists and that has been satisfying. But the business side of music left me demoralized. I left music in 1994. In 1998 though, a few people close to me convinced me to get back into my music, and I put together a band. In 2000, I released my first solo CD, gotta play.
In France, in the USA I dont know, little already know Gil Scott Heron, but those liking the soul know him, and in these people there, little know you, one tends to say the albums of Gil Scott Heron and not GSH and Brian Jackson... Which feeling have you compared to this lack of recognition?I dont know!!!! If you look at the album covers of the seventies, across the top, in big letters, they say, Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. The music business seems to always want to single out one person in a group of artists and say, this is the guy responsible for all this, when the truth is, so many more people are responsible for it than can even be named. I just have to keep making music. I cant worry about it.
Much of artist you sample, like De la Soul and Mos Def for example. Do they call you front, to warn you or thank you?No, there are very few of those artists that I have ever heard from. Many of them have contacted Gil, though. I wonder if they realize that the music that they sample is the music that I played?
How would you define your music, today?Well, theres not much incentive for me to change my style, as it seems that the most popular music today is based on what I, and other artists of my generation, have been doing. I feel that Im a better musician. Im more flexible. Ive learned a lot from other musicians and writers. But I have a sound that folks say they recognize. I dont try to make a sound, its just my personality coming through my music. I couldnt do anything different if I tried! Fortunately for me, people still like it!!!
You are in tour in Europe, where will you occurs a little everywhere play? With which? And why now?Ive been traveling everywhere so that I can to let people know that Im still alive! Ill be in Europe with a fantastic group of progressive musicians consisting of Eugene Chadbourne (google this man!) and Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo of the Violent Femmes. We call ourselves G.O.I.N., which stands for Get Out of Iraq Now. Well be in Paris at Banlieues Bleues on 28 Mar., in Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Baarle-Nassau and Milano. After that, Ill be doing a couple of shows in the UK. Ive also been touring with Digable Planets, and there is talk of a possible small tour in Europe in the summer.
Do you have a new album in preparation? If so, can you tell us more about that ?Ive been working with some old friends, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Mike Clark, percussionist Airto Moreira, DJ Logic, and Kentyah Fraser on an album that will most likely be released in 2007. It is a labor of love, and if you know anything about these musical giants, you know that what you will hear will blow you away!
Which are your last blow of heart musical? What do you think about the current music ?I love Bilals new album. Ive been listening a lot to that. People who are playing live music catch my ear. I want to hear music done the old way. Im not against sampling and looping. But we cant let the traditions go. We need to know how to make music without electricity, just in case
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