OUR MR. Jackson
Darrell Grant’s MJ New
2023 (Lair Hill Records)
Buy from Bandcamp
Album Tracks
Bag’s Groove
Versailles
Autumn in New York
Drop Me Off in Harlem
Cancer (from Zodiac Suite)
Crossing the Bridge: Vanport
A Viennese Affaire
String Quintet in C Major: Adagio
Bach to Brazil
Surry with the Fringe on Top
Wading Through
Bag’s Groove (Reprise)
In 2013, when pianist Darrell Grant was approached by the Portland Jazz Festival to plan and perform a tribute concert to the Modern Jazz Quartet, he rose diligently to the occasion. The band he put together, MJ New, featured vibraphonist Mike Horsfall, bassist Marcus Shelby and drummer Carlton Jackson — a lineup so strong that it persisted well beyond that one gig.
In November 2018, the group was finally able to enter the studio to make its debut album. But tragically, in July 2021, with the record still in the can, Jackson passed away at age 60. A fixture of Portland jazz as a drummer and radio host, Jackson can be heard playing his heart out on the long-awaited Our Mr. Jackson, now a moving tribute not just to the MJQ but to him as well. (Cecil Brooks III, not heard here, is the group’s current drummer.)
“Versailles” video by Cyrus Shiva.
“The more I delved into the MJQ,” Grant says, “the more I realized that what they were doing echoes so much of my own experience studying classical music, loving chamber music. I thought, why not see what we can add to that? We quickly realized it would be great not just to play MJQ pieces, but also to incorporate my own classical influences and apply this instrumentation to our own material.”
To that end, Grant cast a wide net in terms of repertoire. In the mix are his own originals (“Crossing the Bridge: Vanport,” “A Viennese Affair” with nods to Beethoven’s Für Elise and Gigi Gryce’s “Minority”); compositions by Ellington and Mary Lou Williams (“Drop Me Off in Harlem,” “Cancer” from the Zodiac Suite); an adaptation from Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major (“Adagio”); a melange from Bach’s French Suites and Jobim’s “Agua de Beber” (“Bach to Brazil”); an incisive take on the always swinging “Surrey with the Fringe on the Top”; and a gorgeous reduction of a Terence Blanchard orchestral piece, “Wading Through,” from 2007’s A Tale of God’s Will: Requiem for Katrina.
“When the MJQ made their music,” says Grant, “they were in that moment, but when I revisit these ideas I have the benefit of another 45 or 50 years of musical history that they didn’t, so I want to draw on that. I want to draw on the jazz renaissance of the ’90s that I was a part of. I want to draw on the harmonic explorations that came through from jazz’s continuing evolution. It would be disingenuous to repeat what they did without referring to our time.”
Formed in 1952, the Modern Jazz Quartet was easily one of the longest-running groups in jazz history, undergoing only one change of personnel in 45 years. Pianist and musical director John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Connie Kay (who replaced Kenny Clarke) had an overarching goal: to present jazz on an even playing field with concert music. They were pioneers of what came to be called Third Stream Music, as their 1960 album for Atlantic was titled.
As such, they were heirs of a long tradition of Black musicians seeking to cross racially coded musical boundaries. “The MJQ came out of the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance,” Grant says. “African Americans were creating at the highest intellectual capacity, really expressing themselves.” Grant is an heir to this tradition in turn, composing long-form suites, a chamber opera, multimedia works and more, along with his ongoing activity as a top jazz instrumentalist.