Calvin in the Woods

Playing in a cocktail lounge in Detroit not long ago, Jazz Pianist Calvin Jackson was asked by a couple of well-oiled ring-siders what he was trying to say. Take Laura, said Calvin: "Musically you can put her anyplace you want to--in the woods, at sea, in a bar, in the Village or in Soho. I'll show you." When he had played through Laura once, one ringsider turned to the other. "By damn," he said, "she's in the woods."

If Laura can truly be put in the woods --that is, played as a kind of jazz pastorale--Calvin Jackson is the man to do it. More than just a highly accomplished pianist, he has the ability to ring intricate changes on familiar themes, evoke images of startling clarity, be congenial with both jazz and classics. Although much admired by jazzmen, he has remained largely unknown to the public. But last week Pianist-Arranger Jackson was finally coming into his own. His album of Jazz Variations on Movie Themes was a surprise hit with disk jockeys. He was busy scoring a new movie, planning new album material, and preparing the Gershwin Concerto in F for eleven concerts with the Hollywood Symphony. "When you talk about him," said Saxman Benny Carter, "you gotta be well versed in superlatives."

As Tense as a Comic. Negro Pianist Jackson's greatest strength is an orderly, disciplined mind and a keen sense of form. While many a jazz musician thinks only a few bars ahead while improvising, Jackson envisions a whole piece in his head. Seated at the piano, he looks elegantly relaxed--but is usually as tense as a nightclub comic building for a saving laugh. Jackson's playing has the facile quality of an Andre Previn, but with it a far more propulsive drive. An Art Tatum-ish right hand embroiders the melody, and the tempo is always subject to change. Sometimes Jackson opens with eloquent slowness, then double-times the theme with marvelous results. Or he may start with a rocking jazz attack and shift to concert-style piano.

His music is full of humor: perhaps a razzmatazz counterpoint to a rather solemn theme or quotes from other tunes slipped in slyly. A favorite Jackson trick is to imitate--without breaking stride--the style of such pianists as Erroll Garner, George Shearing or Oscar Peterson. "I can talk to Pete Rugolo in his metier," says he, "or to Count Basie in his or to Lenny Bernstein. Maybe not to Lawrence Whelp."

Slowed on the Circuit. Jackson's facility is the result of a schooling unusual in jazz--13 years of private study in piano and theory as a youngster in Philadelphia, followed by four years at Juilliard and additional work at New York University. For five years, Jackson scored musicals for MGM, finally quit over the limitations of the job. Jackson, now 42, was slowed up on the club circuit because, says a friend, using Hollywood's favorite word, he had "too much musical integrity." He was also inclined, when cocktail conversation annoyed him, to slam the keyboard and announce: "I can't insult that lovely tune." For a time he wavered between jazz and a classical career, but eventually made up his mind that he would rather "classicize jazz than jazzicize the classics." With him, it hardly makes any difference.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.