Sunday, July 2, 2017

Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out Once Again




 [a slightly different version of this article first appeared in the Dayton City Paper on June 6, 2017]

Joe Jackson -- Steppin’ Out Once Again

Iconoclastic Musician Brings Current Tour to Cincinnati’s Taft Theatre

By

Tim Walker

    “I don’t think anyone knows what the hell to do,” says Joe Jackson when speaking to me recently about the state of the record business and his place in it. “The music industry now is like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off.”

    During his nearly four decades as a working musician, Jackson has released a total of twenty albums, albums which run the gamut from power pop and movie soundtracks to jazz and neo-classical orchestral music. Refusing to be pigeonholed, the artist has toured the world numerous times, written books (1999’s superb A CURE FOR GRAVITY), won Grammy awards and other industry accolades, and has seen firsthand the changes that the internet and digital downloading have wrought upon the recording industry. And yet, Jackson remains unsure about the future of the music business.

“All of these questions about the state of the music industry now,” the musician says, “They kind of give me a headache, because it’s such a weird time. It’s changed so much, and it’s still changing so fast, that I don’t think anyone knows what to think or what to do. And I think that includes all the people who are are supposed to be the smart people -- the big time managers, the big publicists, and so on.” Jackson pauses to collect his thoughts before continuing. “My feeling is, how does it affect me? The more I think about it, the more I realize that the only thing I have any control over is my own work. So the only thing I can really do that might make the world a tiny little bit better is to make the best music I can, and put on the best show that I can.”

Joe Jackson brings his current tour, the fourth in support of his most recent album, 2015’s FAST FORWARD, to Cincinnati’s Taft Theatre on Tuesday, June 13th. The show, which starts at 8pm, features Jackson and a band featuring longtime sideman and crowd favorite Graham Maby on bass, with Teddy Kumpel on guitar and Doug Yowell on drums. Tickets are still available through Ticketmaster and the Taft box office.

When asked what people can expect to see at the upcoming show, Jackson laughs and replies, “Some old stuff, some new stuff. And a few surprises.” When it comes to making good music, performing live, and being surprising, Joe Jackson knows what he’s talking about. His first album, 1979’s LOOK SHARP, featured the acerbic hits “Sunday Papers”, “Fools in Love”, and “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and was hailed by music journalists as a leading example of “New Wave” British pop. The Joe Jackson Band’s two stylistically similar follow-ups, I’M THE MAN and BEAT CRAZY, were also successful, but it was the breakup of the band and the artist’s subsequent solo releases like JUMPIN’ JIVE, BODY AND SOUL, and BIG WORLD which saw him approaching music from a variety of angles and styles, some of which admittedly proving more popular than others. He struck gold worldwide in 1982 with the guitar-less pop of his NIGHT AND DAY album, which featured the MTV-fed smash hits “Real Men”, “Breaking Us in Two” and “Steppin’ Out”, still his biggest-selling hit single, which received two Grammy nominations and practically made him into a pop star.

Full disclosure: I am an enthusiastic Joe Jackson fan. I’ve followed the man’s work since I first heard his music as a teenager in the early 1980’s. While those handful of pop hits may define Jackson’s career for many, it is his music from the past two decades which I find myself returning to again and again. 1999’s SYMPHONY NO. 1, which won the 2001 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album, is like no other -- a four-movement orchestral piece for jazz and rock musicians, the album was released on Sony’s Classical label and features Steve Vai and Terence Blanchard. 2012’s THE DUKE, Jackson’s 17th album, is a stirring tribute to Duke Ellington and debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums chart.

When asked, Jackson, who turns 63 later this year, insists that at this point in his career he makes no assumptions when releasing a new record into the marketplace. “I have no expectations at all, when I finish a song or put it out,” he says. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if no one gave a shit, if it never got heard anywhere at all. How do you define a successful record? There are lots of different ways to define it now, whereas it used to be a lot more obvious. The only time I really feel like I’ve made a connection is when I play live, and that’s one of the reasons I keep doing it, keep going back out on the road yet again, because I love it, and I love being able to make that connection. I think you only really get that when you play live.”

Playing live at the Taft Theatre on June 13th, Jackson and his band will no doubt bring to life his own unique brand of challenging, inspired music, and whether you’re a fan from years ago -- like I am -- or a newer convert, chances are it will be a show you’ll long remember.

[Joe Jackson will perform at Cincinnati’s Taft Theatre on Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 at 8pm. Tickets are still available. For more information call 513-232-6220 or go to www.joejackson.com]

No comments:

Post a Comment