Jazz T-Bone: The homepage for Joe Jackson

Airmen of Note is the premier jazz ensemble of the United States Air Force, and was created in 1950 to carry on the tradition of Glenn Miller's Army Air forces Dance Band:

Here's a couple of tunes from some of the "Note's" recent tour performances/recordings that I attempt to solo on:

1.   The Airmen of Note's new CD "Airmen of Note Live!" is out and my consolation feature from "Out in Front" is on it. One of my favorite tunes, a McCoy tune called "Search for Peace." (192 KBs MP3, 11.6 MB)

2.   "All The Things You Are," (256 KBs MP3, 8.05MB) recorded on Alan Baylock Jazz Orchestra's 2008 release, Eastern Standard Time. More 'lino quotes at 1:55 and 2:30. I mean, there's really no way a trombonist can play ATTYA and not quote Frank right? All the same, at this rate his estate's probably going to start charging me for royalties if I don't chill on the Rosolino man love.

Now playing my trusty King 3B SilverSonic (still with the Marc 1.7ET Jiggs m'piece). Gets more punch when I lean on it whilst playing lead.

3.   Also from Alan's CD, "On Green Dolphin Street," (256 KBs MP3, 2.54MB).

4.   Here's a recording of "Winter Wonderland" (160 KBs MP3, 7.32MB) taken from the "2004 Holiday Card To the Troops", recorded live for broadcast in early December 2004 at the city of Montgomery, Alabama's annual Glenn Miller/holiday concert.

5.    The Note released "ĄTiempo Latino!" in November 2004 - here is my arrangement of Corcovado I did for the CD. I'm not particularly happy with the solo, but oh well.

Dig the Rosolino quote at 4:36. Heh.

6.    Here's a couple of choruses of Black Nile from the 2004 Spring Tour. Still on the King 2B Jiggs, however with a Marcinkiewicz 1.7ET Jiggs Whigham mouthpiece (yes, I am now playing all Jiggs Whigham-endorsed equipment. Now if I could only PLAY like Jiggs...).

I think this setup sounds a little brighter than any of my past equipment incarnations.

7.    On our April 2003 Spring Tour, we stuck a couple of trombone choruses in Neal Hefti's "Cute" - I thought the cup mute had a nice effect on this one, even though I got a little "notey". (I'm still learning to resist overplaying on up-tempo stuff - it's a work in progress here, folks)

(By the way, for those of you who are keeping up with my latest equipment change, I switched to a new King 2B Jiggs Whigham model with an Elliott ST99C m'piece about a month before the tour. While I'm still getting used to it, it seems to be the best compromise for me, so far -- stay tuned for future equipment-geek rants.)

8.    Annette's For Sure from the Airmen of Note 2002 Spring Tour. Some deceptively awkward changes here.

9.    The Basie version of Ellington's In A Mellow Tone. This is me, clumsily paying homage to my idol, the great Lawrence Brown.

After my initial statement and the brass interlude, try picturing a really big friendly guy tromping through a room and inadvertently bumping into stuff and knocking it over, causing damage to people, furniture, small animals, whatever. This is what I think of when I hear me play this solo.

Again, a work in progress...

10.    Pennies From Heaven. This is the Kenton chart, recorded on the 2000 Airmen of Note CD, "Let's Dance". To my knowledge, this is the only Kenton chart the Note has ever recorded. We had to add extra trombones and trumpets to do the tune, as we only have 4/4.

11.    Little Sunflower from the 1999 Airmen of Note recording "Invitation". This was recorded when I was still playing my Bach 36, about a year before I went back to my .508 bore Williams model 6.

I included the whole first half of this tune just because I think it's a really cool Mike Tomaro arrangement and I like it.

(These cuts are MP3's which can be played with any media recorder, one of which being MusicMatch Jukebox)

I recently came across video from the year I toured with Maynard Ferguson -- looking at this video reminded me what a wonderful experience it was, what great players I had the opportunity to play with, and what a really beautiful person "boss" is.

1. A Night in Tunisia (.wmv/9.05 MB), part of a live telecast from Bern, Switzerland. I kid you not that the only thing I remember about this is how cool the hotel was and how much fun I had hanging out with Joe Barati. Joe introduced me to running - the first time I went running was with him on another European trip; I didn't have running shoes so I wore my bright red original Air Jordans. People were staring at me like the freak I am.

I ran into my roommate on the road with MF at IAJE recently, the great pianist Christian Jacob. X is currently working as Tierney Sutton's pianist and music director - the Airmen of Note are hosting Tierney in the 2005 Jazz Heritage Series this fall, so it will be great to see Christian again...

Hipster Spacemen was an East Coast jazz sextet founded by me, fellow Note trumpeter Tim Leahey, and Navy Commodore saxophonist Luis Hernandez that played in the DC area up until around 2000. Our repertoire was best be explained by saying that the music of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers is our point of departure. The Hipster Spacemen were:

            Joe Jackson - trombone
            Tim Leahey - trumpet
            Luis Hernandez - tenor saxophone
            Wade Beach - piano
            Dominic Smith - drums
            Steve Novosel - bass

Check out some cuts from the Hipster Spacemen demo CD:

1.    Caravan

2.    This One's For Albert

3.    Gemini

(These cuts are for RealPlayer. Click below if you don't have it.)