To say that Michael Gregory Jackson is a well-known guitarist who has influenced many others is something of an understatement. Pat Metheny said, *”I have always considered him to be one of the most significantly original guitarists of our generation,” while another guitar icon, Bill Frisell, noted, “I first heard Michael Gregory Jackson in 1975 when I moved to Boston. He blew my mind and influenced me a lot. I believe he’s one of the unsung innovators.” And legendary music critic Robert Palmer wrote of Jackson in Rolling Stone, “By the time he was twenty-one he was already the most original jazz guitarist to emerge since the Sixties.” Here he has been joined by Niels Praestholm (bass), Simon Spang-Hanssen (alto & soprano saxophones) and Matias Wolf Andreason (drums), and between them, they created an album based on jazz but moving in many different directions. Jackson states his influences are Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Son House, Igor Stravinsky, and John Coltrane in equal amounts, not a mix of musicians one would normally put together. Jackson isn’t content with playing “just” guitar, and there are times when it is blues harmonica which is adding the most important dynamics to a section. For the most part, he is happy for Spang-Hanssen to take the lead role, just sitting behind him and then adding touches and solos when the time is right. Praestholm is the person who keeps it all tied together, while Andreason switches between keeping the perfect beat and creating dramatic percussion rhythms which takes the music into new directions. This is fresh, exciting, sometimes built around repeated melodies (such as on “Blue Blue”), while at others it is avant garde and extreme. Far easier to listen to than many albums which attempt to stretch boundaries, it is full of light and joyfulness which is palpable. This is also available through Bandcamp, so why not have a listen and then decide for yourself.
8/10 Kev Rowland