D.D. Jackson: Conversin’ With My Younger Self
Ottawa-born, NYC-area-based, Juno and multi-Emmy-winning jazz pianist/composer D.D. Jackson is back with his project Conversin’ With My Younger Self featuring the D.D. Jackson Trio—soon to be the debut release of the new Canadian Sky Records label (Spring/27). Conversin’ With My Younger Self will feature unreleased original compositions from the start of his career, including works shaped by his studies with the late Don Pullen, bridging the fire and youthfulness of his early years, reimagined from a more seasoned lens. Jackson is joined in his trio by Baltimore mainstays Obasi Akoto on bass and Eric Kennedy on drums.
“Goodbye” — D.D. Jackson Trio, live at Blues Alley, Washington D.C. (July 17, 2026). All music by D.D. Jackson.
More from Blues Alley, Washington D.C. — July 16–17, 2026 (4 shows). All compositions by D.D. Jackson.
Downloadable audio mp3 versions of videos:
↓ “Goodbye” (mp3, 15 MB)
↓ “Going Home” (mp3, 9 MB)
↓ “Better Angels” (mp3, 14 MB)
“A wonderful and ambitious blending of terrific jazz and fine Canadian poetry compiled by pianist/composer D.D. Jackson with amazing attention to mood and message. A true Canadian classic.”— Winnipeg Free Press [on Poetry Project]
“There’s the kinetic jazz pianist D.D. Jackson, for instance, about whom the drummer complained, ‘I never get to enjoy playing with him because I’m too busy trying to top him. Damn you, D.D., I’m hurting.’”— Questlove, Wall Street Journal
“An extraordinary pianist whose technical bravura is matched by a capacious hunger for adventure.”— Gary Giddins, the Village Voice
“The score is a powerful, identifiably Jacksonesque effort full of energy, rhythm, and flourish…”— Mark Miller, The Globe and Mail [on the opera Québécité]
“Jackson’s creation is an impressive montage of controlled chaos, exciting solo work and promise of things to come: a febrile fusion of futuristic jazz, contemporary classical, streetwise funk and Afro-Cuban sensuality.”— Harvey Siders, Jazz Times [on Suite for New York]
“They should have called it ‘Stand Back, Here Comes D.D. Jackson.’ This passionate young Canadian pianist sounds like a state-of-the-art player piano exceeding the limits of human performance.”— Steve Guttenberg, Audio [on the Juno-winning …so far]
Ottawa-born, New York–area-based jazz pianist and composer D.D. Jackson is a Juno winner, a two-time Emmy winner, and a veteran of some of modern jazz’s most adventurous bands. In spring 2027 he returns with Conversin’ With My Younger Self, the debut release of the new Canadian Sky Records label, featuring his trio with Baltimore mainstays Obasi Akoto on bass and Eric Kennedy on drums.
Already performing with orchestras by the age of 13, Jackson trained classically at Indiana University before jazz drew him to New York: a Masters at the Manhattan School of Music under the legendary Jaki Byard, then a formative apprenticeship with the great Don Pullen (Byard and Pullen both alumni of Charles Mingus’s historic bands). “Discovered” at his Montreal International Jazz Festival debut alongside David Murray, he went on to record and tour the world with a litany of jazz greats, from Murray and Jack DeJohnette to Billy Bang and James Carter, and later with Questlove and The Roots, appearing with them at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden. Along the way came fourteen albums as leader or co-leader (on Canada’s Justin Time and the major label BMG), earning five Juno nominations and a win for the solo piano album …so far, plus two operas written with librettist and Canada’s former Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke, including Québécité, based loosely on the story of Jackson’s Chinese-born mother and African-American father. As he settled down with family, Jackson made a sharp pivot into writing for television, winning two Emmy Awards for PBS’s Peg + Cat and composing for The Wonder Pets and Sesame Street, while earning accolades as an award-winning professor at NYU and Brooklyn College.
The road back to the bandstand began mid-pandemic, when a 2021 commission from Clarke grew into Poetry Project (2024), a Canada Council-supported collection featuring five Juno-winning performers, ranked the #2 jazz album of 2024 by the Winnipeg Free Press. Conversin’ With My Younger Self brings that homecoming full circle: a new studio album of original music in dialogue with the young pianist Jackson once was, road-tested by the trio onstage at Washington, D.C.’s historic Blues Alley, where this EPK’s live footage was filmed.
Commanding bassist, composer, and jazz educator rooted in bebop, post-bop, and the avant-garde. Akoto leads the weekly Bright Moments jam session at Baltimore’s Keystone Korner, one of the city’s most vital platforms for the jazz community, and leads the Oceanic Jazz Orchestra. A regular presence on Baltimore’s jazz scene, performing with and mentoring musicians across generations.
Baltimore native and 2023 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero. Drummer, vocalist, and multi-percussionist who has performed and recorded with Gary Bartz, Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Heath, Phil Woods, Bobby Watson, Cyrus Chestnut, and David Murray. The final drummer and vocalist of the National Heritage Award–winning Holmes Brothers. Adjunct faculty at Peabody Conservatory and Towson University.
High-resolution images for print and web. Click to view full size.
Booking or additional inquiries, please contact:
dd@ddjackson.comor call/text:
646-250-3132
D.D. Jackson