Press Quotes

“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.”

“This is a stunningly beautiful and effective ‘patchwork’ album, an essential curiosity that we wholeheartedly recommend!”

“A classy comeback for a great Canadian artist we’d lost touch with for a while.”

“As this drama moves from the intimately personal to the global doomscroll of alienation, dislocation, migration and war, Jackson tightens the screws then explodes into a piano solo of tragic grandeur. If you want to compare this staggering performance to the songs of the Armenian composer Komitas or to Shostakovich’s settings of Tsvetayeva, you’ll get no argument from this corner.”

“D.D. Jackson is, at his best, the most inventive pianist under 50, dashing across the keyboard with preternatural speed yet never losing his classical grace and precision or his left-hand bluesy roots…”

“An extraordinary pianist whose technical bravura is matched by a capacious hunger for adventure.”

“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.’”

“[David Murray’s] band for the Vanguard dates includes the pianist D.D. Jackson, a former Murray sideman who’s also been missing on the scene for a couple of decades. I asked him after the set where he’s been. Turns out he’s been composing music for children’s television, for which he’s won some Emmy Awards and, presumably, some decent paychecks. …Meanwhile, he’s lost none of his brilliance, whether mad-dashing across the keyboard (he was an acolyte of Don Pullen, whose legacy he embodies with fine flair), comping with deep lyricism, or…well, anything the occasion demands. I hope Murray’s return means Jackson’s as well.”

“New to me was D.D. Jackson: a Juno Award-winning Canadian jazz composer and pianist who wowed the audience with a spiky improvisation on a Scott Joplin rag, then switched to the Hammond B3 to perform his arrangement of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, taking flight on the organ while the Metropolis players tried to keep up.”

“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.”

“The score is a powerful, identifiably Jacksonesque effort full of energy, rhythm, and flourish…”

“One pianist who doesn’t use post-production and overdubbing is Canadian D.D. Jackson, whose Live at Freedom of Sound is exactly as advertised. It features the Ottawa-native improvising on his own compositions plus one by his mentor, the late pianist Don Pullen. Jackson’s tunes include ones like ‘Tunnel Vision’ which wed a waterfall of glissandi to a bluesy backbeat that also strike the instrument’s wood. It’s both soulful and sophisticated as it surges ahead with room left for strident plinking detours.”

“Jackson and Stewart first played together with David Murray’s Octet and have an obvious rapport. The duo opened with a hard-swinging and joyous version of ‘Monk’s Dream’ that was both forward-looking and reminiscent of a musical era that predated the Thelonious Monk composition. It was perhaps the highlight of the evening.”

“Swinging, immediate and risk-taking, Sigame is everything a great jazz album should be.”

“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. ‘…So Far’ is clearly a contender for jazz record of the year. Don’t miss it.”