Javon Jackson: Jackson Plays Dylan
An album review of a stunning set of jazz instrumentals of Bob Dylan classic. It works. It really works!
Javon Jackson
Jackson Plays Dylan
Palmetto Records
The world doesn’t need any more full albums of Bob Dylan covers, I thought, right before I heard this.
The decision to make an album of Dylan covers that is almost entirely instrumental is perverse enough to get Bob’s attention I would say; he used to threaten his own instrumental album at interviewers, either as a joke or cheap trick or real aspiration, or most likely some weird combination of all. But as yet, we haven’t had that.
But thankfully we now have this!
Javon Jackson is a real-deal tenor saxman, he was a member of the final iteration of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the late 80s, and since then has released a couple dozen albums as a leader, and sided on a few others too. His ace team here includes Jeremy Manasia (piano), Ryan Sands (drums) and Isaac Levien (bass), and just as it might start to feel a little like the 60s combos that Coltrane and Sonny and Cannonball were all leading, we have two vocal cameos to shake it up. First, the wonderful Lisa Fischer (longtime Rolling Stones backing vocalist, and jazz/soul singer in her own right) gives us a deep rendition of Gotta Serve Somebody, its arrangement, and her vocals both hinting at how Cassandra Wilson reinterprets pop and rock standards. And then Nicole Zuraitis (also a pianist and arranger) gives a slight Madeleine Peyroux vibe to Forever Young.
Those two vocal cuts do a fantastic job of breaking things up, of reminding us that Dylan is a vocalist and lyric writer and his songs do deserve to be heard with attention to those areas, but also as side one and side two “interludes” to the enormity, artistry, ferocity, and fired-up brilliance of the instrumental versions.
The record kicks off with a Javon original, One For Bob Dylan, a loping little loop of shuffling blues, which hints at the musical themes to come, showcases the band’s instrumentalists in a never-too-flashy but dynamic way, and sets up the masterstroke of the way the tunes are then woven into place. There’s a very definite, deliberate placement of these songs, the titles charting a narrative history.
I don’t even want to hear Bob Dylan’s original of Blowin’ In The Wind these days. I’m done with it. I get its importance, but yeah, I’m good. And yet, somehow, this jazz instrumental has me agog. It’s like when Charlie Hunter gave Nirvana a shot of acoustic boogaloo in the 90s. It’s also a bit like those chaotic but wondrous collaborations between Charles Lloyd and Lucinda Williams from about a decade ago (Masters of War in particular).
Blowin’ is evoked in Javon’s original, and then we move into hearing the real thing, and it’s so subtle, and so artfully done.
To Hurricane next, a song that’s propulsive narrative drives the song so heavily you don’t stop to fully fact check it. Here it’s a slinky wee groove thing, which benefits from keeping the tone of the original’s melody and lead lines, though transposed from gypsy violin to a cool-jazz sax waft.
Then it’s time for Lisa Fischer’s rendition of Gotta Serve Somebody, which belongs next to Bettye LaVette’s late career covers too. It also allows us the first chance to hear this band slip back into being a full backing unit, not just a rhythm section setting up a soloist; they are wonderful players, and these are some of the best songs ever written — so the treat is obvious. And yet still exquisite.
Lay, Lady, Lay is another oft-covered Dylan classic, and this version should please fans of Flea’s covers of Wichita Lineman and Frank Ocean’s Thinkin About You. Jackson is mellifluous, and bassist Levien provides so much warmth for this ‘cool’ sax to float across.
These are all big-ticket Dylan songs, no obscure album cuts, which is sometimes the way with Bob covers projects. So next up, it’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ and this version feels like a nod back to The Keith Jarrett Trio taking on My Back Pages. It also should work well for anyone that’s heard Brad Mehldau tinkle his way around covers of Paul Simon and Radiohead, and a great many artists. It’s Manasia’s moment to really shine in the intro as his delicate piano sets it all up for Jackson.
Ryan Sands gets his moment to really show off his chops on the rollicking rendition of Tombstone Blues —
— he’s Joe Morello-like in the way he plays a solo as a set of fills across the band vamping; this is his Take Five, without taking anything from the energy of the piece, and only ever giving more to it.
Like A Rolling Stone, Mr. Tambourine Man, and To Make You Feel My Love are the three to send us home, and there’s all sorts of associations a Dylan fan can play at with the way the songs are lined up on this album, Blowin’ In The Wind followed by Hurricane; Gotta Serve Somebody, Lay Lady Lay, The Times They Are A Changin’, Forever Young, and Tombstone Blues forming the big hinge of the album, and a real narrative thread by title alone.
This is masterful jazz, so much so that a person familiar with any of these players and somehow not at all interested in Dylan will still find plenty to love.
But honestly, the Dylan songs are stamped on society, time and date, but drifting ethereally also. So by the end of this album, Jackson’s horn is essentially a voice, he’s not just melodically stating Rolling Stone and Tambourine Man, we can pretty much feel his sound as the ‘voice’. And one thing so many have always said about Dylan covers is that they like hearing them in anything but Dylan’s own voice. Well, I could never agree with that, Bob’s one of the towering and most influential and imitated of vocalists across the 20th Century and now well into the 21st. He gave licence to so many.
But this sure is a fucking amazing album. The best full set of Dylan covers I’ve ever heard.
