DownBeat December 1999 [antikvár]

CABLE WAREHOUSE irsHotm Great for those big jobs and music stores! PREPACKAGED 10 Ft • 15 Ft. • 20 Ft. Instrument Cables Pedalboard Effects Kit CUSTOMIZED GEAR Mix and match your CABLE TO PLUGS Straight or Right Angle Plugs with Cable by the foot Clean Clear Sound !t's just the Effect You've Been Looking For Cables • Pickups • Plugs 615-868-6976 www.georgel8.com In our November cover feature, Mih Jackson said lhal lie was "feeling very well, coming along jusl fine, thank you." And the vibraphonisl meanl it. He had been struggling wilh liver cancer, but when Bags sat down for his interview wilh his friend and neighbor Jon Faddis, he was looking forward lo plenty more years of making his vibes sing. He even talked about plans to write his memoirs, appropriately tided Bags' Groove, after his signature song. So when Jackson died Oct. 9 from his cancer in a Manhattan hospital, only a couple of days after the November Down Beat hit the newsstands, il sent waves through our oiifices, just as it did throughout the music world. "We were all shocked at Bags' passing," said trumpeter/bandleader Faddis. "But he went in his sleep and at the wake he looked at peace." Jackson's wdfe. Sandy, told us that Milt had a chance to see the magazine in the hospital before he passed away, which He movt.'d lo New York City in 194.') at the urging of Dizzy (iillespie, who heard Jackson in Detroit. Gillespie offered the vibist a spot in his sextet, and shortly thereafter a spot in his big band. In 1951. Jackson joined the other members of Gillespie's big band rhythm section (pianist John Lewis, drummer Kenny Milt Jackson: 1923-1999 gave all of us a reason to smile. We hope that it gave him a little comfort in his last days. And we wish that he could have seen this issue announcing his long overdue Induction into the Down Beat Hall of Fame (see Page 6). Wlien Faddis indicated to us last summer that he wanted to interview Jackson for the cover of the magazine, he mentioned that Bags had never been on tlie magazine's cover. Well, he actually had been on a couple of times—^July 6. 1961, and Aug. 29. 1963—but it made sense that after 36 years, one of Ihe pioneers of bebop, still active on stage and in the studio, deserved another cover. Jackson's career started in Detroit, where he began playing Ihe vibes in higli school. With a love for singers. Jackson made the vibes enuilale Ihe human voice by slowing down its oscillator. Clarke and bassist Ray Brown) to form the Modern Jazz Quartet. Connie Kay replaced Clarke on drums and Percy Heath replaced Brown, and this core group performed together for more than 40 years, until Kay died in 1995. Bags recorded with the likes of Thelonious Monk. Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. and in 1981 he made the album Ahi't But A Few OfVs Left. "Doing that CD means that we're gradually losing so many originators of the music tlwt I felt that I had to mention that fact," Jackson said in the November interview. "Tlie youngsters aren't into the music the way we were, so that puts a special dimensioji on emphasizing bebop. 'Cause it is veiy special." i*® Artwork from "Ttie Jazz toasters Series by BRUNI," (408) 370-4700 by jason koransky M Oof;ornbor KJ«') DOWN RrAl