[Dixielandjazz] Franz Jackson Obit Chicago Tribune

[Stephen G Barbone]

One of the last of the first generation jazzmen,  legendary Chicago  
saxophonist Franz Jackson passed away at age 95 - He worked with such  
jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton

By Howard Reich - Tribune critic - May 8, 2008

Few jazz musicians in the 21st Century can claim to have known the two  
key inventors of the music: trumpeter Louis Armstrong and composer- 
pianist Jelly Roll Morton.




Franz Jackson, legendary Chicago saxophonist who performed past his  
95th birthday, worked with Armstrong, socialized with Morton and  
collaborated with Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Fletcher  
Henderson and other swing-era icons.

As a virtuoso saxophonist, brilliant clarinetist and evocative  
vocalist, Mr. Jackson was a mainstay in Chicago jazz clubs and concert  
halls dating back to the Roaring '20s (except for a period in the late  
1930s and '40s, when he lived in New York and Sweden).

Mr. Jackson, 95, died of natural causes early Tuesday, May 6, in  
Riveridge Manor, a nursing home in Niles, Mich., said his daughter,  
Michelle Jewell. He had suffered a hip fracture in April, she said.

Though listeners marveled at Mr. Jackson's ability to play so well for  
so long—he performed for more than two hours straight at a 95th  
birthday celebration last November—it was the particular nature of his  
sound that always commanded attention.

"When I think of Franz, I just think of a big, powerful saxophone,"  
said Eric Schneider, a Chicago tenor player who frequently performed  
with Mr. Jackson.

"He reminded me of Coleman Hawkins," added Schneider, referring to a  
seminal tenor saxophonist of a more romantic era. "But he had his own  
thing too."

Indeed, if Mr. Jackson embraced the larger-than-life sound that was  
the hallmark of swing giants Hawkins and Ben Webster, he also  
incorporated elements of the more ethereal sounding tenorist Lester  
Young.

At the core of Mr. Jackson's music, though, was a deep well of soulful  
expression, conveyed in poetically stated melodies and touched-by-the- 
blues phrasings.

"He was the real thing—the authenticity of his playing" distinguished  
him, said Art Hoyle, a noted Chicago trumpeter who often partnered  
with Mr. Jackson. "He was virtually there when the music was in its  
infancy. When you talked to him, you were talking to history."

Mr. Jackson was born Nov. 1, 1912, in Rock Island, Ill., and came to  
Chicago with his mother when he was 13. He quickly began teaching  
himself to play reed instruments and at 16 was working with a pioneer  
of boogie-woogie piano, Albert Ammons. By the early 1930s, Mr. Jackson  
was playing for bandleader-composer Henderson—widely considered the  
architect of big-band swing—and learning to write scores from him.

"That was a great time to be with Fletcher, too, because he was doing  
a lot of [arranging] work for Benny Goodman's band at the time," Mr.  
Jackson said in a 1992 Tribune interview. "Basically, he was taking  
his great old charts and rewriting them for the Goodman band."

Mr. Jackson's education continued apace, for by performing with  
Armstrong, trumpeter Roy Eldridge and other innovators based in  
Chicago, Mr. Jackson absorbed the language of early jazz as it was  
being created and refined.

He moved to New York with his first wife, Maxine Johnson, in the late  
1930s, but he found the jazz scene there cliquish. Even so, in  
Manhattan he befriended the virtually out-of-work Morton, in the  
waning days of the great composer's life.

By 1950, Mr. Jackson returned to Chicago, leading his Original Jass  
All-Stars for years at the Red Arrow club in Stickney. Although many  
musicians of his vintage rejected the bebop innovations that  
supplanted swing, Mr. Jackson absorbed them into his own, remarkably  
malleable work.

"A lot of guys didn't like it when bebop came along, but I liked it  
fine," Mr. Jackson said in the Tribune interview. "I could understand  
it because I knew the bebop guys like Dizzy [Gillespie] before they  
became famous; I played with them."

Even into his 90s, Mr. Jackson remained a strikingly charismatic  
figure, singing vintage tunes such as "St. James Infirmary" and  
"Limehouse Blues" with a vocal grit and a declamatory style rarely  
encountered anymore. In a marathon concert with the Chicago Jazz  
Ensemble three years ago in Chicago, he held his own against tenor  
monsters such as Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman and Ira Sullivan.

"He did exactly what he loved his entire life, he made a living at it,  
he raised his family on it," said his daughter. "If I have one regret,  
it's that he's not more widely known," she said, though Mr. Jackson's  
recordings—on labels such as Delmark and his own Pinnacle Recordings— 
are available on his Web site: franzjackson.com.

"But he was the heart of jazz."

On May 15, Mr. Jackson—who lived in Chicago and Dowagiac, Mich.—will  
posthumously receive the 2008 Theodore Thomas History Maker Award for  
Distinction in the Performing Arts from the Chicago History Museum.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Jackson is survived by a son, Robert;  
five grandchildren; and a step-grandchild.

A memorial service will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. May 24 in the  
Apostolic Lighthouse Church in Dowagiac, Mich.

hreich at tribune.com