“MICHAEL GREGORY JACKSON’S CLARITY TriO”
Comes to the Kittery Dance Hall, with Jackson on guitars, Rakalam Bob Moses on drums and Niels Præstholm on bass, each exceptional, internationally acclaimed musicians in their own right, for a night of moving and powerful music. The list of musicians that these three have worked with collectively reads like a who’s who from the spectrum of musical genres: Pat Metheny, Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Herbie Hancock, Nile Rodgers, Jack Dejohnette, Larry Coryell, Keith Jarrett, Vernon Reid and Clark Terry, to name just a few. This will be a night to remember!
“Michael Gregory Jackson is one of the best cats I've ever heard.” -Pat Metheny -Wire Magazine
"Michael Gregory Jackson is a huge influence on me, he blew my mind when I first heard him. He did things sonically with the guitar that I'd never heard.” -Bill Frisell -Down Beat
Michael Gregory Jackson composer and master guitarist has been called one of the most influential guitarists to emerge during New York’s avant-garde loft jazz scene. Michael has tread a winding musical path embracing everything from creative music, free jazz, blues, rock, improvised music, electronica soundscapes to harmonically rich and lyrically-deep vocal tunes, with the complex arrangements and subtleties that are a signature of his music.
Michael’s brilliant technique on electric and acoustic, flavored with quicksilver runs, volume pedal swells and sudden shifts, from crystalline melodic to fuzzy dissonance, has been name-checked as a critical-influence, and can be heard deep in the musical DNA of six-string legends like Bill Frisell, Vernon Reid, Marc Ribot, Mary Halvorsen and more.
His most recent release is a product of his European travels and teachings. “Liberty, (2013 Embla Music) features Jackson and the Art Ensemble Syd, a creative ensemble from Denmark. Of it jazz author Bob Gluck wrote “The music is deeply touching and even heartbreaking. It defies category (yay!)...I cannot stop listening to this recording. It is that good...one part New Orleans early jazz, another part Ornette Coleman ‘harmolodic’ syncronicity, and a third part jam band party.”
Michael has played and/or recorded with Julius Hemphill, Mick Jagger, Oliver Lake, Nile Rodgers, Will Calhoun, Wadada Leo Smith, Nona Hendryx, Jack Dejohnette, Steve Winwood, David Murray, Walter Becker, Simon Spang- Hanssen, Buster Williams, Carlos Santana, Marcus Miller, Henry Threadgill, Ntozake Shange, Omar Hakim, Vernon Reid, Rakalam Bob Moses, Patti LaBelle, Anthony Braxton, Anton Fig, Ed Blackwell and many others.
Rakalam Bob Moses, drummer, composer, artist, poet, dancer, visionary, nature and mystic. His life has been a continuous quest for vision, spirit, compassion, growth, and mastery in a multiplicity of art forms.
"Leave it to Moses, a multi-directional shamanistic groovilator, to put all the pieces together. On “Time Stood Still”, another sprawling production of DeMille-ian scale, he seamlessly blends Monk, funk, tap, hip hop, bebop, big band, blues, Bahia, Tanzania, and the avant-garde into one organic package while paying homage to the spirits of Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Jaco Pastorius." -Bill Milkowski Down Beat
The list of artists he has played and/or recorded with as a leader and a sideman includes: Herbie Hancock, Tisziji Munoz, Pat Metheny, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jim Pepper, Larry Coryell, The Free Spirits, Dave Liebman, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett, Steve Swallow, Michael Gibbs, Lyle Mays, Paul Bley and many others.

Niels Præstholm is a bassist, visionary composer, adventurous improviser, and a strong organizational force on the Danish jazz scene. With his groups Embla, The Gyroscope String Trio and Art Ensemble Syd (South).
“Bassist and composer Niels Praestholm employs a genuine, delightfully off, sound, which he creates with his instrumentation. There is no trace of the reverence and solemnity often heard in the so-called Nordic sound. There is a vivid energy in the up tempo tracks that makes the music burn...the music has a down to earth timbre of life.” -Boris Rabinowitch, Politiken (Denmark)
Praestholm has played and/or recorded with Kenny Drew, John Tchicai, Horace Parlan, Michael Gregory Jackson, Rakalam Bob Moses, Lee Konitz, Django Bates, Dave Liebman, Doug Hammond, Teddy Wilson, Kresten Osgood, Richard Boone, Ed Thigpen, Clark Terry, Rudy Smith, Simon Spang-Hanssen, Pierre Dorge, The New Jungle Orchestra, Ernie Wilkins, Benny Waters, Sahib Shihab and many more.
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