Franz Jackson (November 1, 1912 – May 6, 2008) was an American saxophonist and clarinetist of the Chicago jazz school and was credited by many as being one of the last survivors of a long-vanished era in American music.
Jackson was born in Rock Island, Illinois, and moved to Chicago with his widowed mother when he was 13. She told the ex-Fletcher Henderson saxophonist Jerome Don Pasquall about her son and he agreed to give him lessons. Jackson was soon playing the saxophone professionally, initially with pianist Albert Ammons's group, touring the black community . He then went to the Chicago Musical College to learn to arrange, opening up options for employment with Chicago's top bands. These included an all-star orchestra led by pianist Cassino Simpson and others fronted by Carroll Dickerson and the great New Orleans clarinetist Jimmy Noone. Known as a decent clarinetist himself, Jackson said of Noone: "His sound was so beautiful that he made my efforts sound like I was playing a set of plumbing pipes."
In 1937, Jackson joined star trumpeter Roy Eldridge's big band as tenor-saxophone soloist and was then "poached" by Henderson to replace Ben Webster. Tiring eventually of travelling, Jackson returned home to Chicago to spend time with his new wife, yet soon rejoined Eldridge at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York, moving on, in 1940, to tour with the marvellous Earl Hines orchestra.
Here's "Alabama Jubilee" from above album
In 1945 he went into electronics full time, then embarked on tours entertaining U.S. troops abroad with his USO band in the Pacific, and visited Europe with his vocalist wife, culminating in a year-long stay in Sweden. This energetic man then took up the bassoon before returning finally to Chicago in 1950.
Jackson put his tenor-saxophone away for 10 years, polished up his clarinet technique and formed the Original Jazz All-Stars in 1956. This resolutely traditional jazz ensemble included a number of significant veteran players who had been active in the heyday of classic jazz in Chicago in the 1920s. Jackson also anticipated a trend when he formed his own record label, Pinnacle Records. There followed yet more tours to Vietnam and Alaska, before Jackson began to travel as a soloist, using tenor and soprano saxophones, including a number of visits to Britain in the 1980s.
He moved to Dowagiac, Michigan in 1975 and formed another band, the Jazz Entertainers in 1980, that he used through the ’80s and into the ’90s. Jackson routinely devoted his time to providing a "living experience" education to music students at colleges and universities throughout the Midwest including Columbia College, the University of Notre Dame, Southwestern Michigan College, Bethel College and Valparaiso University.
He continued to appear regularly at venues and festivals in Chicago and other Midwest cities well into his 90s. Jackson held a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, which he achieved at the age of 76, and studied Oriental philosophy. He received numerous awards and commendations for his long-standing and ongoing contribution to the music industry and continued to travel overseas annually to perform for various events and festivals in Europe and Israel.
He was honoured with the Midwest Arts Jazz Grant in 1996, interviewed by Studs Terkel for Steppenwolf Theater's TRAFFIC series on improvised music in 1997, appeared on the Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keller in 2002 and was featured on the cover of Chicago Jazz Magazine in 2004.
He was honoured in 2005 as one of the five world's greatest living jazz saxophonists by the American Heritage Jazz Series and received the Jazz Institute's Walter Dyett Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He was also nominated for the 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Fellowship and was featured at the 2007 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Relishing the mantle of "Chicago jazz legend", Jackson continued to appear with every kind of group around town, some traditional, others uncompromisingly modern, for the remainder of his career. Shortly after his 2007 birthday concert, at age 95, Franz stopped playing after a fall that resulted in a broken hip.
Jackson died in Niles, Michigan, on May 6, 2008. Through dozens of recordings, and the collective memories of his many fans, he will continue to keep this era alive in the spirit of all who are fortunate enough to hear him.
(Edited from The Guardian, Dowagiac News, Wikipedia & Syncopated Times)