was a wonderful time last night/making music/many people listening/
thank you all/deep bass Tim/appreciation/grateful grace/getting there/ 
where music takes us...MGJ

MICHAEL GREGORY JACKSON with bassist Tim Webb

Parma Music Festival Thursday, 8.14.14 6PM to 7PM

Portsmouth Music and Arts Center, Portsmouth NH

Michael Gregory Jackson is an internationally acclaimed jazz, blues and rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, composer, poet, and producer who has worked with everyone from Nile Rodgers to Oliver Lake to Walter Becker and many more.

Bassist Tim Webb has been making music throughout New England for more than 20 years, having performed and/or recorded with Equal Time, Eddie Gale, Dick Griffin, Francis Dunnery, Tom Snow, and Charlie Jennison, among many others.

©7.25.14 Michael Gregory Jackson

my guitar is speaking, screaming, shouting, 
soaring, flashing speckles and splashes, 
brash tones, spraying shimmering splintered 
shards of sparkling pulsing crystals,
rotating blades, shredding upwards, 
motions and emotions stretching outwards,
ideas surge, accelerate then float freely 
through the multi-hued genre pool…
after trekking over the red hot coals,
the arrival at the end is always way cool,
then suddenly, it all becomes very clear,
when I realize I smile, yeah, it’s not the end,
it's just a turn, bend or inlet or some vast
intriguing place to land, soil to dig in,
discover, uncover, behold the treasure,
embrace the pleasure of diving deep,
here now, we will breathe and expand,
maybe forever, or for just a moment or two.

My heartfelt thanks to Ra-Kalam Bob Moses, and Niels Praestholm for being 2/3rds of my Clarity TRiO! It was a very special evening of music... born of friendship, respect empathy, diligence, love, passion and joy. Gargantuan thanks to Drika at The Dance Hall Kittery for your gracious hospitality and putting on a great event. So happy to meet all of the wonderful people that came out to hear us! Really looking forward to next time.

TONIGHT! It's On! See you there!
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/688669

MICHAEL GREGORY JACKSON’S CLARITY TriO

The Dance Hall, Kittery ★ Saturday May 31, 2014 8PM 

7 Walker St, Kittery, ME 03904 207-703-2083 

www.thedancehallkittery.org ★ www.michaelgregoryjackson.com

“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. 

Oh yes, the joy of playing music, traveling onward and upward, outward and inward. It was on last night in Portsmouth, NH...Thank you Tim Webb, you played beautiful bass with me. Thank you to everyone that came out/shared tranquil, passionate and soaring energy with us. MGJ