JOE JACKSON - The City Neurotic

22. October 2015

Joe Jackson

JOE JACKSON - The City Neurotic

Joe Jackson always surprises the interviewer anew, answers some questions as succinctly as possible or not at all, others in epic breadth. But the Englishman's career from the late seventies to the present day has also been so exciting. If you thought he was firmly on a certain musical steamer, he had long since hired somewhere else again and set off in a new direction.

As an intellectual New Waver with the Joe Jackson Band successfully started into the music business, his spectrum expanded: Swing, blues, jazz, classical. His last album "The Duke" (2012) was dedicated to the work of Duke Ellington. Jackson, a cosmopolitan for many years, has many sources of inspiration - not only musical - as his new work, the four-city album "Fast Forward", proves.

eclipsed: Originally you wanted to release four different EPs instead of one complete album. Why did you bundle the material and publish it?

Joe Jackson: That felt more right. Despite all the differences, everything has come together to form a complete work.

eclipsed: You have worked with different musicians in different cities. That's why this provides for a different approach or sound in each case. Did you write certain songs for certain musicians, or did you let yourself be influenced by the respective city?

Jackson: The sound is influenced by all these factors, but I wouldn't go so far that the interpretation of each song outshines the actual song. They are ultimately my songs and arrangements. And I'll play them live with other musicians soon. Bass player Graham Maby, who was in New York, is in my live band again.

eclipsed: But if you recorded the songs in New Orleans with the local band Galatic and a brass ensemble, it has a lot to do with the city?

Jackson: These are the consciously and purposefully chosen factors that should enrich my songs.

Lesen Sie mehr im eclipsed Nr. 175 (November 2015).