Paul Jackson

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Paul Jackson is an American jazz bass guitarist. He has played with many of the great jazz artists, most notably playing bass on Herbie Hancock's seminal album, Head Hunters.

Born in Oakland, California in 1947, Paul Jackson began playing bass at the age of nine. Considered by many of his teachers to be a musical prodigy, he performed with the Oakland Symphony by the age of fourteen where he expanded his musical interests to include performance levels on bassoon and piano. He went on to study with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He also taught seminars in institutions such as A.N. Contemporary of Music (Tokyo), Pan School of Music (Tokyo), Musashino School of Music (Tokyo), Berklee College of Music (Boston), University of California Santa Cruz and San Jose State. Jackson was a founding member of the Headhunters under Herbie Hancock. The union between Hancock and Jackson has been especially evident in the many international tours they have made together. In 1979, Paul released his own album, Black Octopus on Toshiba EMI Records. Jackson's composing has granted him Grammy Award Nominations in 1974, 1975 and 1976 for songwriting "Chameleon", "Hang Up Your Hang-ups" and "Spider", respectively. He has also played on the soundtracks for Paramount Pictures movies "Death Wish" and "Dirty Harry". He was a music director for the touring company of "Don't Bother, I can't Cope", spent a year and a half with the Radio Free Europe and has appeared with the Oakland Symphony as well as Herbie Hancock on Midnight Special (ABC-TV).

Time out to compose the score for film and other projects was sandwiched in between appearing with the band's numerous jazz festivals such as the Pori, Montreux, Newport and Paris. Since 1985, Jackson moved his residence to Japan and continued to be active in many aspects of the Japanese music scene. Live concerts with nation-famous artists such as Char, Tsutomu Yamashita and Sadao Watanabe have been performed in between composing/arranging music for TV commercial films and movies. In 1987, Jackson started one of his life-long projects, "Jazz for Kids", which is a voluntary concert performed at Japanese schools with an aim to introduce American black history through music and slide presentation. More than 80 schools across Japan has been visited by Jackson and his band, which has been introduced on Japanese TV station NHK.

In 1998, the long-awaited reunion of the Headhunters was materialized with a release of The Return of the Headhunters. The Headhunters with Herbie Hancock made a successful tour through the U.S. and Europe in summer and autumn of that year. Since autumn of 2001, Jackson moved from Tokyo to the western part of Japan and continues to be active in the music scene in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. The Blue Note tour across Japan with Mike Clark and Jack Walrath from the U.S. and Char in March, 2002 was a success.

In conjunction with the release of the following by the Headhunters, Evolution Revolution in April, 2003, the Headhunters' tour across the United States took place in August, 2003.

External links

• Paul Jackson official website