Darrell Grant

Always grateful to get time with these cats. Stay tuned for more MJ New in the coming year!

On the closing of Portland’s The 1905

On the closing of Portland’s The 1905 Four days ago, I and the rest of the Portland jazz community got word that The 1905, our city’s primary jazz club for the past several years, was closing its doors effective immediately. This, despite being recognized by Downbeat Magazine as “one of the world's top venues for live jazz in 2023,"...

It's good every so often to read something that makes me feel like I'm not crazy to think that change is possible. Today's gift was this opinion piece in the NYT from the Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra talking about the power of art in diplomacy. Some things that stood out:

"It may seem naïve to argue that a symphony orchestra can help solve the world’s problems. But a lifetime in music has convinced me that it’s not only worth the effort to try to do our part; it is our responsibility…

"What happened in Pyongyang, at minimum, was that a group of Americans and North Koreans, citizens of sworn enemies, sat in a room together for a couple of hours and listened to Dvorak, Gershwin and, as an encore, the Korean folk song “Arirang,” which is part of the soul of every Korean on either side of the Demilitarized Zone and caused many members of the audience to tear up. But it was so much more than that. The emotion of that shared occasion in the concert hall is forever etched in my mind and, I am sure, in the memory of all who were there. Diplomatically, politically and socially, we were far apart, but because of the music, we were humanized for each other, even for a short time. That is real progress."

So I will naively keep believing that it is worth it to try to get there Because the end of the story is not yet written.

Opinion | Cultural Diplomacy May Seem Pointless. That Won’t Stop Me. (Gift Article) While Chinese and American leaders meet in a contentious moment, the musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra and their Chinese counterparts find harmony.

"Anyone missing the artistry and elegance of the Modern Jazz Quartet will warm quickly to pianist Darrell Grant's MJ New... The temperament and musicianship on the album are excellent, as must be its over-all grade."

Many thanks to Jack Bowers and All About Jazz for spending time with Our Mr. Jackson.

Darrell Grant's MJ New: Our Mr. Jackson album review @ All About Jazz Darrell Grant's MJ New: Our Mr. Jackson album review by Jack Bowers, published on October 11, 2023. Find thousands jazz reviews at All About Jazz!

What should I do?

Although it pales before the immensity of the tragedy, I have been wrestling with this question since the Hamas attack on October 7th.

My website bio says I am “a creative artist who harnesses the power of music to create change.” Seven years ago, I co-founded an initiative at my university called “The Artist as Citizen,” wherein I try to help my students explore their agency, embrace their innate creativity, and learn to engage with community at the intersection of arts and social change.

Over the past four weeks, I’ve been struggling with how I bear witness to the most recent confluence of violence, retribution, anger, and suffering.

Around me, artists I admire are using their platforms to speak out—in impassioned pleas for a cease-fire, for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, for the safe return of hostages, for accountability from world governments.

As I scroll and click my affirmations of their courage and capacity to organize and mobilize others, any statement I imagine making—outsider that I am—feels facile and overly simplistic.

I also wonder: do the blog posts, songs, rallies, marches, and walkouts make a difference? Will they prod people out of passivity, inspire or shame politicians into action, bring hope or relief to the victims on both sides? Can they stop the bombs from raining down?

Thankfully, over the past week, some glimmers of insight have entered my tangle of indecision—mostly thanks to friends and colleagues who are asking similar questions.

One idea that’s giving me hope comes from writer Adrienne Maree Brown. In her book Emergent Strategies, she talks about emergence as "the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. It emphasizes critical connections, authentic relationships, listening with the body and the mind… in emergence, the whole is a mirror of the parts. fractal — the health of the cell is the health of the species and the planet.”

From this, I gather that my actions, though seemingly distant from the frontlines of the conflict, can still play a role in an emergent future. Even the simple act of taking care of myself and my relationships has ripples that replicate in unseen ways and subtly shift the direction of the whole. Change can arise from a distance.

"It would be surprising and somewhat disappointing if this brilliant performance doesn’t encourage the listener to revisit the originators of this quartet sound, the MJQ." — Jim Hynes for Making A Scene on Our Mr. Jackson

Long live the MJQ & thanks for seeing us so clearly, Jim!

📷: Vintage MJ New by Nina Johnson

Feels good to be part of the time honored tradition of selling records out of the back of a car. OMJ soon to be available at your favorite local record shops: Super Electric Records & Music Millennium.

Many thanks to Tom D'Antoni and Oregon Music News for taking the time to talk about the new album and remember our friend Carlton Jackson. 🔗👇🏿

Photo by Yaara Perczek, Mural by Latoya Lovely

Got my 1st cup in the new Spella Caffe. So grateful to have Andrea and company back in the heart of Portland 🙌🏿

Please join me in warming 's new space at 608 Alder Street.

AND! Today, MJ New's signature coffee blend is making its debut on Spella's website. Grab our signature mid-range roast inspired by salons of the Harlem Renaissance and autumn in New York with a nod to Bach’s Coffee Cantata while supplies last.

Wherever he goes, Drummer Cecil Brooks III leaves a legacy of class.

For a while after MJ New’s founding drummer, Carlton Jackson, passed away in 2021, I wasn’t sure if our group would continue. Then I remembered that Cecils Jazz Cecil Brooks III — drummer, producer, bandleader, stalwart of the New York scene in the 1990s, and someone with whom I had shared many miles (kilometers) on the road in the bands of Don Braden, Joris Teepe, and others — had moved to Los Angeles. I remembered that deep, enveloping swing feel (like riding in the back of a Bentley), the indomitable creative energy, the musical instincts and sense of taste that helped him advance the careers of some of the most notable musicians —”young lions” and jazz masters — of the past 30 years as a record producer. I remembered that he played on and produced my best-selling album to date—Twilight Stories. And remembering all of that, I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather fill the drum chair in the new MJ New.

📷: Lisa Hagen Glynn

It was October 17, 2013, when four tuxedo-clad gentlemen stepped out on stage at McMenamins Mission Theater to pay tribute to one of the most iconic jazz groups of the 20th century. Little did I know, we were launching a new 10-year collaboration — a partnership that would long outlast that initial concert, many miles in a minivan, anarchist jurisdictions, a global pandemic, a LOT of coffee, and the sudden loss of our founding drummer.

Less than a week shy of the tenth anniversary of our first gig, MJ New will celebrate the release of our debut album Our Mr. Jackson THIS THURSDAY.

I hope you can join us on October 12 at The Hallowed Halls for an intimate evening uplifting beauty, the blues, counterpoint, chamber music, and jazz. This show is made possible with the support of Tom and Sheila Smith and the partnership of Albina Music Trust. AMT's digital archive kiosk will be on-site, including a collection of Carlton Jackson memories. I am excited for you (and me!) to engage with this incredible preservation effort before its 2024 public release. And, while not a memorial, I am grateful for the band to have this opportunity to celebrate Carlton with our community.

We will have CDs and LPs available for sale, as well as bags of our signature MJ Brew coffee roasted by Portland’s own Andrea Spella at Spella Caffè, and a handful of prints of Chris McMurray's beautiful portrait that graces the album's cover.
📷: Lisa Hagen Glynn

If MJ New were a basketball team, Marcus Shelby would be our “big man” in the middle. Like Wilt Chamberlain, David Robinson, or Bill Russell, he is aware of everything that is going on the floor (or the bandstand). He generates the pulse, controls the tempo, and maintains the rhythmic flow. He is both rock steady and perpetually in motion. Marcus brings to bear the dexterity to play Percy Heath’s intricate baselines, the musical breadth to interpolate the music of Chopin, Bach, Williams-Grant Still, and Mary Lou Williams, and the historical understanding that grounds everything we do upon the foundation in the blues. He is a scholar of everything from the history of the Negro baseball leagues to the music of Duke Ellington and a devotee of all things San Francisco.

I feel lucky to have our sound graced by his style and savoir-faire and to share the stage again with him this week!

📷: Lisa Hagen Glynn

When I think about the bands I’ve loved playing in, the ones that were the most dynamic, communicative, and fun, there was always at least one person we could count on to lighten the mood. Someone who seemed to always look on the bright side, who would break the tension with a joke, a clever musical quote, or regale us with a story to make the long miles on the road go faster. Our vibraphonist Mike Horsfall was the one who planted the seed for this group. Years before I even imagined MJ New, it was Mike who suggested I might enjoy exploring the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet. And it is Mike’s ebullient playing, his sound, phrasing, and his personal take on the legacy of Milt Jackson that have shaped the sound of this group over the past decade. Whether it’s string quintet music orchestra adaptations or just swinging the blues, Mike’s musicality is a match for it. And he knows his way around a joke.

I'm honored to share the stage with him for our Portland album release celebration on Thursday, October 12th at The Hallowed Halls.

I swung by to pick up my signed limited edition prints of Chris Mcmurry the Artist's portrait of Carlton Jackson that graces the cover of Our Mr. Jackson. You can see Chris’s artwork at Portland Art Museum’s Black Artists of Oregon exhibit.
The *only* place to purchase these is MJ New’s Our Mr. Jackson album release performance on October 12 at The Hallowed Halls.

What about the other Mr. Jackson: Milt Jackson?

Milt Jackson is best known as the vibraphonist in the Modern Jazz Quartet, but by my count, he released 67 albums as a leader to the 38 he is on as co-leader of the MJQ. He is, without a doubt, a jazz legend in his own right. Designated an NEA Jazz Master in 1987 and inducted into the Percussion Hall of Fame and DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, among other honors, you can look at any jazz poll during his 45-year career and find his name there at the top.

There is something that has been nagging at me. Why is his own music and his musical contribution not given the same esteem — or maybe prestige is a better word— as his work with the MJQ?

In many of the courses I teach as a jazz professor, discussion inevitably comes around to the jazz canon — those pieces, performances, and recordings by individuals or groups that have been held up as the most important/emblematic artistic contributions to the art form, that are deemed worthy to bear the weight of history. We talk about whether the canon is good for jazz or bad. Is it static or fluid? Is it needed? We talk about how we should reckon with the cultural baggage — patriarchy, gender-bias, racism, and classism — embedded in it. Who gets to decide who and what is included? A journalist asked me the other day if I think that the fact that jazz criticism has predominantly been written by white men had anything to do with whose music is remembered, celebrated, and canonized. Seems pretty obvious on the face of it. But when you add the complexity of intersectionality, which assures that most of us sit in both marginalized and privileged positions in our lives compared to other people, it means that all of us are susceptible to our own blind spots. Academia is absolutely one of those privileged positions.

So, as an academic for 27 years now, particularly after the upheaval of the George Floyd years with their intensified focus on cultural representation and the elevation of marginalized voices, I'm questioning some things at the heart of what I do.

Still with me? Read on at the link below.

📷: William P. Gottlieb

What feels like a lifetime ago, in 2017, MJ New performed on International Jazz Day at the Portland Art Museum in collaboration with the Petrucci Family Foundation's Constructing Identity Exhibition and PDX Jazz. Inspired by Professor Berrisford Boothe's impeccably curation of pieces by African American artists - we constructed a program that tied visual art from the exhibition to musical works by Black American composers.

I chose to pair this painting, Red Wagon by Tom Malloy, with "Boo Boo's Birthday" by composer/pianist Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982). I was struck by the description of Malloy as a self-taught artist who “used his work to tell the story of the African-American community.” Monk too was self-taught, yet his iconoclastic approach to the piano proved the ideal means to express his powerful musical voice. Malloy’s straightforward watercolor representing an everyday scene calls to mind the deceptive simplicity of many of Monk’s compositions. While innocent and playful on the surface, upon deeper examination, his music invariably reveals a strong structural, conceptual, and emotional core. Incidentally, Monk was also famously pictured sitting in a child’s red wagon on the cover of his 1957 Riverside album Monk’s Music.

If any curators are wondering, I would love to do something like this again!

It's been 10 years since Marcus Shelby, Mike Horsfall, Carlton Jackson, and I came together to pay homage to the legendary Modern Jazz Quartet. A week from today, we will release our first recording into the world!
Our Mr. Jackson documents the birth of this ensemble; honors the music of John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay; and is a loving tribute to our friend and founding drummer Carlton.
We hope you love this music — its intricate counterpoint and ebullient swing — I think you will. ❤️

📷: Mike Horsfall, yours truly, Carlton Jackson, & Marcus Shelby photo by Nina Johnson

I learned something last week that I should have already known.

If you give the mic to black women, then sit down, shut up, and listen, the world will be made better.

I went to the Black Curator and Art Administrator Panel at Portland Art Museum, an event held in association with the brand-new Black Artists of Oregon exhibition. Over 90 minutes, exhibit curator Intisar Abioto (pictured here at the exhibit's opening), artist/curators Elisheba Johnson of Seattle’s Wa Na Wari, Maya Vivas and Roux Haile of Portland’s Ori Gallery, and Tai Carpenter of Black Gallery PDX dropped so much knowledge they had my head spinning.

They talked about curation and arts administration. They dug into community history, Black family dynamics, generational healing, land banking, indigenous sovereignty, Black joy, and the challenge of rest. All the things. Literally ALL THE THINGS!

It was powerful, uplifting, soul-shaking, and enlightening. I shared a few things I had the presence of mind to write down here.

Black Woman Power I learned something in the last week that I should’ve already known.

📷 2017 Vintage MJ New backstage with our friend Andrea Spella. You'd better believe he's roasting up some MJ Brew, our signature coffee blend by Spella Caffe, to sell at the Portland Release show on October 12th.

Tap the pre-save link below to make sure you don't miss a beat of Marcus Shelby's bass, Mike Horsfall's vibes, or the sorely missed Carlton Jackson on drums on the album.