Ron Jackson

A specialist in seven-string guitar, Ron Jackson has earned respect for his command of the acoustic jazz idiom. Several hard bop sessions for Muse in the 1990s, among them A Guitar Thing and Thinking of You, first brought him notice, while his sideman work has included appearances alongside Taj Mahal, Nicki Parrott, and Rufus Reid. After establishing the Roni Music imprint with 2003’s The Dream I Had, he issued a string of small-group recordings: the 2008 Hammond-driven Flubby Dubby, the 2011 trio set Burning Gums, and 2014’s Akustik InventYours, a duet project with guitarist Dan Garcia. On 2019’s Standards and Other Songs he revisited both timeless material and recent successes such as Drake’s “Passionfruit,” an approach he repeated for 2022’s Standards and My Songs, which centered on his own compositions.

Jackson entered the world in 1964 in the Philippines, where his father was posted during the Vietnam War, and was raised in Boston. He took up the guitar around age eleven, performed locally while still in high school, and later enrolled at Berklee College of Music to study composition and arranging. Private lessons with Pat Martino, Barry Harris, Melvin Sparks, Mike Stern, and Bucky Pizzarelli supplemented his formal training. After graduation he spent two years playing bass in Paris, then relocated to New York City in the late 1980s and returned his focus to guitar.

His first album as a leader, the straight-ahead 1991 Muse date A Guitar Thing, featured pianist Benny Green, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, and drummer Cecil Brooks III. Three years later Thinking of You appeared on the same label with Aaron Graves replacing Green at the piano. During this era Jackson also directed his own quartet, participated in the guitar supergroup 5 Guitars Play Mingus alongside Peter Leitch, Russell Malone, David Gilmore, and Jack Wilkins, recorded the duo album Song for Luis with bassist Rufus Reid, and collaborated with bassist Nicki Parrott on 1999’s Concrete Jungle.

Launching Roni Music in the early 2000s, Jackson introduced the label with 2003’s The Dream I Had, mixing standards and originals. Melvin Sparks produced the follow-up, 2008’s Flubby Dubby, which showcased an organ combo comprising Kyle Koehler, drummer Otis Brown III, and saxophonists Don Braden and Bruce Williams. The 2011 release Burning Gums documented Jackson’s working trio, while 2014 brought the collaborative Akustik InventYours with Dan Garcia. Standards and Other Songs, a 2019 trio session with bassist Nathan Brown and drummer Darrell Green, juxtaposed American Popular Song classics with updated pop interpretations such as Brian McKnight’s “Anytime” and Drake’s “Passionfruit.” Its 2022 companion, Standards and My Songs, paired Jackson with bassist Ben Wolfe and drummer Willie Jones III.