Joe Jackson “Fast Forward”
You think you know a guy. Even when we’re young, we think we’ve banked enough impressions and assumptions to make our conclusions. Confirmation bias can be tricky, sure. But, honestly, most of the time our speculation is accurate. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. He really was an asshole. She really was funny as hell. The party really did suck. And so on. Even when we’re off -- slightly or greatly -- we rarely get a chance to confront our mistakes. It’s just easier to go through life thinking that we knew that guy.
I thought I knew Joe Jackson. Not literally. I never met him. I only saw him perform live one time, and it was actually a friend who bought the ticket for me. I owned “Look Sharp” and “Night and Day,” both on cassette and both only briefly. I could fairly say that, for a few years, I was a fan and, for longer than that, I was a casual admirer. However, I was unquestionably more interested in Jackson’s classmates, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. Where young Elvis would snarl, young Joe would ponder. Where Graham had Soul, Joe had Jazz. I guess I preferred snarl and soul.
That being said, his style was evident from the very beginning. He did that thing where he would turn melodies up when you expected them to go down. His verses and choruses felt almost too simple, while his bridges and breakdowns sounded tricky or, even, academic. He wore loosely fitting blazers and shirts that were unbuttoned at the top, occasionally cinched with a skinny tie. He was shoehorned into the Second British New Wave of the early 1980s, but he never really fit the bill. Previously, he was in the outer circle of England’s Pub Rock scene and in the farthest edge of Punk. But his affect never suited those subcultures. Jackson looked much more like a throwback jazzman or a grad student slash hipster cabaret performer.
Perhaps because he didn’t fit neatly into genre boxes or scenes, I came to understand Joe Jackson by what he was not more than by what he was. He was not Elvis or Graham. He was more uptight than Bruce Hornsby. He was older than Ben Folds. He was not a one hit wonder like Matthew Wilder or (gasp) Rick Astley. Joe Jackson was knowable through his exceptions. He grew up on the wrong side of working class but managed to play his way into a scholarship at London’s Royal Academy of Music. He looked nothing like his Punk contemporaries and only barely like his colorful New Wave peers. He was lithe and collected, even when he danced. He could have been the first cousin of Robert Fripp or Nyles Crane. Frankly, he didn’t look like a Rock or Pop star. He looked like a composer. And for good reason -- because that is precisely, and professionally, what Joe Jackson is.
Between his debut in 1979 and his international breakthrough in 1982, Jackson was both wildly prolific and successful. More so than any of his peers, in fact, he was the bridge between early New Wave and its crossover into mainstream Pop. When we first encountered him on “Look Sharp!” he was standing inches away from Elvis Costello’s corner, obviously studying and admiring. “Sunday Papers” had the pace of Punk and the beat of Ska. As Pop, it was novel, but it was also a product of its time: two parts Specials, half part Clash. Meanwhile, “Is She Really Going Out With Him” was, and is even still today, the highlight of Jackson’s debut. It’s naked piano and booming chorus captures a sentiment which, at some point, most of us have thought, but very few have said, and only a couple have sung about.
“Look Sharp!” was a remarkable debut from a time when remarkable debuts were oddly common -- Patti Smith, , The Clash, Television, Wire and, yes, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. And though Jackson’s reputation may not have endured like those aforementioned critical darlings, he was more prolific and, briefly, more popular than the rest of them. However, in 1981, when he released “Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive” -- an album of Swing and Jump Blues covers -- it seemed he might be turning away from the mainstream. A Swing revival was burgeoning in the U.K., but it would be another year before The Stray Cats would break through. Moreover, since his first album, Jackson’s sales and radio play were going in the wrong direction. There was no sense that Jackson had “lost it” but rather that he might be interested in something more challenging and elevated, beyond Pop music.
“Night and Day,” his fifth album in less than four years, pressed pause on that assertion. The mega-hit, “Steppin’ Out,” was Yacht Rock with a New Order synth program slowed down to half time. It was like Smooth Jazz without horns or Dance music for people in their cars. It went down easy but made you want to tap your feet. Jackson then quickly followed up that hit with a second bullseye, “Breaking Us in Two” (which was deeply familiar to older listeners, who recognized the melody from Badfinger’s “Day After Day”). In 1982 and 1983, he was all over MTV. He was a household name in America and England and Germany and The Netherlands. His songs were the sort that got played during daytime hours, while kids were at school, so that work at home parents could feel briefly cool. In the relatively early days of Thatcher and Reagan, when national unity was critical, Joe Jackson was the sort of artist we could all agree upon.
By the end of 1984, however, he was functionally done as a Pop act. His last major hit (and possibly his finest) was the lightly funky and mildly “saxy,” "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want).” In 1983, he’d introduced himself as a Hollywood film composer, a role he’d return to throughout his career. And, by 1986, he was off the charts altogether, experimenting with headier ideas like live albums of entirely new material, Contemporary Classical music and, of course, more Jazz. He traded London for the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He traded stardom for something smaller, but more sophisticated.
In many ways, Jackson’s restlessness was not a surprise. From his earliest days, it was apparent that he was just…different. He composed. On piano. Rock and Roll seemed more like a hobby than a passion for him. It was something to be figured out. It was also what paid the bills and allowed him to record the other stuff -- the stuff he really loved. Plus, there was always something hedged about him. He wore sport coats, but kept his top shirt buttons unbuttoned. He was curious about Punk and Ska and New Wave, but only slightly. His songs were filled with observation, but never accusations. On “Is She Really Going Out With Him” -- a song that could have burst with venom in another writer’s hands -- Jackson pulls the punch. After he asks the titular question, he quickly pauses to wonder if maybe he’s just misunderstanding the situation. Sharp Pop wit was a virtue. Punk bile, much less so.
Many years passed. By the 2000s, I had almost -- but not entirely -- forgotten about Joe Jackson. As a New Yorker, I was aware of his performances at upscale halls and mid-sized theaters. They were frequently a cause celebre in The New Yorker. And though I had strayed as a fan, I was still curious how he’d managed to sustain such a large following, many years after his Pop prime. He’d never been relegated to the “Where Are You Now” file or to the Totally 80s bins. He was rarely discussed alongside other, aging prestige songwriters.. But his fans still showed up — year after year. Something about his enduring appeal surprised me, though admittedly not enough for me to buy his records. During the 90s and early 2000s, to me, Joe Jackson was just an accidental, New Wave Pop star who’d eventually found his calling in theaters and in sub-popular genres. He had become, by almost any measure, a stranger to me. Nevertheless, I still thought I knew the guy.
It wasn’t until 2012 that I actually reconvened with Joe Jackson. That year, he released “The Duke,” a loving, if eccentric, homage to the music of Duke Ellington, with performances by Steve Vai, Iggy Pop, Sharon Jones and ?uestlove. “The Duke” topped the Jazz charts and seemed readymade for features in The New York Times and similarly literate publications. The fact that Jackson made an album in tribute to Duke Ellington did not surprise me. The assembly of collaborators only barely did. It turned out that the album itself was mostly delightful. In fact, not much about the music or concept came as a shock. What did astound me, however, was Joe Jackson himself. Photographs revealed a taut, sculpted and powder pale face. His hair was two shades whiter. His clothes were all black. He appeared both much older than the twenty-something I’d seen on MTV in the 80s but also as though he’d completely reversed the aging process. Jackson had always been stylistically precise -- the jackets, ties, suspenders and hats. But this look was something else. It was fierce. He looked more like Tilda Swinton than Elvis Costello. And I mean that as a complement.
The new image -- if it was even new -- made me wonder what the hell else was going on with Joe Jackson. I mean, I thought I knew the guy. By 2012, every respected songwriter of his generation had enjoyed either a resurgence or a reconsideration. Nick Lowe. Paul Weller. Howard Jones. Even Graham Parker played a supporting role in an Apatow flick. And Bruce Hornsby was playing with Bon Iver. But Joe Jackson had never really gone away. He’d just made very different choices. And, it turned out that those choices, and his freedom to make those choices, were what defined Joe Jackson. Yes, he was once a Pop star and a Rock star and was still a composer and Jazz man. Yes, enough of his old fans had stuck around and two and half of those early albums had endured as great relics of early New Wave. But those weren’t the things. The thing about Joe Jackson that I had not known until that year was that he was deeply, totally, completely a libertarian. That was the thing I never knew about the guy. That was the thing that helped both make sense of his career to me and reminded me that, generally, I don’t know anything about anyone. People are unfuckingknowable.
Though he was musically fidgety and geographically fluid, Jackson’s devotion to personal liberties was resolute. He apparently left London way back when in part for wanderlust and in part for his ambivalence of the reach of the “Nanny State,” as he called it. New York City in the 1980s — post-bankruptcy, post-CBGBs, post-Disco, but proto-Rap and House Music — was far more to his liking. Among other things, Jackson appreciated the blend of high and low cultures. In the Lower East Side, he was steps away from the music and theater that most inspired him -- Jazz, Punk, Experimental and, even, Classical. He could be anonymous. He could slum it. He could get dressed up. He could be straight. Or gay. Or all of the above. And that suited Joe Jackson perfectly -- at least for a while.
After 9/11, New York City began to change dramatically, of course. Before the Towers fell, Mayor Giuliani had already swept a good chunk of the homeless population from the streets and subways. But, after the attack, The Big Apple felt (understandably) more like a police state. Matters were compounded, for Jackson at least, beginning in 2002 with the mayoralty of Mike Bloomberg. Jackson, who’d never been explicitly, publicly political, began to chafe at policies that, though socialistic in spirit, reeked of autocracy to the singer.
The final blow came with the city’s smoking ban for restaurants and bars. Although most of the city supported the measure, Jackson was part of a vocal minority that viewed the law as an infringement upon individual liberties and private business. After all, smoking was still legal. And bars and restaurants were privately owned businesses. What Bloomberg and millions of New Yorkers viewed as a health matter, Jackson viewed as a matter of civil liberty. He was aghast. And his response -- loud and swift -- revealed both his previously unseen fangs and his well-known erudition. For several years in the early 2000s, his platform was not Pop music, or Jazz or Classical. It was smokers’ rights. He published an extraordinarily thoughtful (though highly contested) essay on the matter, attacking the measure legally and challenging the research on second hand smoking. Underlying that one, unpopular issue, however, was a deeper libertarian streak. Jackson had moved to New York City, at least in part, because he wanted to do what he wanted to do. When that became less comfortable, as it had in London in the early 80s, Jackson packed up and left. This time, he headed to Berlin -- the city where many New Yorkers and Londoners before him had moved to disappear and to find inspiration.
For most of the 2000s, Jackson shared time between Berlin, New York and Portsmouth, where he grew up. During this third act, he remained highly active as a musician and firm in his politics (albeit less vocally). The man that I saw interviewed on ReasonTV about smokers’ rights was not the same man I saw in a skinny tie and white blazer in 1982. Similarly, the man I saw photographed in 2015 in support of his latest album, “Fast Forward,” had transformed again. Older and ghostly whiter, but again cosmetically adjusted, Jackson was decked out entirely in black. To say the very least, sixty something Joe Jackson appeared startlingly unrelated to his former self.
I should probably say that I have absolutely nothing against cosmetic surgery. I say this sincerely and empathetically, but also to underscore my feeling that, in 2015, Joe Jackson looked kind of fabulous. My shock in seeing him was just that -- acute surprise. Having not thought or seen much of the singer for a couple of decades, I was expecting a more portly, wrinkled English gentleman — something closer to Phil Collins or Benny Hill. But Joe Jackson was nothing of the sort. He was much closer to a Gucci perfume model or Mike Myers “Sprockets” character.
Early press for “Fast Forward” described an album that was not exactly Classical, but was highly conceptual. Though released as a single record, It was ostensibly four EPs assembled together. Each “part” included four songs, recorded in different cities, by different backing bands. It begins in New York, then travels through Amsterdam and Berlin, before returning to America and landing in New Orleans.
Though the pretense read like a gimmick, I was keenly aware of how seriously Joe Jackson takes his concepts. Additionally, it was his first album of new material in seven years -- an exceptionally long stretch for such a prolific writer. Based less on the premise, and more on the singer’s hypermodern new look and his libertarian reveal, I decided that I needed to reacquaint myself with Joe Jackson. I was unsure what, exactly, to expect, but was prepared for something minimal, like Phillip Glass, or worldly, like Peter Gabriel. I wondered if it might even be heavy and progressive, like late King Crimson or (given his home in Berlin) Can. Anything seemed possible. I mean, once upon a time, I thought I knew the guy. But, then, maybe not.
As it turned out, “Fast Forward” is much gentler than I feared. In fact, it is downright genteel -- the sort of music that you sit down to experience. It sounds like music that is played after curtains rise and like it should be rewarded with enthusiastic, if polite, applause. There are discernible differences between the “four cities” — especially the last quarter, recorded in New Orleans. Additionally, each chapter bears some of the markings of its origin. However, all of them are smoothed over by Jackson’s jazzy piano and and old fashioned, Pop flair.
There’s a richness and intimacy to the production -- all of the parts sound like they were recorded in small, well built theaters. Additionally -- and in spite of it’s languid pace -- “Fast Forward” is completely alive. It does not feel like music made in a studio — tracked and dubbed. Rather, it sounds simply like each band is performing the composer’s music for an audience. You never hear actual fans applauding or talking because it is not a “concert album.” But it most certainly feels like a “live album.” The band feels close by. The instruments sound immediate. And, of course, Joe Jackson’s voice sounds exactly like the Joe Jackson we remember.
Age and smoking (or lack thereof) spared the singer, who was never a showstopper, but who always reliably carried the melody and story. During the seventy one minutes I spent with “Fast Forward” (yes — it’s a commitment) I was constantly comforted by Jackson’s voice. Some of this quality is tenderness -- he is not a belter or a howler. Some of this quality is probably the way he rounds edges and turns corners like Jazz singer rather than a Pop singer. But I think most of this quality is just the comfort of familiarity. It’s not simply that Joe Jackson is recognizable from “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out With Him.” It’s also that he sounds a good deal like so many other English singers from the last fifty years. He can sound like the space in between Lennon and Harrison. He can easily sound like Elvis Costello. Or he can sound like his acolytes: Andy Bell from Erasure or Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet or Curt Smith from Tears for Fears. For lack of a better description, there’s a middle register soul to his voice that works effectively alongside the sad, romantic New Wave. Whatever it is, it goes down easily.
On balance, all four of the “Fast Forward’s” cities fare pretty evenly. It opens in New York, on the title track — a patient piano ballad, with a hint of cabaret. Four decades into his career and beginning his seventh decade of life, Jackson wonders if he’s living in the best or worst of times and wondering why we all seem so preoccupied with that question and wishing he could find a time machine to skip ahead and find the answer, for once and for all. It’s a lovely song, performed with his longtime bassist Graham Maby, and Downtown guitar hero, Bill Frissell. From the opening notes, you can picture the quartet (including Brian Blade on drums) performing for a hushed audience of a hundred or so at Joe’s Pub (named for Joe Papp, not Jackson).
The New York songs are patient, to the point of occasionally being a little boring. In spite of the delicate arrangements and supple playing, “Kings of the City,” for example, creeps into James Taylor or Christopher Cross territory. Jackson mostly keeps us awake, however, through his incisive words and the occasional surprise. An unexpected cover of Television’s “See No Evil” arrives just three songs in. “See No Evil” is one of the most important songs from one of the most important albums of my life. To his credit, though, Jackson does not try to imitate Tom Verlaine’s version of the song. Instead, he lets the bass play the lead and give Frissell a moment to explode just when you begin to fear that the song will play it straight. The song is so good and Jackson’s take is so clearly admiring -- both of the original and the city that inspired it -- that it survives as a curious, but sincere homage.
The nine piece Dutch band — complete with horns and strings — follows New York. Jackson makes full use of his ensemble, experimenting with Contemporary Classical and several flavors of Jazz. It is perhaps the most ambitious set of songs on the album, but also the least exciting. On “Far Away,” he hands the mic over to fourteen year old Mitchell Sink, whose high tenor is impressive, and possibly beautiful, but which also jars us out from the composition. Elsewhere, on “A Little Smile,” we get our first semblance of a steady beat. The verses are sunny and, if only briefly, it sounds like Joe Jackson and his group have an Adult Contemporary hit on their hands. But, alas, in the chorus, the Dutch players have their fun with cacophony, snuffing out hope of a “Greatest Hits, Vol. 3.” This second chapter of the album is its most restless and hardest to place. But, it is also the shortest of the four EPs, clocking in around fourteen minutes. If it was all an experiment, Jackson managed to keep the lab tidy.
In Berlin, Jackson and his German quintet nibble around the edges of Rock and Roll and its nearer relatives. “Junkie Diva” is a bawdy call and response number that could have been a good Rock song and could have been a fun Cabaret number, but is actually neither. “Good Bye Jonny,” is a traditional, German sailor song that gets closer to Rufus Wainwright’s, torch singer vibe. Though it’s not his composition, it somehow feels a lot like sixty year old Joe Jackson -- the clever, witty, slightly unusual resident of Kreuzberg.
Nearly an hour later, Jackson flies thousands of miles west to New Orleans, where he is joined by members of the Jazz Funk (Jam) band, Galactic. True to form, the last four songs are the least “Classical” and perhaps the most “fun” (which is not the same as “best”) tracks on the record. The pronouncement of bass and drums is welcomed, especially on a record that otherwise crawls. It’s an interesting blend of freedom and restraint, reminiscent of Phish or Steely Dan. The improvisation is spared, however, for “Keep On Dreaming,” wherein Jackson resembles his acolyte, Ben Folds. For four minutes, the band resists the urge to jam and stays in the plaintive ballad that, two decades earlier, might have have found its way onto the radio. It also opens with the most knowing and philosophical quartet on the album:
God must think he's God or something
Lording it over us
Seems to like to make us feel
Ridiculous
Although “Fast Forward” is more pleasurable and listenable than it is fun or wonderful, it does not fail to impress. In the same way that, in 1979, he wanted to make a New Wave record, inspired by Punk and Ska, and in the same way that in 1982, he wanted to make a Pop record inspired by Jazz, and in the same way that for his entire career he has done exactly what he wanted to do, Joe Jackson had a big idea (four ideas, really), wrote the songs, and then recorded them. Just like that.
Following the release of “Fast Forward,” he and his band toured for basically three years straight, playing relatively large and esteemed theaters around the world. And then, on July 30th, 2018, in Boise, Idaho, one day after the tour’s final show, he and his band entered the nearest studio and recorded their next album, “Fool.” Just like that — he made another album and performed those songs to packed rooms, full of nostalgic fans, enthusiastic writers, libertarian newcomers and probably some curious LGBTQ admirers. It’s an unusually big tent that Jackson has created. I’m not sure I can explain how it works or how it happened. Once upon a time, I thought I knew the guy. Now, I’m far less sure. But, also -- at least on “Fast Forward” -- I still think I know that guy.