Upton visits DUHS
Published 4:38 pm Tuesday, November 1, 2005
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
You never know who might be in the house when Franz Jackson blows his tenor saxophone at Dowagiac's Wood Fire Trattoria.
Jackson, a living legend who is one of the few remaining survivors of the pre-Swing era, turns 93 today.
He learned Chicago jazz from its originators.
His first professional gig in a career spanning more than 70 years was with stride pianist Albert Ammons in 1929, when he was 16.
Jackson's career continued through the 1930s and '40s with such luminaries as Ammons, Carroll Dickerson, Jimmy Noone, Walter Barnes, Roy Eldridge, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Fats Waller and James P. Johnson.
Jackson replaced icon Ben Webster in Henderson's and Eldridge's bands and also won attention for big band composition and arrangements for Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway and Jack Teagarden.
Between stints in Chicago, Jackson lived in New York and Sweden, performing, composing, arranging and directing bands.
Beginning in the late '40s, Jackson embarked on tours entertaining U.S. troops abroad with his USO band.
In 1957, he formed his own successful band, the Original Jazz All-Stars, which had a 10-year stint at the Red Arrow nightclub in Stickney, Ill., a Chicago suburb.
Jackson, who was nominated for the 2006 National Endowment Jazz Master Fellowship program, became one of Chicago's most popular bandleaders and recorded seven albums during this period on his own Pinnacle label. As his popularity grew, Jackson began touring the world with his band.
That lore was all well known to Tad Calcara, who began studying piano at 5 and clarinet at 12 and today is the principal clarinetist with the symphony orchestra in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as a “big jazz buff.”
Calcara loves to play jazz in his free time with his own band and is very interested in the history of jazz music.
When he heard on Garrison Keillor's “ Prairie Home Companion” about Jackson (who appeared with Keillor in 2002), Calcara must have been rubbing his eyes in disbelief that Jackson was still playing.
Calcara, who owns a book picturing Jackson, located Franz's Web site (www.franzjackson.com) his daughter put together for him and got in touch with Michelle Jewell, who also provides cheesecakes to the Wood Fire.
Oct. 23 he and a friend, Steve Ross, set out for Dowagiac to catch Jackson's Wood Fire set.
He's an amateur drummer apart from his day job as a psychologist for the University of Utah medical school who also sees private patients.
Ross said their wives “loved” the idea of their “lark” and were fully supportive. Calcara's wife also plays in the symphony on viola. Steve's wife is a violinist.
Calcara is also a big train buff. They flew to Chicago from Salt Lake and caught a cab to Amtrak. “We stepped off the train in the little depot in Dowagiac, walked down to the restaurant and stashed our bags behind the counter,” Ross recalled.
After spending the night at AmeriHost, they left the following morning. They missed their flight because the train was late going back and had to fly standby through Denver to Utah.
Jackson autographed Calcara's book of jazz greats.
Ross had never been closer to this part of the country than Chicago, although last summer his son married a woman whose family has a cabin in the Upper Peninsula, so he has a “new link” to Michigan.
Their Dowagiac lark set him back some $500, but would be remembered as the “priceless” panel if it were a MasterCard commercial.
Jackson is scheduled to perform again Sunday, Nov. 20, at the Wood Fire (and at Andy's in Chicago this Friday, Nov. 4 and at the Northfield, Ill., Senior Center on Sunday, Nov. 6).
You never know who might be in the audience.