Saxman’s Return on Track at Croce’s

SAN DIEGO —  A Monday night at Croce’s in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown. A bar barely half full. On stage, four musicians wait to play. With long, slender fingers, Daniel Jackson hoists his tenor sax and swings his Real Jazz Band into Miles Davis’ “Tune Up.”

Jackson, 53, is short, slim and fragile looking, but his sound is full and sensuous. He and fluegelhorn man Burnett Anderson play rich, intertwining lines that dip and dart around each other, echoing moodily off the hard surfaces in the bar.

After years of ups and downs in the music business, San Diego-born Jackson remains one of the city’s best-kept secrets, a top-flight musician with a sound of his own who still has weeks when his calendar is not full. Jackson’s tenor sax is a symbol of the latest turn his career has taken.

He hadn’t played one for several years until he picked up the instrument again last spring and got hooked on jazz all over again. Midway through his adult life, a life marked by many starts and stops, he is into his career full-tilt once more, honing his music into something special. Maybe his time has finally come.

A product of jazz bands at San Diego High School and in the Air Force, Jackson’s first break came in 1960 when he joined drummer Lenny McBrowne’s quintet. Since then, he has worked with Ray Charles, Buddy Rich and Willie Bobo, but his own career never quite took off.

Last April, bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Jim Plank, friends of Jackson, asked him to play tenor sax behind fluegelhorn master Art Farmer at Elario’s. Just one catch. Jackson didn’t own a tenor. In 1975, strapped for cash, he sold his to a pawn shop.

Jackson worked the dates at Elario’s with a rented horn. Farmer even began incorporating one of Jackson’s tunes into the sets. It seemed he had found his true instrument all over again, but he still didn’t own one.

Then Ingrid Croce, owner of Croce’s, and Dave Scott, a fellow musician, came to the rescue. They helped Jackson buy a Selmer Mark VI--the same model sax played by John Coltrane and other legends. After not touching a tenor for 15 years, Jackson is picking up where he left off.

“I think he’s one of the great tenor sax players,” said Magnusson, who has worked with quite a few. “When I was starting to play around 1964 or ‘65, he was already a very accomplished tenor player. Certain instruments just seem to fit people’s personalities. Daniel’s voice is the tenor saxophone to me. He has wonderful melodic ideas, and he’s able to leave space in there, which a lot of guys don’t. He has that full, rich, warm sound, and a great sense of time, the way he phrases his lines.”

Last spring Jackson put together the Real Jazz Band, with Chuck McPherson (saxophonist Charles McPherson’s son) on drums, Dave Marr on bass and recent Texas transplant Burnett Anderson on trumpet and fluegelhorn. Although Jackson plays piano occasionally, he sees the band as a piano-less quartet, a vehicle for the original music he writes to showcase the horns.

“But it’s not about two horns having it out,” Jackson explained. “It’s more about sensitivity and controlled expression of my musical compositions, rooted in the be-bop realm--Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker.”

Writing music is nothing new to Jackson. He wrote most of the material for two albums recorded by McBrowne while he was with his band from 1960 to 1963.

“I think Lenny probably had the most significant musical impact on me. He was such a polished, sensitive professional musician. As far as the material, he gave me wide scope on anything I wanted to do. Also, I was really impressed with (pianist) Horace Silver’s band. They both had a lot of influence on me.”

Jackson left McBrowne’s band in 1963, married wife Judith in 1964 and worked odd jobs for several years to support a family which soon included Daniel Jr. He lived in Los Angeles from 1960 until the early 1970s, in search of his big break. He joined Charles’ band in 1968.

“What I learned with him was about the textures of sounds a big band makes. I also learned patience, because I didn’t get to play a lot of jazz. We’d play a few tunes before Ray came out, but then we’d do his songs.”

Jackson was in the band for less than a year.

“Ray’s band was more of a transient band,” he said. “People would want to leave L.A. and go to New York, so they’d join his band. Once they got there, they’d quit. So the people like me who were not transients were subjected to rehearsals with new people all the time.”

Jackson got tired of the turnover and left.

Next came an even briefer stint in drummer Buddy Rich’s band, also in 1968.

“We went to some town in upstate New York, and we were supposed to do two shows. We went on stage, and after one show, Buddy told the audience, ‘We’re going home.’ Someone in the audience shouted, ‘No!,’ and pretty soon there was almost a physical confrontation between Rich and the audience. I decided that was a little too high-profile for me, and I was glad when the regular tenor man came back.”

Back in Los Angeles, Jackson landed a job with percussionist Willie Bobo in 1969. He joined Bobo’s band as a player and composer but soon became frustrated doing double duty for single pay.

Jackson returned to San Diego and worked for the city’s Park and Recreation Department during the mid-1970s, a decade during which he seldom found work playing music.

“Hey, man, I was hurting, I was starving. There were no gigs. Through the ‘70s, the scene was dry here.”

He was also hampered by the lack of a horn. After he hawked his tenor in 1975, the only instrument he owned was a piccolo, until he bought an alto sax while living in Vera Cruz, N.M., for a few months in 1979. It was the only horn available in town.

Jackson said the Real Jazz Band is only his second as a leader, and the first where he has felt comfortable in the role. It shows. During their sets, he relaxes and jives with McPherson. He guides the band with a gentle nod, a glance or the wave of a slender hand.

Jackson said he wants to tour Europe with the group, and there is some chance of an album to go with the tour. It would be his first album as a leader.

In the meantime, he keeps plugging away, making music every Monday night with the Real Jazz Band at Croce’s, where he also plays piano for the 10-to-2 brunches Saturdays and Sundays.

“It’s the only thing I really love to do,” he said.