Hartt's Javon Jackson Featured in DownBeat Magazine

In Downbeat’s latest issue, the popular jazz magazine features a profile on Hartt professor of jazz and director of the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz, Javon Jackson. In addition to serving as an educator and mentor for many at The Hartt School, Jackson is a saxophonist, recording artist, entrepreneur, and film composer, as his most recent original score is featured in the documentary, With Peter Bradley. The score is released on Jackson’s own Solid Jackson Recordings, an independent label that Jackson founded to gain some perspective on his music as an entrepreneur.

Downbeat’s feature focuses on Jackson’s score for the independent film, a profile of the abstract painter Peter Bradley. Directed by Alex Rappoport, the film’s subject is the story of Bradley, arguably one of the first—yet marginalized—Black abstract artist in America. For a period of Bradley’s career, he was rejected from the New York gallery scene, but ultimately found redemption later in his career as he continued to paint in vivid shapes in colors and found his own path. Jackson’s score also mirrors not only the style of Bradley’s art, but the very practice of abstract art, where Jackson believes (as Downbeat writer Joshua Myers writes), “that the connection to music has to art is producing a creative moment.”

Earlier this year, the film circulated through the festival circuit including making its world premiere at the renowned independent festival Slamdance Film Festival. A true collaborator across many disciplines, Jackson is also known for his work with renowned poet Nikki Giovanni, whom he collaborated with on two albums, most recently, “The Gospel According To Nikki Giovanni,” a collection of gospel hymns and spirituals set to jazz.