Biography: Avant Jazz Drummer, Jackson Krall
Jackson Krall
After studying jazz drumming with Alan Dawson in Boston and being strongly influenced by the teachings of Milford Graves at Bennington College in the early 1970’s, Jackson Krall set up shop on Manhattan’s Lower-East-Side, the emerging hub of New York’s art scene. While making inroads in the downtown avant jazz scene and after making hand drums and some of the finest marraccas imaginable, he crafted his first line of agogo bells in 1978. He immediately started supplying many of New York’s local musical instrument dealers such as “Music Inn”, “Mannys”, and “Drummers World” with his creations, and eventually expanded his marketing worldwide.
Since the mid 1970’s Jackson has played drums with other high-profile musicians such as Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Alan Silva, Karen Borca, William Parker, and Steve Swell, as well as choreographers Elaine Shipman and Kay Nishikawa and his own group “The Secret Music Society.”
What most people are unaware of is that he is a master craftsman and artisan who has been hand making bells, drums, other percussion instruments and sound sculptures for over 35 years. Through the years Jackson’s instruments have found their way into the hands of the world’s greatest drummers and percussionists, and can be heard on recordings as well as in live performance by many bands, orchestras, and the most popular Broadway and Off-Broadway shows like “Lion King” and “Blue Man Group”.
In the early 1980’s, under the leadership of Toni and Celia Nogueira, Jackson was a founding member and helped write the bylaws of New York’s first samba school, the now legendary Empire Loisaida Escola de Samba.
Citations
- The New York Times, June 22, 2007, A Trumpeter in His 80s Feeds the Fires of His Revolution, Nate Chinen, New York City
- The Village Voice, May 12, 2002, Our Chopin, A Gift From Cecil Taylor, Gary Giddins, New York City
- The New York Times”, August 8, 1997, Frantic Poetry on Piano, Ben Rattlif, New York City