"Feeling the Blues"
The Plain Dealer
" ......... One night in 2001, Norm asks me when I'm going to get my own band. I lied and told him I had a band. So he booked us. I got home that night and called Mary Bridget. We had three weeks to put a band together," Jackson said, laughing at the memory.
That band became Blues on Purpose, a name taken from a Nina Simone song, and would spawn Basically Blue with Kristine Jackson and the Mary Bridget Davies Group. The latter two groups are drawing crowds and rave reviews from fans all over Northeast Ohio.
Last week, Jackson and Davies returned to the Parkview to talk about their current popularity in the Cleveland world of blues. The two have a musical history
together and separate futures full of promise.
Jackson and Davies are both 26 and from Northeast Ohio. They love music, specialize in the blues and love to perform. They've shared the stage almost a hundred times in many incarnations of bands at many venues. Now they each front their own five-piece groups.
.... Jackson sings and plays trumpet, fluegelhorn and guitar. When she gets the band cranked up, Basically Blue owns the musical territory where the borders between blues, country and soul become indistinguishable. Jackson also performs as a duo, Acoustically Blue, with her sax player, Rob Williams. If Elvis and Bonnie Raitt had a baby, it would be Kristine Jackson.
Jackson grew up in Elyria and had her first musical exposure at her family's Abbey Road Baptist Church. She played trumpet in the Midview High School marching band. After a year of music study at the University of Akron, she flunked out, the result of too many jam nights.
The aspiring musician worked many "straight" jobs before she was able to make a living as a full-time musician. She worked in the trades and was a mover for United Van Lines for five years. But her most fortuitous gig was being a line cook at Savannah Bar and Grill in Westlake.
"I used to make wings for the Bad Boys of Blues. That's how we met.
I learned a lot from those guys," said Jackson.
"Michael Bay and Michael Barrack, they got me to go to jam nights where I picked up so much just by watching and listening. I played a lot of wrong notes before I found the right ones."
Trumpeter and bassist Barrack remembers fondly the early days with Jackson and Davies. But he appreciates what's happening with them now even more.
"They are burgeoning stars, for sure, and taking the whole blues scene in Cleveland to another level. They are the next generation," he said.
"Mary Bridget always kicks ass. She knocks the audience out every time. Kristine is a triple threat. She plays, sings and is writing good original material at a very young age. Both of them are carrying on a very cool tradition."
..... Saxophonist Williams is considered by many to be one of the finest players in the area. He and Jackson have an otherworldly musical rapport that yields amazing results for listeners.
"I've been playing professionally for 44 years," Williams said after a recent gig with Jackson. "And I have never worked so hard in my life as when I play with Kristine. She commits. She makes you get into it. But you know what? I've never felt so good as when I play with her."
Back at the Parkview, the discussion turns to the two women's plans. They both have recording sessions lined up. The Mary Bridget Davies Group recently came
off the road with impressive reviews that have the singer pumped.
"The goal is to grow beyond being a bar band. We've played the bars, and we love the bars, but I play my shows like a concert, because that's where I want to be," Jackson said.
Norm Plonski looks up wistfully at the wall behind the stage. There's an
old Ohio license plate that reads "Bluz 24-7."
"It was a gift from Kristine," he said.
For more about Kristine Jackson on the Web, go to kjblues.com.
Plain Dealer reporter Michael Heaton: mheaton@plaind.com