Joe Jackson

Joe Jackson is one of the most eclectic and daring songwriters ever to appear on the rock stage. The kind of artist who's never been afraid to throw his fans for a loop, radically shifting register from one release to the next. Take his early career, for instance: a slalom run through neurotic, sharp-edged pop-rock (the hit "Is She Really Going Out With Him"), exotic dishes (from reggae to calypso) and soulful languor ("It's Different For Girls"). Right up to the swing-style backflip of "Jumpin' Jive", where the former "gangster" — as he liked to call himself — dropped the mask and turned into a refined interpreter of jazz standards.

Four albums, each completely different from the last, following a schizophrenic trajectory in which the only constant was the loose-limbed Jackson's cabaret eclecticism, with his old-school crooner attire and his clumsy, would-be-rocker aggression. More than a little in common with Elvis Costello, one might say, if it weren't for the fact that Costello, despite his efforts, always remained essentially tied to his "Britishness", while Jackson found his promised land across the ocean.

Then, though, comes that crucial year, 1982. Landing in America is a revelation for the young David Ian Jackson, known to his friends as "Joe" (a nickname taken from a puppet's name). "Night And Day", night and day of irrepressible excitement. The Englishman in New York is no alien, but a curious traveller wanting to capture the spirit of the Big Apple by journeying through its smoky nocturnal atmospheres, its chiaroscuro, its neuroses, and above all its hundred musical voices.

Jackson conjures up the ghosts of Duke Ellington's orchestras, George Gershwin's melodies, Marvin Gaye's soul and Cole Porter's musicals (paid tribute right from the album's title). On top of that, he's drawn to Latin fascinations — the salsa of Eddie Palmieri and Ray Barretto — and to the possibilities offered by an eight-piece combo, where piano, bass, horns and percussion take centre stage, while new sound technologies (synths and drum machines) forge a seductive "urban pop" shell. Guitars vanish altogether, the last relic of that post-punk era which the restless Jackson has by now left behind him.

Taming this pot-pourri are exquisitely refined arrangements, as sumptuous as they are never over the top.

The nine tracks (blessed were the days when albums weren't padded out with filler!) flow into one another almost without a break, fuelling the idea of a kind of concept album. Though split into two parts (side A, livelier, devoted to night; side B, more reflective, devoted to day), the album is in fact pervaded throughout by a sinuous, nocturnal mood, which takes hold from the very first notes of "Another World", the percussive carousel that welcomes us into the "new world".

The freshness of the sound doesn't hide Jackson's critical eye, which takes on an almost sociological tone as he wanders bewildered through the streets of "Chinatown", to the rhythm of an orientalist jazzy-pop marked out by piano and exotic percussion, disguising himself as an ethno-funk guru à la Byrne (even in his jittery vocal delivery) to denounce the aberrations of the "TV Age" ("Tv rules/ pretty soon you won't be able to turn it off at all"), becoming himself a "Target" ("Someone could smile at me then/ shake my hand then gun me down") amid a thicket of bongos and congas.

But what sends the album into glory is the single "Steppin' Out", practically the quintessence of the lightest, most innocent soul of the 80s. A radiant melody that pushes its way through the pulsing electro-pop stride of glamorous keyboards, between a chiming piano and a powerful bassline, in search of a way out from the oppression of the metropolis ("We so tired of all the darkness in our lives/ with no more angry words to say/ can come alive... get into a car and drive/ to another side/ me Babe – Steppin' out/ into the night/ into the light").

After the intoxication of side A, the "day side" turns to melancholy, with more pensive, bitter tones.

"Breaking Us In Two" is a languid piano ballad that echoes Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", while the sardonic salsa jingle of "Cancer" offers the none-too-reassuring warning that "everything gives you cancer".

The two closing ballads land like a whip on the heart. The epic "Real Men" brushes against an almost "Spectoresque" climax, its solemn (synthetic) string orchestration and piano cradling Jackson's invective against the "war of the sexes". "Slow Song" is a desperate hymn to the "slow", the last bastion against the tyranny of frantic, inhuman music ("And I'm tired of dj's... /I'm gonna tell him to.../ Play us a slow song"), but also a clear-eyed portrait of loneliness and frustration: seven minutes embellished by piano, Hammond organ and an intense vocal performance that builds up pathos before exploding in a liberating final plea.

Jackson would accompany the album's promotion with resounding declarations about the "death of rock", anticipating by several years Sting's famous outburst on the same subject.

Almost twenty years later he would attempt an encore with "Night And Day II", but without ever reaching the heights of the original, which also remains his only album to have cracked the US top ten (No. 4).

Also in 1982, meanwhile, came Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly", another nocturnal flight beneath the stars of jazz. And America's long night would go on shining a little longer.

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14/12/2008