Brian Jackson Announces Debut New Zealand Shows

Legendary collaborator with the late Gil Scott-Heron on such landmark soul / jazz / funk releases as Winter in America and Pieces of a Man (featuring 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'), Brian Jackson will perform in Aotearoa for the very first time this coming March. Headlining Tāmaki Makaurau's The Hollywood Avondale with local special guests Carnivorous Plant Society and DJ Samuel Harmony, along with Pōneke's Meow with Clear Path Ensemble and DJ Martyn Pepperell, this absolutely unmissable event follows last year's launch of his first solo album in twenty years This Is Brian Jackson. The Brooklyn-born artist's remarkable career has seen him work alongside such greats as Stevie Wonder, Kool & The Gang, Earth Wind & Fire, Gwen Guthrie and Roy Ayers — don't miss Jackson "back on the Rhodes, with band, playing the songs of a storied career" at the following dates...

Brian Jackson & band

Friday 10th March - The Hollywood Avondale, Auckland w/ Carnivorous Plant Society, DJ Samuel Harmony
Saturday 11th March - Meow, Wellington w/ Clear Path Ensemble, DJ Martyn Pepperell

Auckland tickets on sale HERE via UTR
Wellington tickets available HERE

Listen to Brian Jackson's 'Path to Macondo / Those Kind of Blues' from This Is Brian Jackson...

Here's Brian Jackson and Gil Scott-Heron's socially conscious soul / jazz / funk 1974 classic 'The Bottle'...

Press release:

New York City native Brian Jackson’s love for jazz and soul music saw him get a scholarship to music school, then to university, where he met the man who he would spend a decade writing, recording and performing with – US jazz and soul legend Gil Scott-Heron. On the flute and electric piano, Brian Jackson’s compositions were at the heart of nearly ten Scott-Heron albums, including the critically acclaimed Winter in America and Pieces of a Man.

The shy 16-year-old piano prodigy sensed a kindred spirit in the kinetic young poet. He wasn’t wrong. Together they’d make some of soul jazz’s most storied records and amongst them, timeless hits like ‘The Bottle’, ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’, ‘Lady Day & John Coltrane’, Jackson’s mellifluous Jazz-Funk the perfect foil to Gil’s poetic beats and incendiary social refractions.Their influence on modern hip hop & soul is breathtaking, the pair’s songs raked over by Kendrick, Fly-Lo, Common, A Tribe Called Quest.

Brian’s story doesn’t end there. He’d go on to work with Stevie Wonder, Kool & The Gang, Earth Wind & Fire, Gwen Guthrie.

Of late, he’s been back in focus – out front and in the spotlight. First up of 2020’s bristling Jazz is Dead collab, and more recently on ‘This is Brian Jackson’ – a real deal solo LP via BBE, both a callback to legendary past and something fresh entirely. An artistic renewal.

Brian Jackson – back on the Rhodes, with band, playing the songs of a storied career.