The Salty Dogs Tribute to Franz Jackson

Chicago jazz legend and former Dowagiac, MI resident Franz Jackson blew up a storm until age 95. One of the last survivors of the pre-Swing era, and one of only a handful of his contemporaries still playing into the 20th century, the tenor saxophonist/clarinetist/vocalist was, quite literally, a living jazz treasure.

Jackson was one of the last musicians to have learned Chicago jazz from its originators. His first professional gig in his 80-plus year career was with stride pianist Albert Ammons in 1929; he was 16. His career continued through the 30’s and 40’s with such jazz luminaries as Ammons, Carroll Dickerson, Jimmy Noone, Walter Barnes, Roy Eldridge, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and James P. Johnson. He replaced icon Ben Webster in Henderson’s and Eldridge’s bands and also won attention for big band compositions and arrangements for Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway and Jack Teagarden for CBS.

Franz Jackson was credited by many as being one of the last survivors of a long-vanished era in American music and was honored in 2005 as one of the five world’s greatest living jazz saxophonists by the American Heritage Jazz Series and received the Jazz Institute’s Walter Dyett Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He was also nominated for the 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship and was featured at the 2007 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. In May, 2008, Franz posthumously received the Making History award from the Chicago History Museum honoring him as a history-making Chicagoan.

Through dozens of recordings, and the collective memories of his many fans, he will continue to keep this era alive in the spirit of all who are fortunate enough to hear him.

The Salty Dogs

In 1947, a group of Purdue University students formed the Salty Dogs Jazz Band. In the earliest days of jazz, Indiana was the place where the great bands played, recorded and set down their musical roots. The Salty Dogs Jazz Band was born from that tradition and they continue today as living testament that great hot jazz will live forever. When the Salty Dogs left the Purdue campus in the early 1960’s, a contingent continued at Purdue as the band performed and spread the joy of traditional jazz across the United States. Today, with virtually the same personnel from the 1950’s and an additional 40 years of experience and polish, they are acclaimed as one of the foremost traditional jazz bands in the world.

The roots of the Salty Dogs dig deep into the early jazz musicians of the 1920s: Hoagy Carmichael, King Oliver, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Biederbecke and Louis Armstrong. They all recorded in Richmond, IN and many of their sidemen settled in the Chicago area. In the 1950s and 60s, many of these players were still active and performed side-by-side with members of the Salty Dogs, including some of the greatest names in jazz history: Lil Armstrong, Quinn Wilson, George Brunis, Darnell Howard, George Lewis, “Little Brother” Montgomery, Ikey Robinson, Franz Jackson and a host of others who shared their music, knowledge and notes with the Salty Dogs.

Franz Jackson first appeared with The Salty Dogs in Chicago in the mid-50’s and in 2001 recorded the album “Yellow Fire” with the augmented Original Salty Dogs. Over the years, Franz also had several Salty Dogs as members of his various performing groups. The Salty Dogs’ music turns a concert into a party! Audiences around the world applaud when they hear these echoes from the past. A Salty Dogs performance is history in the making as the band carries the torch lit by the flame from the original pioneers of American traditional jazz.