Joe Jackson: Night and Day

A Five-Page Excerpt from a Work-in-Progress

(Singer, pianist, composer Joe Jackson.)

During the pandemic, like many artists, writers, and musicians who were trying not to lose it while in lockdown, I was inspired to do start some ambitious creative projects, including returning to composing and arranging for string quartet, and pitching to Bloomsbury Publishing’s 33 1/3 series a book about Joe Jackson’s 1982 album, Night and Day, a truly groundbreaking recording that reached the top five in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

People who know Night and Day only for the hit single “Steppin’ Out” may be surprised to discover how steeped the rest of the album is in Latin music. This is one of the many things I hoped to unpack in a book. I interviewed musicians in Houston and Minneapolis to gain a deeper understanding of the album’s Latin and (in the case of “Steppin’ Out”) electronic music influences, and even had the privilege of speaking to master percussionist Sue Hadjopoulos, Jackson’s “secret weapon” on Night and Day. (I can’t begin to imagine the album without her!)

Well, 33 1/3 didn’t go for the book, but I am pleased to share the work-in-progress here on Substack. Doing so will no doubt compel me to complete the project!

Night and Day: A Five-Page Excerpt

A wry quote from the great American composer and bandleader Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington appears inside the gatefold sleeve of Night and Day: “I am an optimist from where it is. Music is mostly all right, or at least in a healthy state for the future, in spite of the fact that it may sound as if it is being held hostage.”[i] The inclusion of Ellington’s quote is one of the many ways Night and Day references and find connections between different eras, while remaining very much an album of its time. Thirty years later, Jackson would record The Duke, an entire album of provocative arrangements of some of Ellington’s most beloved compositions, including “Mood Indigo,” “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and a somewhat bizarre version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” endearingly crooned by the godfather of punk, Iggy Pop. In the liner notes for The Duke, regarding what is must have been like for listeners encountering Ellington’s music in the late 1920s, Jackson writes, “At a time when many people weren’t even yet sure what jazz was . . . it must have been like finding a secret door and opening it to find yourself not just in a different room, but on a different planet.”[ii]

The experience of opening a door to a new world, with its feelings of shock and liberation, is the inspiration for “Another World,” the first track of side one, or the “Night Side,” of Night and Day. On his website Jackson recalls, “Latin music was one of the things that made me fall in love with New York in the early 80s, and part of that magic was a little Latin record shop (Record Mart) down in the subway[iii], blaring the latest Ray Barretto or Willie Colón album for passing commuters. . . . A thump of congas, a rattle of timbales, and a screech of trumpets would mingle with all the clamor of a rush hour in the heart of Manhattan, to produce a quintessential New York experience.”[iv] For Jackson, Latin music, especially “salsa” and its blend of traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms with the sounds of psychedelic rock and funk and modern jazz, was the room behind the “secret door.”

Of the nine songs on Night and Day, “Another World,” “Chinatown,” “Target,” “Breaking Us in Two,” and “Cancer” feature traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms and instrumentation, including congas, bongos, timbales, and bells. “T.V. Age” includes fills on bongos and timbales and a recurring pattern on agogô (double bell) over a spastic, new wave groove that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Talking Heads album.[v] “Real Men” is a cha-cha-chá, but with a drum machine providing the rhythm, while an octave-skipping bassline played on a Minimoog synthesizer synced to a preset “disco” beat from an analog drum machine fuels the brisk yet languid feel of “Steppin’ Out.” Night and Day’s final track, “Slow Song,” is a 12/8 ballad that rises to three majestic crescendos, its rhythm evoking the doo-wop ballads sung on the stoops of New York City throughout the 1950s and 60s.[vi] Throughout Night and Day, Jackson skillfully navigated “that tense space between the traditional and the experimental,”[vii] creating a Latin-meets-new-wave-meets-jazz template that artists, including the aforementioned Byrne, would eventually pick up and run with.

* * *

During the 1970s, New York City experienced major demographic shifts in its population. By 1980, according to census data, “blacks, Hispanic people, and Asians” now made up 47.1 percent of the city’s population, due in part to an influx of immigrants from Asia and countries across Latin America. New York City’s Hispanic population increased from 16 to 20 percent, with Puerto Ricans making up approximately 61 percent of the city’s 1.41 million Hispanic people, and 28 percent of the Hispanic population living in the Bronx.[viii] Puerto Ricans had been making their way to New York since the Jones Act of 1917, and by 1930 were the city’s largest Spanish-speaking group.[ix] Beginning in the early 20^th century, Puerto Rican musicians were integral to the development of jazz, and would help bridge African American and Cuban styles into what came to be called “Latin jazz.”[x] No doubt Jackson was aware of this history when he relocated from England to New York’s East Village in the fall of 1981, and found himself creatively energized by the diversity of the city’s population and most importantly its music.

In his 1999 autobiography, A Cure for Gravity, Jackson recalls his time in New York, and describes the joy of hearing and being carried away by the sound of a salsa band playing over the radio in a diner while eating breakfast: “The band . . . are most likely second- or third-generation Puerto Ricans who were raised uptown, way uptown . . . in a different world from me. But through the music, they’ve connected with an Englishman way downtown, in a way that would otherwise never happen.”[xi] Jackson goes on to compare his childhood in the rough and tumble environment of Paulsgrove, a working-class suburb of Portsmouth that suffered repeated bombings by the Germans in World War II only to reemerge as an “ugly” landscape of council flats with roofs of dented corrugated iron covered with peeling paint, with that of his New York City counterparts. “Those Puerto Rican kids . . . grew up beating out salsa rhythms on boxes and tin cans,” writes Jackson. “Their music was part of their identity, and I envy them.”[xii]

Latin music was hard to come by in pre- and post-punk Britain. In an interview with The New York Times in 1982, Jackson explained, “In England, the only salsa record you could get for years was a collection by the Fania All-Stars. When I finally came to New York . . . I saw literally hundreds of salsa bands and bought a lot of salsa records.” The one “salsa record” Jackson refers to could have been any number of live and studio releases in the 1970s by the Fania All-Stars, a revolving collective of New York-based, Spanish-speaking musicians, brought together by the Fania record label to showcase its artists. The Fania All-Stars’ roster included conga maestro Ray Barretto, trombonist Willie Colón, pianist and producer Larry Harlow (who was white and Jewish), bassist Bobby Valentín, singers Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, Santos Colón, and Rubén Blades, and dozens of other talented bandleaders, musicians and singers. In 1971, Fania records released Fania All-Stars: Live at the Cheetah, Volumes 1 and 2, featuring the All-Stars performing to a packed crowd of 2,000 at New York City’s Cheetah Lounge. That concert, the live albums, and a 16mm concert film titled Our Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa Latina) documenting the Cheetah Lounge show for posterity helped bring “salsa” out of the barrio and into the mainstream, and dramatically increased the size of its listening (and dancing) audience.[xiii]

Before relocating to New York City, Jackson, a classically trained violinist from a tough, working-class town, who equally loved Bowie and Beethoven, had already embraced and infused a wide range of musical influences into his songwriting. And like Bowie and Beethoven, his skills as a composer, arranger, and orchestrator allowed him to deconstruct and recombine musical styles into something new. Going back to The Duke, Jackson wrote, “My approach to the material . . . was inspired by Ellington’s own. Nothing is sacred, and anything can be rearranged and reinvented.”[xiv]

But while The Duke revels in unexpected juxtapositions of musical talents and styles, Jackson’s 1981 album, Jumpin’ Jive, was firmly rooted in tradition, specifically, swing-era jazz, which was America’s popular music in the 1930s and 40s. Featuring Jackson’s arrangements of a dozen “jump blues” classics originally recorded and performed by such artists as Louis Jordan, Lester Young, and Cab Calloway, the album was a surprise hit, and preceded the so-called “swing-revival” (led by such bands as the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra) by almost a decade. At the time of its release, the sight and sound of white artists performing music originated by black artists was certainly nothing new, and at least two tracks on Jumpin’ Jive were in fact recorded by white artists in the heyday of the swing era, including the Andrews Sisters (“Jumpin’ Jive”) and Glenn Miller (“Tuxedo Junction”). But it’s likely Jackson simply ignored the cultural ramifications of white, British musicians performing music born out of the African American experience and instead focused on making sure these new recordings did justice to the musicians he considered so important to the history and development of popular music.[xv] “People have weird ideas about the history of rock,” Jackson said in an interview at the time of Night and Day’s release. “They think it came suddenly out of nowhere, and they’re absolutely wrong. That’s what Jumpin’ Jive was about. Louis Jordan’s jump-blues was a huge influence on Chuck Berry and Bill Haley. I think he’s been sadly underrated.”[xvi]

While Jumpin’ Jive swings, the Latin-infused tracks on Night and Day groove in a totally different way. In jazz, “swing” refers to the uneven division of each beat of the music. When you hear a musician count off a tune (“one, two, three, four!”), the numbers refer to successive beats within a single measure, or “bar,” of music. Regardless of how fast or slow the musician counts, the count-off will be consistent and articulate the rhythmic feel the tune requires. In jazz, music is played with a “swing” feel, where each individual beat is divided in two, the first half, or “downbeat,” being longer than the second half, or the “upbeat.” Swing is sometimes referred to as “shuffle,” a word that provides a helpful visual for the feel and sound of the rhythm.

(My beat-up, but still awesome-sounding copy of Night and Day.)

The Afro-Cuban rhythms on Night and Day have an entirely different feel. In Afro-Cuban music, each individual beat is divided evenly, which allows two or more musicians to perform layers of contrasting rhythms to create a larger, interlocking whole. The anchor in all of this rhythmic complexity is a two-bar rhythm called the clave, or the “rhythmic key.” In Afro-Cuban music, the clave is always present and always implied, from the very first beat to the end of the tune, even when it’s not actually played. The two-bar rhythm is either a three-beat plus two-beat pattern (3:2), or vice versa (2:3). A clave played as 3:2 is also referred to as “forward clave,” because it begins with a feeling of forward motion, whereas 2:3, with its opposite feel, is called “reverse clave.” Clave is present in many classic rock and roll songs, such as Bo Diddley’s self-titled 1955 hit, where the song’s famous “Bo Diddley” beat, a 3:2 clave, is played on electric guitar. You hear that same clave played on acoustic guitar in George Michael’s butt-shaking singalong “Faith.” But in Afro-Cuban music, the clave is not always audible; in fact, it’s rare to find a recording where someone is actually playing the clave throughout the track. As we’ll see when we start deconstructing the Afro-Cuban grooves on Night and Day, the rhythms usually imply the clave, which is why clave is often described as something you “feel” rather than actually hear.

* * *

Jackson’s secret weapon on Night and Day is Long Island-born percussionist Sue Hadjopoulos, a virtuoso musician who was inspired to explore drums by her Greek father, and Latin percussion by her Puerto Rican mother. Hadjopoulos was a founding member of the 14-piece all-female ensemble Latin Fever and a seasoned studio musician when she responded to a classified ad in The Village Voice by a “major recording artist” seeking a player skilled in Latin percussion.[xvii] It is Hadjopoulos on timbales, congas, and bell and Larry Tolfree on drums who herald the beginning of the album’s “Night Side.”

(Percussionist Sue Hadjopoulos)

“Another World” begins with a deep, resonating floor tom hit and a steady pattern of eighth notes on the hi-hat. There’s a fill at the end of the first two-bar phrase on timbales from Hadjopoulos, who then adds a cowbell to the drummer’s groove, playing a rhythm that implies a 2:3 clave. The cowbell rhythm also mirrors the rhythm of the melody of the 1947 Latin-jazz hit “Manteca,” co-composed by Havana-born conga virtuoso Chano Pozo and jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and the first recorded example of traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms combined with swinging American jazz.[xviii] It’s a very familiar rhythm for fans of Afro-Cuban music, firmly rooted in tradition, but perfectly at home within Jackson’s compositional vision. Then Jackson comes in with the tune’s descending then ascending piano hook, the second half of which is a “montuno” that implies, but like the cowbell doesn’t actually play, the song’s 2:3 clave. Montunos in Afro-Cuban music are two-hand piano parts, typically two or four bars in length, played over and over again throughout a tune to reinforce the clave. When Jackson enters on piano, the bell changes to a simple pattern of repeated off-beats, another rhythm familiar to fans of Latin music. After this extended introduction of interlocking patterns, the arrangement suddenly shifts again, and the song’s first verse begins with a new hook, a bassline played on both electric bass and piano, while the “Manteca” rhythm returns on cowbell.

“I was so low!” Jackson belts out, half-cry, half-snarl, with plenty of post-punk attitude. “People almost made me give up trying/Always said no/Then I turned around/Saw someone smiling.” Each time I listen to this track, I’m always startled by the entrance and sound of Jackson’s voice, and the almost punk rock texture he chose for singing its opening verse. The chorus on “Another World,” “I stepped into . . . another world . . .” speaks to a revelatory experience, and the transcendence that follows, like finding and opening the proverbial “secret door” Jackson describes in his notes for The Duke. But a door to where? Perhaps one of the city’s Latin-music clubs, where for much of the 1970s and 80s, live and DJed music provided an alternative to disco for dancing? That’s probably a too-literal and reductive interpretation, however, when listening to Night and Day, it’s clear Afro-Cuban music and the city’s club culture had a liberating effect on Jackson both creatively and personally.

The chorus of “Another World” introduces yet another melodic hook, this time played on a xylophone and glockenspiel, both percussion instruments played with mallets and more commonly heard in classical music than in salsa. Jackson’s ear for orchestration on “Another World” track is evident, and as we continue exploring Night and Day track by track, we will encounter more unexpected combinations of instruments, violins and drum machines, synthesizers and timbales, Chinese cymbals and congas, whose overlapping timbres and overtones speak to the sights and sounds of a city redefining itself amidst the social challenges of immigration, “white flight” and ensuing gentrification, increased economic disparity, spiraling crime statistics and, in music and the arts, the aforementioned tensions between “the traditional and experimental.”

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[i] Duke Ellington quoted inside the gatefold sleeve of Night and Day by Joe Jackson, 1982.

[ii] Liner notes from The Duke by Joe Jackson, 2012.

[iii] Jackson is referring to Record Mart’s 42^nd Street location, which opened in 1961 and closed in 1998 due to subway renovations. http://www.recordmartnyc.com/history.html.

[iv] “What I’m Listening To,” by Joe Jackson, October 2019, http://joejackson.com/blog_index&postid=1683797.

[v] Talking Heads lead singer and songwriter David Byrne took his own a deep dive into Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms on his 1989 album Rei Momo.

[vi] Doo-wop wasn’t a genre exclusive to New York City. After World War II, it emerged in “major metropolitan cities in America, such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Washington D.C.” Doo-Wop Acappella: A Story of Street Corners, Echoes, and Three-Part Harmonies, by Lawrence Pitilli, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

[vii] “Fania Records at 50, Afropop Worldwide,” September 14, 2017. The full quote by “Afropop Worldwide” host Georges Collinet is: “Willie Colón and Eddie Palmieri continued to push the boundaries of the music further towards rock, jazz and orchestra music, without losing that essential clave . . . the music that was created in that tense space between the traditional and the experimental in New York came to be called ‘salsa.’”

[viii] “Census Traces Radical Shifts in New York City’s Population,” by Michael Oreskes, New York Times, September 20, 1982.

[ix] Cuba and Its Music, by Ned Sublette, Chicago Review Press, 2004.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] A Cure for Gravity, by Joe Jackson, Da Capo Press, 1999.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] The opening credits of Our Latin Thing include an outdoor performance in an empty lot somewhere in East Harlem (also known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio) by a least a dozen mostly Hispanic kids playing Afro-Cuban rhythms on “boxes and tin cans” as described by Jackson, along with a few adults on bongos and congas.

[xiv] Liner notes from The Duke by Joe Jackson, 2012.

[xv] Not surprisingly, given the range of Jackson’s musical passions, his bands over the course of his career have become more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and gender.

[xvi] “Joe Jackson Fuses Pop and Salsa,” by Stephen Holden, New York Times, December 12, 1982.

[xvii] “She Doesn’t Like the Limelight, But Her Rhythms Take Center Stage,” 2013, https://admissions.barnard.edu/magazine/spring-2013/she-doesnt-limelight-her-rhythms-take-center-stage.

[xviii] Cuba and Its Music, by Ned Sublette, Chicago Review Press, 2004.