That time Joe Jackson told me that Duke Ellington was wrong: there’s actually three kinds of music

By Steve Newton

I interviewed Joe Jackson in August of 2003, when he had reunited with his original band for its 25th anniversary, and to record the album Volume 4.

That’s the same band–guitarist Gary Sanford, bassist Graham Maby, drummer David Houghton, and Jackson on vocals and piano–that played on his awesome 1979 albums, Look Sharp! and I’m the Man.

At one point in the conversation I brought up the fact that Jackson had been a classical prodigy who studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then asked if going from that to playing punk was “dumbing down” at all.

Jackson–whose music was perhaps better classified as new-wave than punk–wasn’t offended by the query. In fact, he sounded kind of amused, and came up with a pretty interesting response.

Have a listen:

To hear the full audio of my interview with Joe Jackson subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with musicians since 1982.