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News 12 Staff

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A gentle whisper in your eyes calling me. You And making dreams, can I get closer. Now my childish instincts. That disappointment is near. I, I I relent having spent all my days behind. I stand Yeah, yeah. reflect on the time that I spent me. believe I still It's a mystery. And all of you, one that I failed to escape. It's a journey instincts that disappointment. But I regret having spent all my days, but I regret having spent all my days, but I regret having spent all my days.

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Carrie, you know how we love these high school pictures. Let's take a walk down memory lane. Tell me all about this. Well, I would love to, um, I'm a child of the 60s, and Pesine Avenue School was my elementary school. Pesine Avenue is still there in Newark. Weekway High School. I love going. I love Newark. I love Weekway High School. I loved everything about school, learning the debate team, uh, all of my friends and families that that went there the school was just special to me. I, I had a good life in Newark. It was fun. There was education. There was recreation. I learned how to jump rope. I learned how to do double dutch. Uh, went to Weekway Park during the summers, and, you know, they just had a whole, uh, host of things for kids to do. The parents could drop you off. You could stay there till 3 o'clock. They could pick you up. There was no crime. Neighbors were neighbors and people kind of clambered together, and it was really a very beautiful experience. My elementary school and my high school, I, I can't say anything bad about it. I just loved it. Introducing her, Carrie Jackson people is the lady you are looking at right now, Carrie Jackson. She has a new CD out called Jersey Bounce. She, yeah, she sings jazz. She's a vocal stylist singing jazz, blues, and gospel, plus an actor and educator. When did you first discover you had this talent? How much time we got? Go, go for it. Well, first of all, um, I was raised in Newark and I went to Mount Calvary Baptist Church and I was singing in the children's choir. So singing in the children's choir, that's when I became aware of singing as a leader, so I sang in the children's choir, I sang in the young adult choir. I went on to sing in the New York City metropolitan area WWRL Radio gospel chorus. Um, we sang at hospitals, nursing homes, prisons. I even went to Rikers Island. I was like that was a scary thing, but. You know, the, the, the inmates, they were so appreciative of the music and I was surprised to find how much talent was there so that's when I, I started and even in elementary school I remember the first time I sang God Bless America in the first grade and then all throughout, uh, elementary school I was still singing and my brother who was a great inspiration, my brother who just passed a year ago, Frank. Uh, Frank was more of the Motown Temptation genre, and I kind of followed him everywhere he went. We were 2 years apart, and I kinda loved he was, he went to Clinton Place Junior High School. They won a lot of competitions, and I was the little sister that was kind of walking in his steps, and he allowed me to do that, and I remember there was a group of guys on the block. They were called the Escorts. I don't know if anybody remembers the escorts. Um, but they did a lot of albums while they were incarcerated.

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We are talking with Carrie Jackson of Newark. She has a new CD out called Jersey Bounce. She is a vocal stylist singing jazz, blues, and gospel, plus an actor and educator, and you said you started singing where? At 6 years old, the tender age of 6, at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Newark under Reverend Jesse Wendell Matson. And I sang in the children's choir, the young adult choir. I was an usher, and then I went on touring with the WWRL Radio gospel chorus, and so that was my origins into gospel, but as a young adult, there was a club in East Orange or Orange, New Jersey called the Peppermint Lounge Complex. I like the name. Oh, it was fabulous. It was owned by a, uh, it was black owned. And it was, it, it had a ballroom that housed like 1000 people, so you can get Southern food in the restaurant, you can go see Lou Rawls in the ballroom or Cissy Houston or Aretha Franklin or whoever was there at the time and somebody at that time dared me to go up and sing during their um jam session. And at the time my partner, musical partner Rodham Schwartz was the uh bandleader. He played the Hammond B3 organ. He had that place rocking. I mean it was Williams and it was Gary Moore and we're talking about the like 1980, 1985, and so this. Karen, why don't you go up there and sing, and I wasn't really what I would call myself at that time, a, a jazz singer, you know, listening to R&B, listening to gospel. I went up there and I sang, and I think I did, uh, Earl Gardner's song Misty because I was totally, totally infatuated with Sarah Vaughan coming from Newark, Sarah Vaughan, uh, Ella Fitzgerald, the Count Basie music, the Nat King Cole, uh, Arthur Prisock. And a host of others. You had good influences, yes, yes, I did, and in the music, I kind of gravitated towards the jazz because jazz to me is America's classical art form. And it, it really needs to be supported more by y'all because it's our music. You know, it, it, it goes back to hundreds of years. It goes back to, uh. The improvisation, it goes back to the swing era. It goes back to the blues era. It goes back to Muddy Waters. Jazz could be a twelve-bar blues. It's syncopated, it touches your soul. The music just, just goes through you.

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Ms. Carrie Jackson, tell me about these pictures and where you and the band have traveled and tell me about the members. Well, this particular picture was at SOPAC, and that's Charlie Siegler on guitar who's also on my album. Gordon Lane was on drums, he's on my album. Adam Schwartz, he's on my album, um, and a very young man named Rodrigo Romero, who is from Peru and he's a fantastic 25 year old saxophone player. He is amazing. This one was taken at Calandra's Italian restaurant in Caldwell. This one was taken at the Liberty State Park, Maddie's Restaurant. This one I was at uh Mantaloan Yacht Club. This one was taken at Medley's Restaurant. It's in Teaneck, New Jersey. This one was taken down at, um, North Shore, North to Shore Jazz Festival. This one was taken at the Delaware Water Gap. Uh, this one was taken in Westfield at Downtown Sweet Festival. They do it every year. You look beautiful too. Thank you. This one is the Belleville Library. That's Rodham, Takashi, Gordon, and those two are performing in studio with you with the song. Yes. Tell us about that song that y'all are performing. Well, that particular song was an original song that was written by Radam. And it's he's like your right-hand man. He is. You guys have been together a long time, 30 years. Congratulations my musical partner. Thank you. And Rodham is from New York. Taikashi is from Tokyo, Japan, and we are a very, I consider us a family. They're in they're an extended family. If something happens to them, I feel like it's my family because that's how close we are. Um, sometimes we have a hate love relationship. Everybody does, you know, you know they, but they are phenomenal musicians. Rodham played with Arthur Prisock, David Fathead Newman, um, he's played with a host of people. He's on Everybody Body. Look up Rodham Schwartz, and you will see him everywhere performing with everybody. Um, and Taikashi, you know, he's international. He's from Japan, but he's a well-known musician. Uh, he's from Tokyo. Charlie Sigler is from, uh, Marilyn. Uh, Gordon Lane is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, um, and Charlie Ziegler, like I said, he's from Maryland. Uh, who did I miss? Oh, Romero Rodrigo, he's from Peru. He recently had a little problem but he straightened it out. We're making sure that I didn't grab him up so everything is straight. He's fine, he's documented. He had to go to court. He had to have a lawyer, but he's on my album. Rodrigo Romero, thank you so much, young man.

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You can either go on the beat, off the beat, in the middle of the beat, you can extend the notes, the syncopated notes, but as long as everyone in the band starts out in the right place, everybody's on tune with each other and they're in the right format of the tune.

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The singer joined News 12’s Della Crews to talk discuss her latest CD release.

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