Javon Jackson – “With Peter Bradley” Soundtrack and Original Score

Undersung in the art world despite a prolific 50-year career, abstract artist Peter Bradley has finally begun receiving his due acclaim. That continues with the release of the new documentary With Peter Bradley, which documents the artist’s dedicated daily practice. Bradley’s work is inextricably linked with his love of jazz, which provides the atmosphere and inspiration for all of his paintings. Saxophonist and composer Javon Jackson provides a score for the film that nods to some of Bradley’s favorite jazz icons – including Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Jackson’s former employer, Art Blakey – while vibrantly capturing the moods and personalities of the film and its subject.

“With Peter Bradley” Soundtrack and Original Score features Jackson’s quartet with pianist Jeremy Manasia, bassist David Williams and drummer Charles Goold along with guest trumpeter Greg Glassman. In addition to the film’s score, the album also includes four tracks recorded during the sessions for Jackson’s acclaimed 2022 release The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni featuring the quartet, this time with drummer McClenty Hunter. 

Jackson was an ideal choice to compose the film’s score, not just for his direct ties to the jazz tradition that has fueled Bradley’s work and his gift for musical portraiture, but for his longtime friendship with the artist. “I’ve known Peter Bradley for many years,” Jackson recounts. “He was a friend of Art Blakey’s, so he would often come to see the band during my time with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Over the years we stayed in contact and I knew that he was an artist, but I didn't know to what degree.” 

Upon viewing the film and becoming acquainted with the magnitude of Bradley’s oeuvre, Jackson came to recognize not just a friend but also a kindred spirit. “He’s a jazz musician,” the saxophonist chuckled, “only his instrument is paint.”

Premiered at the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival, With Peter Bradley is an intimate portrait of the 79-year-old artist helmed by Bradley’s Saugerties, NY neighbor and filmmaker Alex  Rappoport. It traces the artist’s biography as the first Black art dealer on Madison Avenue, curator of the first integrated modern art show in America, and likely the first Black abstract artist represented by a major New York gallery. 

Despite those accolades, Bradley hadn’t been the subject of a major gallery show in decades, though he doggedly returned to his shipping container studio every day, working by the heat of a wood stove. Initial reviews since the film’s January premiere have been laudatory, with Film Threat calling it “documentary in its purest form… riveting.” 

Jackson’s soundtrack works thrillingly as an album of muscular hard bop and evocative ballads, as anyone familiar with the saxophonist’s storied career would expect. In conjunction with Rappoport’s images, the score reveals Jackson as a nuanced jazz portraitist, able to condense character or action into bold, swinging melody. The album opens with his melancholy theme for the painter himself, while “Edith Ramsey” is a tender depiction of Bradley’s adoptive mother. 

“I approached the film with an open mind,” Jackson explains succinctly. “I knew that Peter loves John Coltrane, Mingus, Clifford Brown and Max Roach – so there are hints of all of them. From there I just followed the mood of the piece and offered something based on my musical thoughts that would adhere to the scene.”

With Peter Bradley is Jackson’s first original score, fulfilling a longtime desire awakened when he composed a suite of music to accompany Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic The Lodger, commissioned by the Syracuse International Film Festival in 2009. The remaining pieces were recorded at the spur of the moment during the sessions for The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni, Jackson’s widely hailed collaboration with the renowned poet. Two originals – “Amy’s Theme,” dedicated to a close friend’s late wife, and “Brother G,” written for close friend Kenny Garrett – they include the classic standard “Never Let Me Go” and Dizzy Gillespie’s “That’s Earl Brother,” all of which fit the mood brilliantly and could yield future masterpieces as the soundtrack to Bradley’s ongoing creations.

Missouri-born tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson left his studies at Berklee College of Music in 1986 to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, where he later played alongside pianist Benny Green, trumpeter Philip Harper, trombonist Robin Eubanks and bassist Peter Washington. Jackson remained a fixture in the Jazz Messengers until Blakey’s passing in 1990. In 1991, Jackson made his recording debut with Me and Mr. Jones, featuring James Williams, Christian McBride, and master drummer Elvin Jones. He joined Jones’ group in 1992, appearing on the great drummer’s albums Youngblood and Going Home. Jackson’s 1994 Blue Note debut, When the Time Is Right, was a straight-ahead affair produced by iconic jazz vocalist and bandleader Betty Carter. His subsequent four Blue Note recordings featured wildly eclectic programs ranging from Caetano Veloso, Frank Zappa and Santana to Muddy Waters, Al Green and Serge Gainsbourg. For the Palmetto label he explored a blend of funk, jazz and soul with such stellar sidemen as organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, guitarists Mark Whitfield and David Gilmore, trombonist Fred Wesley and drummer Lenny White. In 2012, he launched his own Solid Jackson Records with Celebrating John Coltrane. His latest release for the label, The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni, was a historic, gospel-tinged collaboration with the renowned African American poet, activist and educator.