D.D. Jackson

I am a two-time Emmy Award-winning composer, producer, and Juno Award-winning jazz pianist and educator. As a composer, I specialize in writing, arranging, and producing memorable, custom-made music for t.v., film & other media. I consider myself an "artistic problem solver": I strive to get to the essential conceptual truth of what the client is looking for - and to express it in a creative and supportive way. [READ MORE] or [BIO]

PERFORMANCES with QUESTLOVE and THE ROOTS
 

 

I've had the pleasure of working with Questlove and The Roots for the past several years on various projects. Here are a few examples:

conducting The Roots/orchestra at rehearsal

conducting The Roots/orchestra at rehearsal

I had the pleasure of conducting and providing additional arrangements/musical sections for The Roots composition "It Ain't Fair" (from the soundtrack to the Kathryn Bigelow film "Detroit") on The Tonight Show of Aug. 7/17. Here's the performance (I'm conducting off-camera):

My appearance Nov/15 at the theater at Madison Square Garden with The Roots as part of the John Lennon 75th Birthday Tribute concert, performing our version of "Mother":

My appearance in 2012 with Questlove at part of his curated Brooklyn Academy of Music concert "Shuffle Culture", in which we did a slightly manic version of a Scott Joplin rag :-):

My appearance on "The Jimmy Fallon Show" with The Roots, performing "Tip the Scale" from their Grammy-nominated CD Undun (I appear around the 3 min mark in a free jazz duo with Questlove):

 

ARRANGEMENTS

 I've also had the pleasure of doing multiple arrangements for Questlove and The Roots for various projects, including (more recently) 30-piece orchestral arrangements of Roots tunes for their appearance at Radio City Music Hall with Dave Chappelle (for which I also played piano). What follows are a few other examples:

 Here is my arrangement of Ravel's solo piano piece "Ma Mere L'oye", which I scored for string quartet as part of Questlove's Philly Paris Lockdown concert that took place at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center in 2011:

Members of the Metropolis Ensemble dir. by Andrew Cyr recording my string arrangements for The Roots's CD "...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin"

Members of the Metropolis Ensemble dir. by Andrew Cyr recording my string arrangements for The Roots's CD "...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin"

I also did string/vocal arrangements on The Roots CD "...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin". Here is a track from the same CD someone put up on Youtube ("The Coming") featuring my piano playing and string arrangement (which begins around 1:30):

 And here is a live performance of "Never" from the same CD (for which I did the "eerie" string/vocal break starting just after 1:45):