British singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Jackson (joejackson.com) has proven to be a musical amoeba since his masterful post-punk 1979 New Wave debut Look Sharp! (A&M).
There have since been stylistic detours through reggae, cabaret, blues, pop and classical music as well as swing and traditional jazz, all as the 71-year-old Jackson refused to be pigeonholed in a 50-plus year career defined by its lack of constancy.
Yet amid all those audio twists and turns, one factor has remained consistent during Jackson’s career — singing bassist and fellow Brit Graham Maby. Those two will be joined by guitarist/vocalist Teddy Kumpel, drummer/vocalist Doug Yowell, and percussionist Felipe Fournier on Jackson’s July 1 Hope and Fury Tour stop at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale.
Hope and Fury (earMUSIC, 2026) is Jackson’s 24th album release, and the 73-year-old Maby has recorded on 21 of them, a fact that even he can’t seem to believe more than 50 years after their initial meeting in England.
“I’ve lost count, so I’ll take your word for it,” Maby says by phone from his home in Great Neck, N.Y. “I couldn’t have even foreseen still being alive 53 years later, let alone still be playing with Joe. He was only 19 when we met, and I was 21. He was studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and broke, because he was a student. So he joined a cover band to make some money on weekends. Eventually people left that band and he asked me to join.”
Even in the late 1970s across the Atlantic Ocean, cover bands meant quick cash but little to no forward motion up the ladder in the music industry. The crafty Jackson eventually quit, but remembered Maby when he started recording demo tapes of his original compositions in search of a recording deal. Those demos would include Maby, and would be almost identically replicated — other than being re-recorded at Eden Studios in London for better sonic quality — to form Look Sharp!
Released in early 1979, that album also featured drummer Dave Houghton, who was brought in by Maby, and guitarist Gary Sanford, who knew Jackson. Tracks like the introspective hit “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and the strutting “Sunday Papers” showcased the quartet’s chemistry, as did the late 1979 A&M follow-up I’m the Man (featuring the hit ballad “It’s Different for Girls” and its raucous title track).
The two albums presented a relatively new rock sound as the 1970s closed. Maby’s playing, whether fingerstyle or with a pick, was front and center and in lock step with Houghton. Sanford’s guitar was important yet relatively minimalist, as the rhythm section primarily stepped to the fore to accentuate Jackson’s vocal and instrumental witticisims.
“Dave and Gary were also on Joe’s initial demos,” Maby says, “and we’d already played a few shows. So I think we recorded ‘Look Sharp!’ over only a week or so, and crafted the material for ‘I’m the Man’ while touring to support our debut album. The chemistry really clicked, but Dave left for personal reasons after our third album, ‘Beat Crazy’ [A&M, 1980].”
While that album’s darker, more reggae-tinged content represented a stylistic departure, it was Houghton’s literal departure that started Jackson’s first of several full stylistic U-turns.
Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive (A&M, 1981) only featured Maby from the original lineup amid a horn section, pianist, drummer, and Jackson singing and playing vibraphone. Its throwback material was 1940s swing and blues tunes written and performed by Lester Young, Cab Calloway, and Louis Jordan.
Oddly, whatever fan base Jackson lost through the decreasing sales of I’m the Man and Beat Crazy — partially due to the surprise factor of Look Sharp! having been erased — was partially replaced by seniors who loved his reinterpretations of music from the swing and big band jazz eras, largely because of his spot-on arrangements and convincing vocals.
“Joe had to rethink things,” Maby says, “and ‘Jumpin’ Jive’ was intended as a very different in-between project that we did just for fun. But A&M Records liked it and decided that they wanted to put it out. Which threw Joe for a loop, but we actually did a tour and a few British dates for that album. And it was certainly a lot of fun all around.”
Jackson then combined his jazz and rock sensibilities into the sophisticated pop sound of Night and Day (A&M, 1982), an album that would prove to be his commercial apex. Guitar-less like its predecessor, its omnipresent hit single “Steppin’ Out” was based on Jackson’s piano chords. Nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, the song helped push the release into the Top 5 on album charts in both the United States and United Kingdom.
“I remembered thinking that the ‘Night and Day’ songs were great,” says Maby, “but that they were just so dramatically different from the music on the earlier albums. I wondered if people would get it, and if not, if it was the beginning of the end. I just thought it might be a stretch for Joe’s existing fan base to appreciate that music. But I’m happy that I was wrong, since it became Joe’s best-selling album.”
Maby has been along on most of Mr. Jackson’s wild ride since, including forays into soundtracks (the 1983 mystery Mike’s Murder, starring Debra Winger), Latin pop (Body and Soul, 1984), live albums (in 1988, 2000, 2011 and 2012), the classical flourishes of Night Music (1994) and Night and Day II (2000), and a reuniting of the original rock quartet (Volume 4, 2003).
The current core quartet of Jackson, Maby, Kumpel and Yowell has existed since 2015, and its necessary versatility is featured on the Jackson releases Fool (2019) and Hope and Fury. The band leader has described the latter new release as “bicoastal Latin-jazz-funk-rock,” and praised Kumpel.
“Teddy Kumpel is the guitarist I always wanted to work with but could never find,” Jackson says.
For the singing guitarist, who attended the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, it’ll be a bit of a homecoming. And he has fans of his eclectic trio Nome Sane, which has a new album called Of Sound Mind to be released in August, near and far.
“In college, he was already a master of effects pedals,” says bassist Randy Ward, a UM classmate of Kumpel’s who later wowed South Florida audiences with artists like guitarists Tom Lippincott and Frank Axtell before moving back to his native Iowa.
Fans can expect a healthy portion of Hope and Fury on July 1, but Maby says Jackson will also reach into his back catalog.
“We’ll probably do five or six songs from the new record,” he says, “but also two from ‘Look Sharp!’ and something from ‘I’m the Man.’ With Joe, there’ll almost always be an opening sequence of songs and a closing sequence of songs, with things getting switched around occasionally in the middle.”
Even though he’s primarily associated with Jackson, Maby’s other recording and touring credits include Marshall Crenshaw, Natalie Merchant, They Might Be Giants, and a long list of others. Most of the very few Jackson albums without Maby came during the mid-’80s.
“I’ve known Joe for so long that we’re like family,” says Maby. “And I do appreciate his loyalty and trust. But he was burned out at the end of the tour we did in support of the 1984 album ‘Body and Soul.’ On stage, he was saying, ‘This is my favorite band and my last tour.’ So I was a little panic-stricken. Marshall Crenshaw had opened some shows for us, and I’d gotten to know him a bit. He asked if I’d like to tour with him, and I committed to doing that.”
“Then Joe calls and says, ‘Hey, I’ve written some new songs and want to start rehearsing.’ And I said, ‘Hold on, I thought you said you were all done, and I’ve committed to touring with Marshall.’ ‘Can you get out of it?’ he asks. ‘I don’t know if I want to get out of it,’ I told him. Which led to a few years of Joe icing me out. It took awhile for us to patch that up, but Joe eventually forgave me for my sins.”
If You Go
Joe Jackson performs at The Parker-Lillian S. Wells Hall, 707 N.E. 8th St., Fort Lauderdale.
When: 7:30 p.m. July 1
Tickets: $58-$118
Info: 954-462-0222, www.parkerplayhouse.com