He wrote two collections of wry and lyric poetry, helped safeguard Duke Ellington’s archives at the Smithsonian and hosted a jazz show on D.C.’s WPFW (89.3 FM).
Reuben Jackson, who fused words and music in a multifaceted career as a Washington-based poet, jazz scholar, critic and radio host, died Feb. 16 at a hospital in the District. He was 67.
A self-described “introvert who likes to talk a lot,” Mr. Jackson was a prominent but paradoxical figure in the District’s arts scene, with a shy, soft-spoken demeanor that he would cast off like a cloak, revealing an easygoing charm in his interactions with audiences in poetry readings and with students he taught in workshops at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda and in
Growing up in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest Washington, Mr. Jackson played the clarinet and tenor saxophone and discovered jazz through his father’s record collection. Music served as a gateway to poetry: As he told it, his literary influences included not only William Carlos Williams and Dylan Thomas but jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, who served as a model“I look at it this way,” Mr. Jackson once told the Washington Times. “Whether it’s a fugue or a sonnet, it’s all composition.
“His selections, wrapped in engaging stories, were delightful,” Appelbaum said in an email, recalling how Mr. Jackson “would slip in some surprises like Earth, Wind & Fire or Jimi Hendrix” while bouncing between favorites such as Davis, Gil Evans and Frank Sinatra. “He was the best partner I could have imagined.”The younger of two sons, Reuben Meredith Jackson was born in Augusta, Ga., on Oct. 1, 1956, and grew up in Washington.
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