Unfolding the Pocket, Neutralizing the Lyrical Contrabass Guitarist Anthony Jackson and the Aesthetics of Modernism

The American bass guitar player Anthony Jackson is known for his early promotion of the six-string ‘contrabass guitar’. This instrument, which has become more common since the 1990s, has served him to build a bridge between seemingly incompatible musical worlds. After presenting Jackson as heir to the tradition of the 1960s recording studios, in particular to Motown’s James Jamerson, the article explores the influence he claims to have undergone from the organ works of Olivier Messiaen. Operating inbetween the worlds of soul, fusion and classical modernism, it is argued, Anthony Jackson speculates on an aesthetics of exteriority that deconstructs both lyricism and the groove.