Music
Milt Jackson
1923–1999 · jazz vibraphonist, composer
Detroit-born vibraphonist who brought church-rooted blues feeling to bebop and became a founding member of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
New York City
aged 76- Birth name
- Milton Jackson
- Also known as
- Bags
- Detroit years
- 1923–1945
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Jackson was born in Detroit and later said his soulful, bluesy style came from church, from the open, improvised music he heard there as a child. He took up guitar at seven and piano at eleven, and at Miller High School he played drums, timpani and violin and sang in the choir. At 16 he switched to the vibraphone after hearing Lionel Hampton with Benny Goodman, and the same year he sang professionally with a touring gospel quartet, the Evangelist Singers. A Detroit bass player gave him the nickname "Bags," which stuck for life. Dizzy Gillespie hired him for his sextet in 1945, taking him to New York, where he played with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk before co-founding the Modern Jazz Quartet. Miller, then the main high school for Black students on Detroit's near east side, also schooled his classmate Yusef Lateef.
Highlights
- Founding member of the Modern Jazz Quartet
- Composer of the standard "Bags' Groove"
- Sang with Detroit's Evangelist Singers gospel quartet as a teenager
- NEA Jazz Master (1997)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1930s
Sidney D. Miller High School
Closed · 1922–2007
His high school, where he played drums, timpani and violin and sang in the choir. Miller was a high school until 1957 and a middle school until 2007; the building now houses University Prep Science and Math Elementary.