Ron Jackson

Biography

Ron Jackson is a jazz guitarist, composer, arranger and educator who plays both six- and seven-string guitar. He was born in Manila in 1964, started guitar at eleven and was playing professionally by fifteen. In 1982 he entered Berklee College of Music to study composition and arranging. He spent two years in Paris in the mid-1980s, where he also played electric bass, and settled in New York in 1987.

He recorded his first albums as a leader for Muse, A Guitar Thing (1992) and Thinking of You (1994), and in 1996 he won the Heritage International Jazz Guitar Competition. He later started his own label, Roni Music, which has released The Dream I Had (2003), Standards and Other Songs (2019) and Standards and My Songs (2022); he also self-released Flubby Dubby (2008) and Akustik InventYours (2014). By his own count he has made ten albums as a leader, appeared on more than fifty as a sideman, and performed in over thirty countries. Over the years he has worked with Randy Weston, Jimmy McGriff, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Benny Green, Lonnie Plaxico, Rufus Reid, Taj Mahal, Larry Coryell and Benny Golson.

He teaches jazz guitar, including through Jazz at Lincoln Center, and has contributed to Acoustic Guitar magazine. At Holland Tunnel he played in Heleen Schuttevaêr's quartet for the gallery's 25th anniversary in 2022 and was the special guest at Final Blast in 2023.

Practice. Six- and seven-string jazz guitar; straight-ahead jazz, standards and original compositions, with acoustic projects as well.