Joe Jackson

Joe Jackson cut a striking figure on his debut album: Look Sharp! portrays an angry young tunesmith, a messenger of the new wave who sends stinging telegrams to former lovers ("Is She Really Going Out With Him?") and the world at large ("Sunday Papers"). Jackson displayed a light-fingered pop touch that's entirely his own. I'm the Man feels rushed in comparison, but its best moments -- "It's Different for Girls," "Don't Wanna Be Like That," "Friday" -- are on a par with its predecessor's peaks.

Ironically, the borderline-nasty wit and unchecked exuberance of these albums quickly gave way to self-seriousness and a middlebrow disdain of rock itself. Jackson turned into a bigger crank than his two old rivals Parker and Costello put together -- and that's saying a lot! The remainder of his in-print catalogue is marked by restless wandering from one musical genre to another. Sometimes the experiments work brilliantly; more often, they simply bewilder.

Twenty years before Brian Setzer made a mint covering Louis Prima, Jackson was mining the same territory on Jumpin' Jive, one of his best stylistic jaunts. He doesn't really have the pipes for '40s R&B, but he does a fair job of conjuring up the horny "Saturday Night Fish Fry" spirit of Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. Night and Day takes a dance-floor spin through Spanish Harlem, and oddly enough, the collision of salsafied disco with Jackson's sour-milk worldview catches fire. (It also garnered him his only Top 10 single, "Steppin' Out.") Body and Soul's "Happy Ending" and "Be My Number Two" hark back to the incisive cynicism of Jackson's breakthrough albums; the rest of the record, which incorporates elements of jazz and even musical theater, could do with a little less politeness. Big World was clearly meant to be a big deal -- three sides of all-new material, recorded live in front of a New York audience, with a solid-rocking quartet sound -- but few of Jackson's awkward topical missives find their target, despite the crisp musical accompaniment.

Following two more rock-oriented albums, 1989's Blaze of Glory and 1991's Laughter and Lust, neither currently in print nor especially memorable, Jackson began to indulge his Serious Composer side, with mixed results: the intermittently diverting Night Music, the respectable Symphony No. 1, and the god-awful "song cycle" Heaven & Hell. Next move? Revisiting past glories. The string-suffused Night and Day II is fine overall, but Jackson's self-cannibalism (epitomized by the musical quotes from "Steppin' Out" in "Stay") is disheartening. Volume 4, on the other hand, is an unqualified treat. Reuniting with his original band -- the guys who recorded Look Sharp! and I'm the Man -- Jackson sounds revitalized on the tartly tuneful "Take It Like a Man" and "Awkward Age." The live Afterlife is even better, combining the best Volume 4 tracks with '70s and '80s nuggets.

The two other recent live albums, Summer in the City and Two Rainy Nights, each recorded with a different band, are enchanting trips down the Jackson back roads. Either of the existing best-of compilations would serve as a good introduction to his catalogue; the single-disc 20th Century Masters is cheaper, the double-disc Steppin' Out more comprehensive. (MARK COLEMAN/MAC RANDALL) From the 2004 The New Rolling Stone Album Guide