Ali Jackson is a jazz drummer

Jazz drumming

Jazz drumming is the art of playing percussion in jazz styles ranging from 1910s-style Dixieland jazz to 1970s-era jazz-rock fusion and 1980s-era latin jazz...

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His mother, a classical pianist, taught him piano at and how to read music at age 4. Jackson's father, a professional bass player, taught him music theory and gave him drums lesson from rudiment books. He attended Detroit's prestigious Cass Technical High School

Cass Technical High School

The Cass Tech Technicians football team is a high school football program in Division 1 Public School League, representing the prestigious Cass Technical High School in Detroit, MI. Cass Tech High School has long been recognized nationwide for its extraordinary football program dating back to its...

. He then attended The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music

The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music

The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is the second conservatory of The New School university. It is located on 13th Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood.-History:...

, earning a BA in composition. Ali privately studied with master teachers, Elvin Jones

Elvin Jones

Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....

 and Max Roach

Max Roach

Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

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Ali has performed and recorded with musicians including Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, James Carter (musician)

James Carter (musician)

James Carter is an American jazz musician.Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play there before moving to New York City. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the mid-1990s, playing saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet...

, Dee Dee Bridgewater

Dee Dee Bridgewater

Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American Jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award - winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater...

, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

, George Benson

George Benson

George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....

, Harry Connick Jr., KRS-1, Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts is an American jazz pianist who has achieved fame as a stride pianist committed to celebrating classic standards and jazz traditions. Roberts has also distinguished his solos by accompanying himself with walking basslines...

, Cyrus Chestnut

Cyrus Chestnut

Cyrus Chestnut is an American jazz pianist, songwriter, and producer. In 2006, Josh Tyrangiel, music critic for Time Magazine, wrote: "What makes Chestnut the best jazz pianist of his generation is a willingness to abandon notes and play space." Chestnut enjoys mixing styles and resists being...

, Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who records for Nonesuch Records. He won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991.-Biography:...

, and Diana Krall

Diana Krall

Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...

..

He is currently the drummer for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

As a Sideman (Selected)

With Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

• Two Men with the Blues
  Two Men with the Blues
  Two Men with the Blues is a live album by multiple Grammy Award winners Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. This album was released on July 8, 2008 on the Blue Note label. This album sold 22,000 copies in it first week of release...
  
  featuring Willie Nelson
  Willie Nelson
  Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
  
  
• Plane, Trane and a Chicken Wing
• From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
  From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
  From the Plantation to the Penitentiary is an American album by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. It was released in 2007, and reached second place on Billboard's Top Jazz chart....
  
  

With Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

• Congo Square Orchestra and O’Dada

With Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who records for Nonesuch Records. He won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991.-Biography:...

• Back East
  Back East
  - Track listing :# "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" # "East of the Sun " # "Zarafah" # "Indian Song" # "I'm an Old Cowhand" # "Wagon Wheels"...
  
  

External links

• Official homepage