A Personal Account of My Experience with Jack.

Text by Stephen Johnson

When I think of Jack, I remember him from a ‘Woodstocker’s’ experience, as many in his Woodstock community did… seeing him about the hamlet, friendly, approachable, with a cool rhythmic gait, down-to-earth and generous, a beautiful African American man.

In the early years of my ‘being in America‘, I was fortunate to move to Woodstock back in ’88, and while I was musically shuffling/surfing sofas, a housemate introduced me to Jack’s family — Lydia and their girls. (Thank you, Itar).

There was an easy affinity (being English myself, Lydia also), naturally, we drank as much English tea as possible, and talked energetically in familiar dialect and with cultural instinct. Jack would weave into the artist conversations between piano or drum practice to “interject” softly, share, and heartily laugh. (Full disclosure) I had no idea about Jack’s global reputation, yet they casually employed me in multiple ways to contribute to their ‘creative universe’ atop that wooded mountain.

Circa ‘Parallel Realities ‘ In the midst of Jack’s extraordinary professional music schedule, he and Lydia helped me with my green card immigration application and generously vouched for me as an ‘essential assistant’ to him.

Jack and Lydia‘s shared aesthetic and vision was wonderful to experience, just by adding another pot of tea to the equation, and together we would conjure up a new house improvement project, addition, deck, or renovation to their beautiful rustic home (and blessed as I was), they trusted me to produce it.

Their home, a custom hand-built cabin…way up an unpaved Catskill mountain single track road that had a feeling of an ancient pilgrimage route. They told me that when they were searching for land, they had found the right sound for Jack’s music and the right light for Lydia’s visual art. For five years that followed, I was more than happy to make the ‘ascent of the mount’ to be joyfully employed and often within earshot of an emerging masterpiece that Jack would be crafting in the basement studio.

Jack’s connection with people was a beautiful quality to experience: generous, present, and disarmingly smiley, constantly offering hugs. Though he certainly inspired so many in this world with his piano playing, compositions, and drumming, brilliant in his vision for healing humanity, resolute in his spirituality for peace, there was also that most profound impact of him… sharing his lion’s heart with us all. Thank you, Jack.