How Brian Jackson reimagined some of his legendary work with Gil Scott-Heron

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” one of Gil Scott-Heron‘s defining works, was composed by our guest today, Brian Jackson.

Jackson was Scott-Heron’s longtime musical director and collaborator, helping shape the sound of some of his best-known recordings of the 1970s.

Now, more than 50 years later, Jackson is revisiting that music on his new album, Now More Than Ever, reworking songs from the catalog with legendary production duo Masters at Work and guest vocalists, including Black Thought, of The Roots.

Coming up, Jackson talks about his years working with Scott-Heron, why those songs still resonate today and the unexpected turn his own life took — from making music to spending more than three decades working as an IT director for the city of New York.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod.  Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe‘s engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.