Vocalist Alfie Jackson shines on debut album The Peacocks, available on her 21st birthday, January 23, 2026
“Fearless, Alive, Real. Listen in and let the Alfie Jackson Sextet take you FAR out.” – Slim, WRCU
“Alfie’s voice balances honey, bourbon, and just enough lemon to keep it all honest. Then she’ll surprise you with wiser-than-her-years phrasing and that enviable range – across the octaves but also spanning 75 years of the modern songbook. Keep your ears open for this one.” – Journalist/radio host Neil Tesser
“Alfie is the real deal.” – jazz drummer Matt Wilson
New York-based vocalist Alfie Jackson named her debut album on the homegrown Jackojazz label after Jimmy Rowles’ evocative composition from 1974, The Peacocks, because it held special meaning for her. The Stan Getz/Bill Evans recording of the tune was the last album her grandfather played on his turntable before he died, a dozen years before Alfie was born. Since many of her family members lived five thousand miles away from her birth city of Chicago, Alfie rarely got to see them, and in the case of her grandfather, they’d never met.
She penned new lyrics to Rowles’ melody to bridge the gap, meditating on what that distant relationship might have been in the picturesque town of Knaresborough in North Yorkshire, UK. Despite her poised sensitivity on ballads, represented here with the opener “500 Miles High,” “How Insensitive” and “My One and Only Love,” Jackson also likes to groove out and take risks, notably here on Joe Henderson’s “Inner Urge” and Cedar Walton’s “Ugetsu.”
Unusual choices for a singer, these hardbop warhorses also feature equally adventurous soloing from members of her sextet, which includes saxophonist Leo Milano, vibraphonist Wayne Williams, drummer Chase Wilkins, acoustic and electric bassist Daniel Ellis Perez and guitarist Sam Roberson. The latter is featured on Nina Simone’s importunate blues “Do I Move You?” which heralds a cameo performance, alongside Milano, from producer and saxophonist Michael Jackson.
Other highlights on this release include a rangy take on Coltrane’s “After the Rain” for which Alfie also wrote lyrics, and a rousing version of the eden ahbez classic “Nature Boy” which features Williams’ energetic vibraphone and, salient in the set, her own confessional song “I Deserve This” written while still in high school.
Alfie Jackson has performed critically well-received sets at the Chicago Jazz Festival and her sextet sold out appearances at Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase and at Evanston’s SPACE where owner/musician Dave Spector said, “A star is born!” She’s worked with harpist Brandee Younger, in the Alice Coltrane Ensemble, which performed at Harlem’s Jazz Museum, and worked at NYC’s Sounds of Brazil with the Earth Wind and Fire review. She was also featured in the US Premier of Carla Bley’s Escalator Over the Hill at the Tishman Auditorium in NYC, and starred in the nostalgic review Radio Days, which debuted her acting skills. She has fronted the New School Studio Orchestra at the Jazz Gallery in NYC and also recorded with the group. Her recording debut at 15, was on her father’s release The Gal From Ochi on the ballad “Stepping Stones.”
Dave Specter, a musician and owner of the Evanston, IL venue SPACE, said “A star is born!!” after hearing Alfie headline at his club A student at the New School in NYC, Jackson is currently studying at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, while living on a houseboat in the Netherlands.