Ronald Shannon Jackson (born January 12, 1940) is an American jazz drummer.
Jackson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attended I.M. Terrell High School. He is notable for his unusual approach to his instrument, which draws as much inspiration from military and parade bands as traditional jazz drumming. He is the only person to have recorded and performed with the three prime shapers of free jazz: pianist Cecil Taylor, and saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler.
In 1979, he founded his own group, the Decoding Society, playing what has been dubbed free funk: a blend of funk rhythm and free jazz improvisation.
With Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, and Bill Laswell, Jackson was a member of the quartet Last Exit. In 1987 he co-founded the groups Power Tools (with guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Melvin Gibbs) and SXL (with Laswell, violinist L. Shankar, Senegalese drummer Aiyb Dieng, and Korean percussion group SamulNori); in 1988 he and Laswell teamed with Japanese saxophonist Akira Sakata in the trio Mooka. He has also recorded with Charles Tyler (Jackson's first recording date), James Blood Ulmer (Jackson was an original member of Ulmer's band Music Revelation Ensemble), Billy Bang, Albert Mangelsdorff.
His most recent tours included performances in Europe with Wadada Leo Smith and John Lindberg on one hand, and with Melvin Gibbs, Joseph Bowie, Vernon Reid, and James Blood Ulmer on the other.
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“Trusting as we did to the virtue of the people, the real people, not the politicians and demagogues, we passed through the most responsible and trying scenes, sustained by the bone and sinew of the nation, the laborers of the land, where alone, in these days of Bank rule, and ragocrat corruption, real virtue and love of liberty is to be found.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)