Jakko Jakszyk recalls seeing progressive rock band King Crimson in concert in 1971 when he was just a teenager. Now 59, he’s lead singer of the group and sharing guitar duties with founding member Robert Fripp.
“It really was life-changing,” Jakszyk says of being at that King Crimson show 46 years ago. “I did leave that venue thinking I have to do something like this. It was life-changing at that level.
“To find myself all those years later actually in the same group is extraordinary. It’s like the maddest childhood dream come true.”
Mel Collins, who was a member of King Crimson at the time, interjects.
“It was more to do with my trousers,” he quips.
Jakszyk agrees. “Mel had the coolest pair of trousers I had ever seen. It’s one of the things I remember. It’s the thing Mel would like me to remember the most.”
“They were very expensive,” Collins adds.
The two musicians spoke to reporters on Monday afternoon, ahead of King Crimson’s show at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
Collins, 69, was in King Crimson from 1970 to 1972 and officially rejoined in 2013.
He has also performed and recorded with an impressive list of artists during his long career, including Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry and Roger Waters. Collins’ saxophone solos can be heard on Tina Turner’s 1983 hit “Private Dancer” and The Rolling Stones’ 1978 single “Miss You.”
Collins says he’s delighted to be back as a member of King Crimson.
“Robert’s very good with me. He lets me do what I do and trusts me,” he says. “I’m playing all the different saxes and three different flutes. I can fit into the situation with different textures. I find it very creative and things evolve naturally. We stretch out some of the tunes.
“I think it is particularly creative and particularly innovative.”
Collins adds that there’s currently a feeling of stability in King Crimson, which has gone through nearly two dozen members since it formed nearly five decades ago. Fripp, 71, is the band’s only original member.
“Robert is the happiest he’s ever been,” insists Collins, “and it is a particularly nice band musically and personality-wise.”
Jakszyk agrees. “Anyone that has a history of seeing Crimson… Robert is lit and completely visible and frequently smiling.”
The group’s three-hour set in Montreal is likely to include “Heroes,” the 1977 single by David Bowie on which Fripp played guitar.
“We don’t make a big deal of it,” Jakszyk says. “It’s there as a kind of humble tribute to him.”
Don’t expect an album of new material anytime soon, though. The band has released several live albums in recent years — including 2016’s Live in Toronto — but hasn’t released a studio album since 2003.
“There’s enough material,” Jakszyk says. “Back in the ‘70s an album was 40 minutes long. We’ve definitely got 40 minutes of new material.
“Robert comes up with stuff and Robert and I have written lots of stuff… some of it we bring into the rehearsal room and some of it has yet to come into the rehearsal room. It’s an ongoing thing and there’s definitely material there. Whether that eventually becomes a new studio record is beyond my pay grade.”
(King Crimson’s manager says only: “There are no plans to make an album and there are no plans not to make an album.”)
Jakszyk says the old write-record-tour way of doing music is outdated.
“We don’t live in that world anymore,” he says. “It doesn’t have the same importance.
“It’s music and we play it live.”