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Preston Jackson

American jazz trombonist (1902-1983)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 5, 2025
Entity authorityQ290129
Source-derived summary

James Preston McDonald, better known by his stage name Preston Jackson (January 3, 1902 – November 12, 1983) was an American jazz trombonist.

Biography

Jackson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, and moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1917, but did not pick up trombone until 1920; within nine months he began playing professionally. Among his teachers in the early 1920s were Roy Palmer and Honore Dutrey. He sometimes deputized for Dutrey in King Oliver's band. In the 1920s, he played with Tig Chambers, Al Simone, Eli Rice, and Art Sims, and recorded with Bernie Young and his Creole Jazz Band at the Marsh Laboratories (1923) and Richard M. Jones. He notably played for the reception of Louis Armstrong and Lil Hardin Armstrong in Chicago.

In the 1930s, he played with Dave Peyton (1930), Erskine Tate, Louis Armstrong (1931–32), Half Pint Jaxon (1933), Carroll Dickerson, Jimmie Noone, Roy Eldridge, Walter Barnes, Johnny Long (1939), and Zilner Randolph's W.P.A. Band. He also played on Johnny Dodds's last recordings in 1940.

In the 1940s, he began playing less often, but his career saw a resurgence late in the 1950s, playing with Lil Armstrong.

Moving back to his childhood home of New Orleans in the 1960s, he began playing at Preservation Hall where he would continue to be featured for the rest of his life.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Preston Jackson” is american jazz trombonist (1902-1983). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Preston, Jackson and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1902, 1983, 1917, 1920—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1902-01-03. For this dossier, Preston, Jackson and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american jazz trombonist (1902-1983)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q290129. VIAF identifies the subject as 196579. The Library of Congress control number is no98018313. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1902, 1983, 1917 and 1920.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Preston Jackson primary sources, Preston Jackson archive and Preston research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Preston Jackson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.