Photo by Erin Nelson.
Cole Jackson, orchestrator and arranger for CAJ Music Company, with his laptop as he works on a piece of music at his parents home June 23.
Cole Jackson has been out of college for fewer than three months and is already making a name for himself in the music industry.
He began playing piano at age 7 and said that was his home growing up.
“For me, I found somewhat of a measure of success in piano and stuck with music because I ran out of time to pick anything else,” Jackson said.
His passion for piano was a combination of his mother’s musical influence and his father’s love of movies. John Williams and Hans Zimmer have been Jackson’s favorite composers since he was young, and their music fueled his love for the orchestra side of performance.
“Growing up, I loved film scores, but I had no idea how that joy and passion would fit into the actual industry,” he said. “A lot of different genres have to go through this step first, because we have this little space that everyone has to come to us before they can get to their final product.”
Jackson graduated from Briarwood Christian School in 2018, then attended Troy University, where he received his music industry degree in May.
“Troy was unique because it had a music industry major, which I thought was really cool, because it’s preparing you for actual work in the music industry,” Jackson said. “That’s the appeal that drew me there.”
Jackson was in a long-distance relationship with his now-fiancée, who also attended Troy and had moved to Nashville. Whenever he would visit, he tagged along with her to her internship.
That’s where he met David Shipps, an orchestrator, conductor and arranger. Jackson asked Shipps about the possibility of interning for him, and Shipps agreed.
“David is one of the more successful orchestrators in town.” Jackson said. “He works on film scores and lots of arranging, too. Over my time with him, I got to do a lot of different things, including sitting in on a lot of studio sessions of television shows and movies being recorded.”
Jackson completed his internship earlier this year, which has opened up more opportunities for him. A lot of his work has come through connections he has made through Shipps.
“My job is to take what the artist gives me, expand it out on paper and write for a whole orchestra. I’ve had to contact players and session engineers to contract the whole thing, so that has been an all-encompassing project taking up a lot of my time,” he said.
In his career, Jackson has already:
► orchestrated six cues for a trailer library project recorded by Warner Chappell Music (a subsidiary of Warner Brothers)
► created audio mockups of more than two dozen songs for the premiere of Logos Theater's adaptation of the popular musical, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
► transcribed several charts to be orchestrated and recorded for performance on a Disney cruise line
► orchestrated two songs as part of a collection of jazz combo orchestrations of several John Williams scores.
His latest project was arranging and producing an EP (extended play) for a musician as part of a recording session that was set for July. He’s also working on music for an upcoming Dreamworks movie and orchestrating cues for a major video game.
Jackson has created his own business, CAJ Music Company. He does all of his work remotely from his Nashville apartment, and all his equipment is set up in his home office. His next big project: getting married in late 2022 or early 2023.
For more information, visit colemanjacksonmusic.com.
