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Drummer extraordinaire. Early employers included Bill Evans and Miles Davis. DeJohnette developed his style throughout the seventies and pretty much became a master by the end of the decade. A lot of his finest work can be heard with Keith Jarrett's standards trio (1983-present), but that's just one example out of very, very many. New Directions June 1978 / ECM
Almost a dream sequence of music, a hazy continuum with the instruments at once in focus and out of reach, and with the performances simultaneously earthbound and suspended in mid air. This quartet record is where the already-seasoned DeJohnette really came into his own, playing around the pulse with much individuality. His rhythm partner is bassist Eddie Gomez, whose bouncy lines fit neatly against Jack’s drumming style. Guitarist John Abercrombie opts for a clean, reverb-encased sound and trumpeter Lester Bowie completes the quartet with piercing melodic shards. "Bayou Fever" is indeed feverish, a floating groove topped by Bowie's lonesome theme call. More mood than tune, it boils up from team chemistry rather than written-down prescriptions. The same could be said for "Where or Wayne," an exploration wherein the melodic cues are somewhat overshadowed by the atmosphere from which they emerge. Jack’s turvy backbeat on this piece is a treat. The dream-state is intensified in the last three tracks, two of which are light on propulsion and drift gently. The free improv "One Handed Woman" dashes around and finally settles on urban swing with overdubbed handclaps and the vocalized, non sequitur title refrain. The music isn't really fusion by standard definition, but you could call it a progressive jazz album, one that blueprints a possible future for improvisational concerns. The sound of the quartet is seductive, too - three-fourths acoustic clarity, buffered by Abercrombie’s warm electricity and given extra space by the recording.
Swiss concert. The haze of the studio recording is absent, but the dancing skeleton remains. DeJohnette and Gomez punctuate the beat from all sides, and they dominate the music, for the most part. (Fun to realize these guys used to back Bill Evans.) The solos are tentative, if not weak. Bowie wanders off mike at times, sounding feeble or slow to get it up. Abercrombie plays well, but his cushy sound conceals itself. “Salsa for Eddie G” is quite danceable, and little sub-themes pop up as it goes along. (Takes a while to get there, though, as Jack introduces it with a long drum solo.) “Where or Wayne” is as hypnotizing as the studio version, but more spread out, and “Bayou Fever” sets up a great expanse, especially with Jack’s piano ruminations. “Multo Spiliago” is a completely free exploration, yet it’s actually the jazziest, most swinging track of the four. The album is good though somewhat light in content, and it doesn’t fully deliver on the promise of the studio treatise. The two of them make great companions, though.
This new quartet accesses both old school swing and avant-garde extremities. The way the two facets are balanced is amazing, and it’s hard to say if the music leans in one way or another. It probably appeals more to those inclined toward freer jazz. David Murray (tenor sax, bass clarinet) and Arthur Blythe (alto) are the shining stars, while Jack teams with bassist Peter Warren underneath. The suite-like progressions of “One for Eric” and “Zoot Suite” cover a lot of distance, sometimes bright, sometimes mournful, all the while colored by the reeds and usually swinging in a good natured way. Credit to Jack for originating this unique music, but where in the world did it come from? The imprints of Duke and Mingus are certainly there, but so are the voices of the ‘60s free blowers (in the solos), and on top of it all are the idiosyncrasies of the musicians involved. After the showpieces, we kneel for nine minutes of Trane devotion: a brief and beautiful “Central Park West” (Jack plays melodica) and “India” (Jack plays piano, briefly). They’re two of the best Coltrane covers you’re ever going to hear, and they get right to the heart of the music. The finale “Journey to the Twin Planet” starts with spaced-out threads and hurtles into an explosive wormhole swing. It’s the most abstract piece of the five, and a logical denouement to all the hints dropped in the first four. This very “special” album entwines the past and future and winds up in its own time zone.
A program of intimate, ambient sketches. Michael Cain (piano), Jerome Harris (electric guitar and acoustic bass guitar), and Don Alias (percussion) are Jack’s fellows in oneness, and a lot of their music seems to assemble itself. “Jack In” is the only piece with a real hook and structure. Apart from that, passive drifters like “Free Above Sea” and “From the Heart” proceed on the barest of stimuli from the leader’s drumkit and gradually bring in the other players. Harris usually lies in wait until Cain establishes a tentative harmonic area, while DeJohnette is content to let the pieces grow un-nudged. He stays on the ride cymbal for the longest time in “Free Above Sea”, not in any hurry to “be a drummer.” Thus Alias stands out, either in his foundational conga playing (“Jack In”) or the punctuations he drops into everything else. Being a detailed ECM recording, even the smallest gestures have impact, and without Alias’ decorations, it would sound much less eventful. Since no one is forthright in pushing the others, there are more small fluctuations than big dynamics. In the swinging “CMA”, Harris’ bass solo alters the existing meter, and the group is happy to play out the rest of the piece in the new rhythm. Cain dispatches jazzy piano here and there, and Harris’ electric guitar on “Jack In” has a homey twang to it. “Priestesses of the Mist” is a crescendo for insomniacs. The sweet improv “From the Heart” builds up layer by reactive layer. There are two percussion episodes on the album, both refreshing in an age of digital drumming.
This is another new direction for the leader, but the irony is that there is little direction from the leader, thus the band moves gingerly through improvised conversations that don’t have a lot of momentum. You can hear right through the music if you listen too closely or often. Yet it’s still a nice, reflective soundtrack.
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