The O'Zone | Jack DeJohnette: His Ubiquitous Drumsticks (part II)
Note: In case you missed it, here’s Part 1 of my Jack DeJohnette career retrospective, focusing the drummer’s unique style and on his prolific work as a sideman.
Jack DeJohnette had a significant and innovative career as a bandleader. We have already addressed his career as a major fixture in several important bands; but his work as a leader and his own projects were the major outlet for both his compositions and for his diverse ideas in music.
The Vikings are Coming
In the mid 1970s, Jack founded a band called Jack DeJohnette’s Directions to lead his own group and explore his own musical ideas after working with Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans and Miles Davis. However, he released albums as a leader well before Directions.
In the late 1960s, he formed The Jack DeJohnette Complex, which largely featured his playing on melodica, and by the early 1970s, he’d also formed a band with drummer/vocalist Bobby Moses called Compost. Interesting music was made in both cases, but due to poor distribution and each respective record company's lack of support (as well as more pressing work as a sideman), Jack didn’t continue with those bands. However, he did release two Compost albums in 1972 and 1973, and three recordings as band leader in the early 1970’s: Have You Heard (1970), Sorcery (1974), and Cosmic Chicken (1975): all released on Milestone or Prestige.
In 1973, DeJohnette signed with ECM records, providing support and a platform for his growth as a composer and bandleader.
The first recording to be released on ECM with Jack as a leader was Untitled featuring the aforementioned Directions in 1976: John Abercrombie on guitar, Alex Foster on sax and Mike Richmond on bass with guest artist Warren Bernhardt on keyboards. Jack DeJohnette's Directions also released the album New Rags within a year’s time. The band was a short-lived endeavor but opened the door for a much more critically acclaimed group, New Directions.
Bayou Fever: Psychometry in New Directions
New Directions remains my favorite Jack DeJohnette recording of all time…even considering other towering achievements by Jack that transpired after its June 1978 recording date. Others have called the album out with considerably less enthusiasm than me, but I don’t care. This is in my top 5 jazz albums of all time.
I realize nobody has it up there with the storied recordings that always show up in the inevitable top jazz recordings. My list of top ten avoids parroting the generally acknowledged music that is consistantly on that list. Perhaps, I should call it my top ten list of seriously overlooked recordings.
This album won France’s Prix du Jazz Contemporain de L'Académie Charles Cros, an indication of significant acclaim from the jazz community. Michael Zipkin in his review for DownBeat called the album “a deeply satisfying offering that swings in its own rambling, yet razor sharp manner”.
This recording is about chemistry and interplay between the very different players, who on the surface might seem incompatible but as you listen you’ll hear the attentive, present and essentially telepathic playing...four guys, one brain.
(Full disclosure) Lester Bowie is my all time favorite trumpet player, so yes there is bias here.
New Directions is: Jack DeJohnette, on drums and piano, Lester Bowie on trumpet, John Abercrombie, on guitar and mandolin and Eddie Gomez on Bass.
A special stand out cut is Jack’s beautiful tone poem “Silver Hollow”, which prominently features DeJohnette’s breathtaking piano as well as the interplay between that piano and John Abercrombie’s sterling acoustic guitar. This is fast becoming a modern standard. The consistent group interplay between Gomez, Abercrombie and DeJohnette serves to set up the mercurical trumpet of Lester Bowie, who frankly makes this the album that it is. His charisma, his melodic power, his distinctive sound, the lyric fortitude and his brilliant tricks (growls, half valve slurs, mutes, and smears) embody the history of jazz trumpet within an avant garde canon. Lester plays wild and acrobatically as well as with aching beauty, all with an element of genuine surprise. His performance is commanding and unforgettable.
Special Edition: 1979-1984
How do you follow up a masterpiece? With another one!
Special Edition is the consensus peak of DeJohnette’s ensembles as most of the jazz cognoscenti call it the “mightiest” of his myriad recordings. This band helped launch the careers of saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe who went on to become major figures on the instruments. Peter Warren joined in on bass and cello for the first album (which won the DownBeat Readers Poll award for Album of the Year in 1979).
Later Special Edition lineups included: Chico Freeman on tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, John Purcelo on baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, flute, Rufus Reid on bass, electric bass, Lonnie Plaxico on electric bass, acoustic bass; Gary Thomas on tenor saxophone, soprano sax, flute; Greg Osby on saxophone, Michael Cain on piano, keyboards and Baikida Carroll on trumpet.
Here’s an overview of the Special Edition albums:
Special Edition (1980)
The debut of this band was widely considered the best and was revolutionary in modern contemporary and creative improvised music circa 1980.
Tin Can Alley (1981)
This album featured new saxophonists Chico Freeman and John Purcell continuing the band’s blend of minimalism and group improvisation.
Inflation Blues (1982)
This album finds the band experimenting with reggae-inspired jazz sounds while continuing a strong emphasis on group improvisation.
Album Album (1984)
A reflective and personal album dedicated to Jack’s late mother evocative of 1950s and 1960s atmosphere.
And here’s a further cross section of awesome music that Jack played on because they are too marvelous not to get into.
And in conclusion, below are a few words that only begin to scratch the surface of communicating Jack’s influence on my life.
Ubiquitous
The first was Pharoah’s Dance
I did not know your name
Before I knew it you populated
The multitude of music
I said your name wrong
But your ubiquitous sticks
Rode cymbals like diamond waterfalls
thundered like an avalanche
I carry your time signature
Like an autograph on my soul.
Then there is your Silver Hollow piano.
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