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Jack DeJohnette/Ravi Coltrane/Matthew Garrison: In Movement
by Karl Ackermann
There is something of the “six degrees of separation" theory at work in this newly formed trio, led loosely, by the great Jack DeJohnette. The drummer/multi-instrumentalist works in the company of saxophonist Ravi Coltrane whose lineage is well known, and bassist/electronic artist Matthew Garrison whose father Jimmy Garrison was the bassist in John Coltrane's classic quartet. And, of course, DeJohnette, early in his career, played with the fathers of both of his trio mates. In Movement opens ...
Continue ReadingCarla Bley & Jack DeJohnette: ECM Trios
by Mark Sullivan
Two different approaches to the trio, led by veteran ECM bandleaders. Big band composer/pianist Carla Bley continues her recent run of chamber ensemble recordings, reconvening her trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow, most recently heard on Trios (ECM, 2013). The grouping gives much more focus on her piano playing than her large group projects, where she was composer first, accompanist (and soloist) second. Drummer/composer Jack DeJohnette introduces a new trio with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and electric bassist ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans with Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette: Some Other Time: The Lost Session From the Black Forest
by Karl Ackermann
It plays out like a tale of espionage. In Bremen, Germany, more than five-thousand miles from his Los Angeles home, American producer Zev Feldman, has a chance meeting with the son of a late German jazz producer. In a parking lot, the German plays a single track of music on his car stereo; a forgotten recording from tapes almost fifty years old. Feldman, upon hearing more of the tapes, decides he needs to get this out to the world. It ...
Continue ReadingJack DeJohnette: Made in Chicago
by Glenn Astarita
Drummer Jack DeJohnette reunites with his longtime comrades emanating from Chicago's fabled Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), founded by pianist Muhal Richard Abrams in 1965. This live outing recorded at Millennium Park in 2013 was part of the Chicago Jazz Festival and signifies the musicians' inaugural performance as a quintet, paralleling the AACM's 50th anniversary. The album as a whole contains the anticipated sensitivities, nu-jazz compositional characterizations and improvisational ingenuity documented or inferred within the ...
Continue ReadingJack DeJohnette's Directions: New Rags
by John Kelman
Jack DeJohnette's DirectionsNew RagsECM Records1977 Today's Rediscovery is an album that, despite never being released officially on CD, is a relatively regular play chez Kelman, getting spun at least a couple times every year. New Rags (ECM, 1977), the third and, sadly, final recording by drummer Jack DeJohnette's Directions group, pares down the quintet of its second album and ECM debut, Untitled, to a quartet. Cosmic Chicken's bassist, Peter Warren, was replaced by Mike Richmond ...
Continue ReadingJack DeJohnette: Made in Chicago
by Karl Ackermann
At one point on Made In Chicago, drummer--and occasional pianist--Jack DeJohnette announces, “We'd like to do something spontaneous for you." By then, spontaneity is a foregone conclusion. With a discography that includes almost two-hundred recordings, DeJohnette is best known among more casual listeners as one third of pianist Keith Jarrett's long-time trio. Significant though the role has been, it hardly represents the scope of his career or his musical proclivities. In 1965, along a group of local Chicago musicians and ...
Continue ReadingJack DeJohnette: Made in Chicago
by Giuseppe Segala
Periodicamente, seppure con rara frequenza, i protagonisti delle ricerche e dei fermenti musicali legati alla città di Chicago negli anni Sessanta si ritrovano e incrociano di nuovo i propri strumenti. Quando la Experimental Band di Muhal Richard Abrams rappresentò un momento catalizzatore di giovani talenti voraci di musica e pronti all'esplorazione, sfociata poi nella meravigliosa esperienza della AACM, la Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Persone come Joseph Jarman e Roscoe Mitchell, che stimolati da maestri lungimiranti come Richard ...
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