Jack DeJohnette: Sorcery

Jack DeJohnette gets around. The Chicago born drummer was drawn to R&B and bebop in the late 1950s and eventually toyed with a more avant-garde jazz sound when he spent some time with the esoteric Sun Ra. It seems like DeJohnette played in the big leagues almost from the beginning since, by the time he moved to New York City in the mid-1960s, he was teaming up with other monsters of jazz such as Keith Jarrett and Charles Lloyd. Several years with Miles Davis during the late 1960s/early 1970s further solidified his reputation as a potent drummer while a growing number of DeJohnette headline gigs aided his climb to new heights. Increasingly, he focused on the emerging sounds of fusion.

Whether with Davis or on his own, DeJohnette continued to integrate the assertive elements of rock with the electric jazz that A-List groups such as Return to Forever and Weather Report were playing. In addition, he was a leader on the prestigious and often atmospheric ECM Records label yet recorded with others such as the numerous Jarrett albums he was featured on from the 1970s well into the 2000s. When talking about albums such as his Standards Vol. 1 (ECM, 1983), Jarrett said in 2000 that "[a] valuable player doesn't have to play anything new to have value, because it's not about the material, it's about the playing." The Standards Trio, would endure for well over two decades with most of the releases recorded live in concert and they repeatedly reconfirmed the symbiotic relationship that needs, at its core, to exist between drummer and bassist.

Although 1974's Sorcery is in many ways the opposite of Standards Vol. 1, it's still very much "about the playing." The main ingredients of the Sorcery album—re-issued in 2023—include strong elements of fusion and avant-garde jazz with a sprinkling of psychedelic rock. Or, as DeJohnette himself has put it, "multi-directional music." Bass clarinetist Bennie Maupin seems to be free to explore, especially about two thirds of the way into the fourteen minute title track before eventually reporting back to bass camp. Although both John Abercrombie and Mick Goodrick are recognized jazz guitarists, they packed as many psychedelic rock notes into this session as possible. As for bassist David Holland, his reliable rhythm repeats hypnotically while DeJohnette sustains the bedrock of the piece. The title cut is followed by a mercifully brief voices-only track called "The Tight Thing." Later, in "The Rock Thing," Maupin and DeJohnette toy with a Stax meets Motown groove before Maupin wails away on clarinet. This time, Maupin wanders a bit too much.

The second side of the disc is dominated by "The Reverend King Suite." The opening portion of the nearly fifteen-minute suite is peaceful and serene before it segues into the grating and serrated sounds of "Obstructions" and "The Fatal Shot." By the time the piece draws to its conclusion, it is as if DeJohnette has guided one through the five stages of grief to a final resolution. The flower child meets psychedelic "Four Levels of Joy" is a light, and in ways odd, follow-up to the King piece.

Numerous jazz albums come wrapped in extensive liner notes that often read like an article from the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday New York Times. There's no such offering in this package since all you get are the bare bones: titles, musicians, producers etc. It would have been great to understand why the chaotic vocal only "The Right Thing" was included as well as getting some insight into the use of a metaphone and why they chose this obscure instrument. Other jazz fusion groups and releases of the 1970s are rightfully sought after before Sorcery. As for this session, it's an interesting slice of free jazz history circa the mid-1970s.