Results for "Jack DeJohnette"

Jack DeJohnette

Born in Chicago in 1942, Jack De Johnette is widely regarded as one of jazz music's greatest drummers. Music appreciation flourished in De Johnette's family. He studied classical piano from age four until fourteen before beginning to play drums with his high school concert band.and taking private piano lessons at the Chicago conservatory of music. De Johnette credits his uncle, Roy l. Wood Sr., who was one of the most popular jazz DJ's in the South side of Chicago, later vice president of the National Network of Black Broadcasters, as the person who initially inspired him to pursue music. In his early years on the Chicago scene, he led his own groups and was equally in demand as a pianist and as a drummer

Dave Liebman: Earth

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

When saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Dave Liebman groks a musical vision, he dreams big and deep. “In the late 1990s," Liebman recalls, “I embarked on a project to musically depict manifestations of the four natural elements. In 1997 I recorded Water with Pat Metheny, Billy Hart and Cecil McBee; in 2006, I did Air with the ...

Rudy Royston: Little Steps, Big Pictures

By IAN PATTERSON

Everybody needs a helping hand now and then. Rudy Royston understands that. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused gigs to completely dry up for all musicians, and with that, their main income stream. Yet there are still mortgages, rents and bills to pay, and children to feed. It says something about the precarious finances of a jazz ...

Rudy Royston: PaNOptic

By IAN PATTERSON

Record label bosses probably do not hear the words “solo drum album" too often. Or if they do, judging by the paucity of such exemplars on the market, they likely only have to hear the phrase the once. After three impressive albums on Dave Douglas' Greenleaf Music label, to wit, 303 (2014), Rise of Orion (2016) ...

Lift Every Voice And Sing: Twenty #BlackLives Albums That Matter

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz has been inextricably linked with social and political protest since at least the late 1930s, when Billie Holiday made famous the leftist songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol's “Strange Fruit." The song, which has a power to move that is undiminished by familiarity, likens the bodies of lynched African Americans to fruit hanging in trees.

Charles Tolliver: Blowing Down The Walls Of Trump’s Jericho

By CHRIS MAY

Charles Tolliver has played with practically every major African American jazz stylist of his generation, and composed for some of them, too. In addition, he is the co-founder of Strata-East, the most influential label at the intersection of hard bop and spiritual jazz during the 1970s. Tolliver's long and distinguished career continues to flourish, with a ...

Rudy Royston: PaNOptic

By KARL ACKERMANN

Like many jazz musicians in 2020, drummer/composer Rudy Royston has felt the direct effects of living in the coronavirus world. The Texas native, now a New Jersey resident, found his streams of income drying up without gigs, but then experienced a fortunate twist of fate that stood him up. Head above water, the artist pays it ...

Places in Space, in Time

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

Abraham Inc. Together We Stand Table Pounding Music 2019 “Ever since I formed Klezmer Madness! in the mid 1990's I've been exploring the possibilities of adding funk, jazz, and lately hip-hop influences to klezmer," explains David Krakauer, an expert clarinet voice in jazz, klezmer and classical ...

Atlantic Records: More Giant Steps: An Alternative Top 20 Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun's Atlantic Records differs in one key respect from Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Flying Dutchman, the most prominent labels covered so far in this Building A Jazz Library series. Those labels' discographies consist almost exclusively of jazz. Atlantic had parallel interests in soul and rhythm-and-blues and, later, rock. This had consequences, as ...

Bill Stewart Interview

By MIKE BRANNON

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in May 2002. Upon joining The John Scofield group in the mid '80s it seemed like drummer Bill Stewart just appeared out of nowhere. They of course did a number of tours and studio dates together while word got around about Stewart's ...