Welcome to Sound Projections

I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.

Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’ 'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what music is and could be.

So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Jack DeJohnette (b. August 9, 1942): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher

 
SOUND PROJECTIONS
   
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
    
EDITOR:  KOFI NATAMBU
    
SPRING, 2017


VOLUME FOUR         NUMBER TWO  
 
JOHN COLTRANE
 
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

EARTH WIND AND FIRE
(May 20-May 26)

JACK DEJOHNETTE
(May 27-June 2)


ALBERT AYLER
(June 3-June 9)

VI REDD
(June 10-June 16)

LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS
(June 17-June 23)

JULIAN “CANNONBALL” ADDERLEY
(June 24-June 30)

JAMES NEWTON
(July 1-July 7)

ART TATUM
(July 8-July 14)

SONNY CLARK
(July 15-July 21)

JASON MORAN
(July 22-July 28)

SONNY STITT
(July 29-August 4)

BUD POWELL
(August 5-August 11)



Jack DeJohnette

(b. August 9, 1942)

Artist Biography by 


At his best, Jack DeJohnette is one of the most consistently inventive jazz percussionists extant. DeJohnette's style is wide-ranging, yet while capable of playing convincingly in any modern idiom, he always maintains a well-defined voice. DeJohnette has a remarkably fluid relationship to pulse. His timing is excellent; even as he pushes, pulls, and generally obscures the beat beyond recognition, a powerful sense of swing is ever-present. His tonal palette is huge as well; no drummer pays closer attention to the sounds that come out of his kit than DeJohnette. He possesses a comprehensive musicality rare among jazz drummers.

The DeJohnette Complex

That's perhaps explained by the fact that, before he played the drums, DeJohnette was a pianist. From the age of four, he studied classical piano. As a teenager he became interested in blues, popular music, and jazz; Ahmad Jamal was an early influence. In his late teens, DeJohnette began playing drums, which soon became his primary instrument. In the early '60s, the most significant event of his young professional life occurred -- an opportunity to play with John Coltrane. In the mid-'60s, DeJohnette became involved with the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He moved to New York in 1966, where he played again with Coltrane, and also with Jackie McLean. His big break came as a member of the very popular Charles Lloyd Quartet from 1966-1968. The drummer's first record as a leader was 1968's The DeJohnette Complex. In 1969, DeJohnette replaced Tony Williams in Miles Davis' band; later that year, he played on the trumpeter's seminal jazz-rock recording Bitches Brew. DeJohnette left Davis in 1972 and began working more frequently as a leader. In the '70s and '80s, DeJohnette became something like a house drummer for ECM, recording both as leader and sideman with such label mainstays as Jan Garbarek, Kenny Wheeler, and Pat Metheny. DeJohnette's first band was Compost; his later, more successful bands were Directions and Special Edition. The eclectic, avant-fusion Directions was originally comprised of the bassist Mike Richmond, guitarist John Abercrombie, and saxophonist Alex Foster. In a subsequent incarnation -- called, appropriately, New Directions -- bassist Eddie Gomez replaced Richmond and trumpeter Lester Bowie replaced Foster. From the mid-'70s, Directions recorded several albums in its twin guises for ECM. Beginning in 1979, DeJohnette also led Special Edition, a more straightforwardly swinging unit that featured saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe. For a time, both groups existed simultaneously; Special Edition would eventually become the drummer's performance medium of choice. The band began life as an acoustic free jazz ensemble, featuring the drummer's esoteric takes on the mainstream. It evolved into something quite different, as DeJohnette's conception changed into something considerably more commercial; with the addition of electric guitars and keyboards, DeJohnette began playing what is essentially a very loud, backbeat-oriented -- though sophisticated -- instrumental pop music.

Peace Time

To be fair, DeJohnette's fusion efforts are miles ahead of most others'. His abilities as a groove-centered drummer are considerable, but the subtle colorations of his acoustic work are missed. That side of DeJohnette is shown to good effect in his work with Keith Jarrett's Standards trio, and in his occasional meetings with Abercrombie and Dave Holland in the Gateway trio. DeJohnette remains a vital artist and continues to release albums such as Peace Time on Kindred Rhythm in 2007. He returned in 2009 with the trio album Music We Are featuring pianist Danilo Perez and bassist John Patitucci. In 2012, DeJohnette delivered the musically eclectic Sound Travels, showcasing a bevy of collaborations with such artists as Bruce Hornsby, Esperanza Spalding, and Ambrose Akinmusire, among others.
Made in Chicago
In 2013, DeJohnette was asked by the Chicago Jazz Festival to present a program of his choosing. He gathered together Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill -- his classmates at Wilson Junior College on the city's south side -- and Muhal Richard Abrams, whose Experimental Band the three had all played in, and all were members of the AACM. Along with bassist/cellist Larry Gray, the quintet played a festival concert (as well as subsequent dates in several variations). The historic reunion show was released by ECM as Made in Chicago in early 2015.
In Movement
The drummer's next project was forming a trio with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and electric bassist/electronicist Matthew Garrison -- the latter the offspring of the classic John Coltrane Quartet, bassist Jimmy Garrison. DeJohnette had played informally with the younger men for years before forming this band. In 2016, ECM issued the trio's debut, In Movement. It was the first appearance on the label for both bassist and saxophonist. 
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/return-jack-dejohnette-newvelle-records-review-by-karl-ackermann.php

Jack DeJohnette: Return


June 3, 2016
AllAbout Jazz

Jack DeJohnette: Return 

The only thing that Jack DeJohnette seems to have forgotten in his maturing years, is that, by the law of nature, he is supposed to be slowing down. Instead, as the composer/multi-instrumentalist heads toward his mid-seventies, he is as productive as he has ever been in his long, celebrated career. His releases over the past twelve months, include In Movement (ECM, 2016), a probing trio collection with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and bassist/electronic artist Matthew Garrison, the raucous quintet outing Made in Chicago (ECM Records, 2015) and the fifty-year old Bill Evans Trio discovery, Some Other Time: The Lost Session From the Black Forest (Resonance Records, 2016). DeJohnette puts the sticks aside for this solo piano album, Return, a collection of ten all-acoustic compositions, two new, one cover, and the remainder being reinterpretations of older DeJohnette compositions. 

A note about Newvelle Records: it is a new, subscription based label out of New York and founded by jazz pianist by Elan Mehler and Parisian, Jean-Christophe Morisseau. Newvelle is a vinyl-only jazz label pressed on 180g vinyl. These are quality, high-end recordings at a premium price. To date, the Frank Kimbrough Quintet, Noah Preminger Quartet and Ben Allison Trio are among the five featured releases. Though some audio aficionados may question the use of digital recording (Newvelle's method) over analog, Return indicates that the quality is pristine. 

Return is not DeJohnette's first piano album. He played piano and synthesizer on The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album (Landmark, 1985) leaving the drumming in the hands of Freddie Waits. He also played piano on two tracks on In Movement but in the intervening thirty years, the keyboard was used infrequently on recordings, primarily being DeJohnette's composing device.



One of two new compositions, "Ode to Satie," is inspired by the French composer's GymnopĂ©dies, three piano compositions sharing a common theme. From Inflation Blues (ECM, 1983), the Special Edition group featuring Chico Freeman and Rufus Reid, comes "Ebony." A wholly different arrangement, stripped down and using unusual meters gives the piece a new life. The original "Silver Hollow" (New Directions ECM, 1978) featured John Abercrombie and Lester Bowie but with DeJohnette on piano, the versions bear strong similarities. "Lydia," a piece DeJohnette dedicates to his wife and muse, dates back to 1977 but in the solo piano rendition takes on a heightened level of emotion. From that same year, "Blue" has been recorded several times by DeJohnette; this time in a minor key adding a more somber shade to the piece. 

Sufi dancers were the inspiration for "Dervish Trance," the other original composition on Return, reflects the transformation to mindfulness experienced by the dancers as they lose themselves in a steady, whirling motion. The atmospheric "Indigo Dreamscapes," a moody piece that first appeared on Parallel Realities (MCA, 1990) loses the funky fusion styling originally supplied by Herbie Hancock. DeJohnette's new interpretation is warm and melodic, sounding as though it were always meant to be recorded this way. "Song for World Forgiveness" and "Exotic Isles" are quietly uplifting while the closing piece, "Ponta de Areia," written by Brazilian Milton Nascimento, is a beautiful lullaby-like tune and a perfect way to take Return out. 

DeJohnette's 1985 album struck many listeners as a revelation, especially those not knowing that the drummer had begun his career as a pianist. While it was clear with ...Piano Album that DeJohnette was not merely engaging in a vanity project, Return is something else again. The compositions, while translated in an unpretentious way, often sound simpler than they are. In DeJohnette's album notes, he acknowledges that he did not overthink the process of recording the album, saying that he wanted the flow to be natural; the title referring to a return to uncomplicated beauty. He has achieved just that.
Track Listing: Side A: Ode to Satie; Ebony; Silver Hollow; Lydia; Blue. Side B: Dervish Trance; Indigo Dreamscapes; Song for World Forgiveness; Exotic Isles; Ponta de Areia.
Personnel: Jack DeJohnette: piano.

Year Released: 2016 | Record Label: Newvelle Records | Style: Modern Jazz



DRUMMERWORLD
JACK DEJOHNETTE
(b. August 9, 1942)

In a career that spans five decades and includes collaborations with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz, NEA and Grammy winner Jack DeJohnette has established an unchallenged  reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre. The list of creative associations throughout his career is lengthy and diverse: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Joe Henderson, Freddy Hubbard, Betty Carter and so many more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that allows room for hard bop, R&B, world music, avant-garde, and just about every other style to emerge in the past half-century.

Born in Chicago in 1942, DeJohnette grew up in a family where music and music appreciation was a high priority. Beginning at age four, he studied classical piano privately and later at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He added the drums to his repertoire when he joined his high school concert band at age 14.

“As a child, I listened to all kinds of music and I never put them into categories,” he recalls. “I had formal lessons on piano and listened to opera, country and western music, rhythm and blues, swing, jazz, whatever. To me, it was all music and all great. I've kept that integrated feeling about music, all types of music, and just carried it with me. I've maintained that belief and feeling in spite of the ongoing trend to try and compartmentalize people and music.”

By the mid-1960s, DeJohnette had entered the Chicago jazz scene – not just as a leader of his own fledgling groups but also as a sideman on both piano and drums. He experimented with rhythm, melody and harmony as part of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians during the groups early days, and later drummed alongside Rashied Ali in the John Coltrane Quintet. He garnered international recognition during his tenure with the Charles Lloyd Quartet, one of the first jazz groups to receive crossover attention.

In 1968, DeJohnette joined Miles Davis group just prior to the recording of Bitches Brew, an album that triggered a seismic shift in jazz and permanently changed the direction of the music. Miles later wrote in his autobiography: “Jack DeJohnette gave me a deep groove that I just loved to play over.” DeJohnette stayed with Davis for three years, making important contributions to prominent Davis recordings like Live-Evil and A Tribute to Jack Johnson (both in 1971) and On the Corner (1972). 

During this same period, DeJohnette also recorded his first albums as a leader, beginning with The DeJohnette Complex in 1968 on Milestone. He followed up with Have You Heard in 1970, then switched to Prestige, where he released Sorcery in 1974 and Cosmic Chicken in 1975. 

The mid 1970s were marked by a series of short-lived groups and projects – many of them leaning toward the experimental side of jazz, including The Gateway Trio (featuring Dave Holland and John Abercrombie), Directions (with Abercrombie and saxophonist Alex Foster), and New Directions (Abercrombie, with Eddie Gomez on bass). Special Edition – which helped launch the careers of little known musicians like David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, John Purcell and Rufus Reid – remained active into the 1990s, although the project was frequently interrupted by DeJohnettes various other collaborative ventures, especially recordings and tours with Keith Jarrett.

DeJohnette has worked extensively with Jarrett as part of a longstanding trio with Gary Peacock. The threesome will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2013.

Another of DeJohnettes high-profile projects in the early 1990s was a touring quartet consisting of himself, Holland, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny. In 1992, the group released Music for a Fifth World, an album inspired by Native American culture that also included appearances by Vernon Reid and John Scofield. Given the diversity of players and styles that he had embraced by this point, DeJohnette was already describing his music in the „90s as “multidimensional.”

In 2004, DeJohnette recorded and toured with two Grammy nominated projects – Out of Towners, with Jarrett and Peacock (aka the Standards Trio); and Ivey Divey, which featured Don Byron and Jason Moran. He continued to work with Jarrett and Peacock in 2005, but also launched numerous additional ventures that same year, the first of which was the Latin Project – a combo that consisted of percussionists Giovanni Hidalgo and Luisito Quintero, reedman Don Byron, pianist Edsel Gomez, and bassist Jerome Harris. Other projects in 2005 included The Jack DeJohnette Quartet, featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Harris; and the Beyond Trio, a group that celebrated the music of drummer Tony Williams, featuring John Scofield and Larry Goldings.

And if that weren't enough to make for a busy year, 2005 also marked the launch of DeJohnette's own imprint, Golden Beams Productions. His first two projects on the new label were Music from the Hearts of the Masters, a duet recording with Gambian kora player Foday  Musa Suso, and a relaxation and meditation album entitled Music in the Key of Om, featuring DeJohnette on synthesizer and resonating bells. The latter recording was nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Age Album category. He closed 2005 with the release of Hybrids, a seamless weave of African jazz, reggae and dance music that featured Foday Musa Suso and an international cast representing musical styles from around the world.

Two live recordings emerged in 2006: The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers (Golden Beams), which captured his first musical encounter with guitarist Bill Frisell at the Earshot Festival in Seattle in 2001; and Saudades (ECM), a 2004 London concert celebrating the music of Tony Williams. DeJohnette and Frisell reunited in the fall of 2006 – along with multi- instrumentalist Jerome Harris and mix master Ben Surman – for a tour to promote The Elephant Sleeps.

DeJohnette continued to explore African music in 2007 via the Intercontinental project, a partnership with South African singer Sibongile Khumalo that included a successful 

European tour and culminated in aperformance at the Capetown Jazz Festival in South Africa. Other projects in 2007 included studio gigs and tour dates with Bruce Hornsby, Christian McBride, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter. DeJohnette also appeared on Michael Brecker's posthumously released final album, Pilgrimage.
Extensive touring continued in 2008, along with the recording of a trio album with Patitucci and Perez during a snow storm near DeJohnettes home in upstate New York. The sessions resulted in Music We Are, released in April 2009 with a bonus DVD that provided a rare look at the trios friendship, their creative relationship and their approach to the recording process. 

DeJohnettes Peace Time won a Grammy in 2009 for Best New Age Album. The album consists of an hour-long, continuous piece of music that eMusic described as “flights of flute, soft hand drumming, and the gently percolating chime of cymbal play, moving the piece along a river of meditative delight.” But the 2009 Grammy is just  one many awards that DeJohnette has received over the years, beginning in 1979 with the French Grand Prix Disc and Charles Cros awards. He has figured prominently into readers polls and critics polls conducted by Downbeat and JazzTimes over the past two decades. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1991, and was inducted into the Percussive Arts Societys Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 2011, he was chosen to perform at the Kennedy Center in tribute to his longtime friend and musical inspiration, Sonny Rollins. Marking his 70s birthday in 2012, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Fellowship – the highest U.S. honor for jazz musicians – in recognition of his extraordinary life achievements, contributions to advancing the jazz art form, and for serving as a mentor for a new generation of aspiring young jazz musicians.
The year-long birthday celebration included performances at the Monterey and Newport Jazz festivals, a tour of Europe with The Jack DeJohnette Group (a quintet he formed in 2010) and several concerts with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. 

Despite all the awards and accolades, though, DeJohnette continues to make the creative process his highest priority. To that end, his most recent recording is Sound Travels, a nine-song, genre-spanning album that includes Latin rhythms and West Indian energy, meditative pieces and straightahead jazz. Included in the long list of guest players is Esperanza Spalding, Bobby McFerrin, Bruce Hornsby and Jason Moran.

Source: Jackdejohnette.com

https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/jack-dejohnette




NEA Jazz Masters









Tabs

"I am truly grateful to be part of an art form that communicates with others on such a highly creative and inspired level and has such an enormous global impact that I believe contributes to bringing harmony everywhere.I am also really grateful to the many who have inspired me and to the NEA for the work that they do and for bestowing this prestigious award on me. To be able to do what one loves, lives, and breathes and get recognized for it is amazing to me. Thank you."

Widely regarded as one of the great drummers in modern jazz, Jack DeJohnette has a wide-ranging style that makes him a dynamic sideman and bandleader. He has played with virtually every major jazz figure from the 1960s on, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and Abbey Lincoln. His versatility on the drums is accented by DeJohnette's additional accomplishments as a keyboardist: he studied classical piano for ten years before taking up drums.

In his early years on the Chicago scene, DeJohnette was active with the premiere musician organization, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, whose members included Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Joseph Jarman. In 1966, he drummed alongside Rashied Ali in the John Coltrane Quintet. However, he became more widely known as a member of Charles Lloyd's band, where he first began playing with pianist Keith Jarrett. In 1968, he recorded his first album as a leader, The DeJohnette Complex, on which DeJohnette doubled on melodica.

The second major association of DeJohnette's early career spanned the years 1969-72, when he performed with Miles Davis' first fusion band. Davis gave a nod to DeJohnette in his autobiography, Miles: "Jack DeJohnette gave me a deep groove that I just loved to play over." Besides allowing him to play alongside such stellar musicians as Dave Holland, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin, the Davis years also increased DeJohnette's session work.

DeJohnette began leading several groups in the early 1970s, including Compost, Directions, New Directions, and Special Edition, featuring a diverse gathering of musicians including David Murray, Eddie Gomez, Chico Freeman, John Abercrombie, and Lester Bowie. Since the 1980s, while continuing to lead his own projects and bands, DeJohnette has also been a member of the highly acclaimed Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette trio. DeJohnette has continued to record and perform on keyboards, releasing albums such as Zebra, a mesmerizing synthesizer/trumpet duo with Lester Bowie featuring African music influences. He further explored his interest in African music in a 2005 duet with noted Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso.

In 2005, DeJohnette launched Golden Beams Productions, an independent record label "as an outlet for the broad range of creative projects." The label garnered DeJohnette a Grammy Award for Peace Time, on which he is both featured artist and co-producer. He has composed soundtracks for both television and video, and has received numerous awards including the French Grand Prix du Disque in 1979. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music. DeJohnette is the winner of numerous DownBeat magazine "Drummer of the Year" critics' and readers' polls, and JazzTimes magazine's reader polls for "Best Drummer."

Selected Discography:

The DeJohnette Complex, Milestone/OJC, 1968

Special Edition, ECM, 1979

The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album, Landmark, 1985

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette, My Foolish Heart, ECM, 2001

Music We Are, Golden Beams, 2008

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/a-fireside-chat-with-jack-dejohnette-jack-dejohnette-by-aaj-staff.php

A Fireside Chat with Jack DeJohnette

by  
AllAboutJazz
"A lot of what I am involved in, the discipline of being able to improvise... and spontaneously create a sonic work of musical art in the moment. That is something I like to stay connected with.
—Jack DeJohnette




A gal pal of mine turned me onto Bitches Brew (pre- A Love Supreme/Bitches Brew, I was an '80s new wave junkie). This eventually led to my purchase of Live-Evil (the most underrated and killing '70s Miles record). On both sessions is one Jack DeJohnette, who made his bones with the iconic trumpeter, but is best known for his integral role in what has become affectionately Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio. His discography reads like a jazz uber-saxophonists list: Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, Charles Lloyd, and Michael Brecker. As a leader, DeJohnette has been just as accommodating to aficionados of the tenor and alto, employing Bennie Maupin, David Murray, Arthur Blythe, John Purcell, Gary Thomas, and Greg Osby. On a recent visit through the Windy City, DeJohnette sat down with the Roadshow. Ladies and gents, the heaviest drummer of my time, unedited and in his own words.

Fred Jung: Let's start from the beginning.


Jack DeJohnette: I was always drawn to it when I was a kid. My uncle was Roy Wood, a famous journalist and a prominent person in the broadcasting network. He was into jazz and I used to listen to his records and that kind of got me into jazz. And of course, I had piano lessons. I listened to all kinds of music on the radio, but I really got into jazz more seriously as a teenager and my uncle became a jazz teacher. I got into then. I think the first influences were Ahmad Jamal as far as piano was concerned and Vernell Fournier in the Ahmad Jamal Trio and it goes on from there.


FJ: What intrigued you about Ahmad Jamal?


JD: Well, Ahmad Jamal was always ahead of his time. In fact, he is such an important figure among a lot of other musicians, particularly Red Garland and Miles Davis. In fact, that particular trio with Israel Crosby and Vernell Fournier influenced the rhythm section that Miles had with Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. You could hear Ahmad come out and do "But Not for Me" and "Billy Boy" and you'd hear Miles come out on his albums with some of the same songs that he heard Ahmad play.


FJ: When did you begin focusing on the drums?


JD: It was just naturally. I actually had a trio that used to play for dances and things like that and the drummer left his drums at my house. I would listen to my uncle's jazz records and go down to the basement and start playing drums. But with the records, I just became a natural drummer. I taught myself to play drums well enough to start working on both instruments. Eddie Harris hired me for a while and he said to me, "You play good piano, but you play better drums. You should make drums your main instrument." At the time, I wanted to do both. Eventually, when I came to New York, I got hired as a drummer by John Patton. I decided then that I would make drums my main instrument. Since I have had experience playing the piano, it gave me another kind of insight to playing the drum set in an orchestral manner.


FJ: Conversely, do you play the piano percussively?


JD: Sometimes, I play pianistically. I had trios and a quartet. I played with singers. I played solo piano around Chicago and all over the place. I played blues and I used to practice on both instruments all day long, but unfortunately, I didn't have the time to do that.


FJ: Elaborate on your approach to the drums.


JD: Well, I hear the drum set and tune the drum set as a musical instrument, so I tune it in intervals and I also create, with the help of Sabian, the cymbal company, my own cymbals. I look for a particular sound. I hear overtones and chords in the cymbals as well as the drums. I am hearing orchestrally. I guess one example would be the cymbals are to my drum set what the sustain pedal is on the acoustic piano. So I am hearing colors. I consider myself somebody who colors the music.


FJ: Let's touch on your tenure with the Charles Lloyd Quartet.







 
THE MUSIC OF JACK DEJOHNETTE: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH JACK DEJOHNETTE:

Jack DeJohnette Trio featuring Ravi Coltrane & Matt Garrison - Wise One - Live @ Blue Note Milano

 

"Wise One” (Composition by John Coltrane)
performed by Jack DeJohnette
Blue Note Milano 11-11-2014


Jack DeJohnette - drums
Matt Garrison - bass
Ravi Coltrane - sax

Jack DeJohnette Trio - Heineken Jazzaldia 2016:

 

Personnel:

Jack DeJohnette

drums, piano - http://jackdejohnette.com/
Ravi Coltrane - sax - http://www.ravicoltrane.com/
Matt Garrison - bass - http://www.garrisonjazz.com/
● Jack DeJohnette Trio - Heineken Jazzaldia 2016

Live at 51 Heineken Jazzaldia, Plaza de la Trinidad Donosti, Spain, 2016

Conversations with Jack DeJohnette:

 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbsQzo0bgjM

NYU Steinhardt Jazz Interview Series at SubCulture in New York. Dr. David Schroeder interviews legendary jazz drummer, pianist and composer Jack DeJohnette on January 31, 2015.


MILES DAVIS 5tet--DIRECTIONS,  1969:

 

Jack DeJohnette Interview at the Newport Jazz Festival:

 
In this interview from the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival, drummer and bandleader Jack DeJohnette talks about growing up in Chicago and his early musical experiences playing piano. He also talks about his strong sense of obligation to mentor and play with musicians from different generations. And he discusses the creation of his recent album Sound Travels. 
  
This In Person with JazzTimes interview took place backstage inside Fort Adams at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival, where DeJohnette performed with his own group, as well as with pianist Jason Moran. Interview by Lee Mergner. Video by Melissa Mergner. Audio by Jen Kim. Special thanks to Carolyn McClair, Melanie Nanez, Dan Melnick, Deborah Ross and the staff of George Wein Productions.

NEA Jazz Masters: Tribute to Jack DeJohnette:

 


Widely regarded as one of the great drummers in modern jazz, Jack DeJohnette has a wide-ranging style that makes him a dynamic sideman and bandleader. He has played with virtually every major jazz figure from the 1960s on, including NEA Jazz Masters Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and Abbey Lincoln. See a more detailed bio at ttp://tinyurl.com/dejohnette

Join us Tuesday, January 10th at 7:30pm ET for the live webcast of the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters Award Ceremony & Concert live from Jazz at Lincoln Center: http://www.jalc.org/neajazzmasters


Miles Davis - "What I Say"-- (HQ Audio)

From Live-Evil.  Columbia,  1971:

 

1. "What I Say" (21:09)--Composition by Miles Davis
(Recorded December 19, 1970 at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC)


Jack DeJohnette - drum solo - Modern Drummer Festival 1997:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_DeJohnette

Jack DeJohnette



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette.jpg
DeJohnette in 2006
Background information
Born August 9, 1942 (age 74) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres Jazz, jazz fusion, new-age
Occupation(s) Drummer, pianist, composer
Instruments Drums, piano, percussion, melodica
Years active 1961–present
Labels Milestone, Prestige, ECM, MCA, Blue Note, Columbia
Associated acts Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, Charles Lloyd, Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Don Byron
Website Official website
Notable instruments
Drums & piano

Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942)[1] is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer.
An important figure of the fusion era of jazz, DeJohnette is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, given his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, Alice Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Herbie Hancock and John Scofield. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2007.[2]


Contents

 


 

Biography

Early life and musical beginnings

 

DeJohnette was born in Chicago, Illinois.[3] He began his musical career as a pianist, studying from age four and first playing professionally at age fourteen,[4] but he would later switch focus to the drums, for which he is known.[3] DeJohnette would later credit an uncle, Roy I. Wood Sr., as the person in his life who inspired him to play music. Wood was a Chicago disc jockey who would later become vice president of the National Network of Black Broadcasters.[5]
DeJohnette began his musical career on piano, then adding drums and eventually focussing on the latter, playing R&B, hard bop, and avant-garde music in Chicago. He led his own groups in addition to playing with Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and other eventual core members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (founded in 1965).[5] He also occasionally performed with Sun Ra and his Arkestra (and later in New York as well). In the early 1960s, DeJohnette had the opportunity to sit in for three tunes with John Coltrane and his quintet, an early foray into playing with big name jazz musicians.[6][7]
In 1966 DeJohnette moved to New York City, where he became a member of the Charles Lloyd Quartet.[3] A band that recognized the potential influence of rock and roll on jazz, Lloyd's group was where DeJohnette first encountered pianist Keith Jarrett, who would work extensively with him throughout his career.[8] However, DeJohnette left the group in early 1968, citing Lloyd's deteriorating, "flat" playing as his main reason for leaving.[9] While Lloyd's band was where he received international recognition for the first time,[5] it was not the only group DeJohnette played with during his early years in New York, as he also worked with groups including Jackie McLean, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, and Bill Evans.[3] DeJohnette joined Evan's trio in 1968, the same year the group headlined the Montreux Jazz Festival and produced the album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In November 1968 he worked briefly with Stan Getz and his quartet, which led to his first recordings with Miles Davis.[7]


The Miles Davis years

 

In 1969, DeJohnette left the Evans trio and replaced Tony Williams in Miles Davis's live band. Davis had seen DeJohnette play many times, one of which was during a stint with Evans at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in 1968, where he also first heard bassist Dave Holland.[10] Davis recognized DeJohnette’s ability to combine the driving grooves associated with rock and roll with improvisational aspects associated with jazz.[11]

DeJohnette is heard on the compilation album Directions, and was the primary drummer on the landmark album Bitches Brew. DeJohnette and the other musicians saw the Bitches Brew sessions as unstructured and fragmentary, but also innovative: "As the music was being played, as it was developing, Miles would get new ideas...He’d do a take, and stop, and then get an idea from what had just gone on before, and elaborate on it...The recording of Bitches Brew was a stream of creative musical energy. One thing was flowing into the next, and we were stopping and starting all the time."[12] While he was not the only drummer involved in the project, as Davis had also enlisted Billy Cobham, Don Alias, and Lenny White, DeJohnette was considered the leader of the rhythm section within the group.[13] He played on the live albums that would follow the release of Bitches Brew, taken from concerts at the Fillmore East in New York and Fillmore West in San Francisco. These ventures were undertaken at the behest of Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records.[14]
DeJohnette continued to work with Davis for the next three years, which led to collaborations with other Davis band members John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, and Holland; he also drew Keith Jarrett into the band.[5] He contributed to such famous Davis albums as Live-Evil (1971), Jack Johnson (1971), and On the Corner (1972).[15] He left the Davis group in the middle of 1971, although he returned for several concerts through the rest of that year.[7]


DeJohnette as a solo artist and bandleader in the 1970s and '80s

 

DeJohnette's first record, The DeJohnette Complex, was released in 1968; on the album, he played melodica as well as drums, preferring often to let his mentor, Roy Haynes, sit behind the set. He also recorded, in the early 1970s, the albums Have You Heard, Sorcery, and Cosmic Chicken.[5] He released these first four albums on either the Milestone or Prestige labels,[5] and then switched to ECM for his next endeavors; ECM gave him a "fertile platform" for his "atmospheric drumming and challenging compositions."[16]
The musical freedom he had while recording for ECM offered DeJohnette many dates as a sideman and opportunities to start his own groups.[16] He first formed the group Compost in 1972, but this was a short-lived endeavor, and DeJohnette cited the music as far too experimental to achieve commercial success.[17] During this period, DeJohnette continued his career as a sideman as well, rejoining Stan Getz's quartet from 1973 to October 1974, and also enticing Dave Holland to join Getz's rhythm section.[7] This stint briefly preceded the formation of the Gateway Trio, a group that DeJohnette helped form but did not lead. This group came directly out of the DeJohnette's time with Getz, as Holland joined him in this group along with guitarist John Abercrombie, both of whom would become associated with DeJohnette throughout his career.[5] His next group effort was Directions, a group formed in 1976 featuring saxophonist Alex Foster, bassist Mike Richmond, and Abercrombie,[17] showing the links between the members of the Gateway trio. This was another short-lived group, yet it led directly to the formation of DeJohnette's next group, New Directions, which featured Abercrombie again on guitar along with Lester Bowie on trumpet and Eddie GĂłmez on bass.[17] This group coexisted with another DeJohnette group, Special Edition, which was the first DeJohnette-led group to receive critical acclaim.[7] This group also helped the careers of many lesser-known young horn players, as it had a rotating front line that included David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, and John Purcell, among many others.[7]

During this period, especially with Special Edition, DeJohnette offered "the necessary gravity to keep the horns in a tight orbit" in his compositions while also treating his listeners to "the expanded vocabulary of the avant-garde plus the discipline of traditional jazz compositions."[18] DeJohnette's work with Special Edition has been interrupted regularly by other projects, the most significant of which are his recordings in 1983 and tours from 1985 as a member of Keith Jarrett's trio, which was totally devoted to playing jazz standards.[7] The trio included his long-time compatriot Jarrett and bassist Gary Peacock, and all three have been members of the group for over 25 years.[5]

In 1981 he performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, held in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Creative Music Studio.


DeJohnette in the 1990s and the present

 

DeJohnette continued to work with Special Edition into the 1990s, but did not limit himself to that. In 1990 he toured in a quartet consisting of himself, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and his long-time collaborator Holland,[7] and released the Parallel Realities CD with this group the same year.[5] In 1992 he released a major collaborative record, Music for the Fifth World, which was inspired by studies with a Native American elder and brought him together musically with players like Vernon Reid and John Scofield.[5] He had also, during the 1980s, resumed playing piano, which led to his 1994 tour as an unaccompanied pianist.[7] He also began working again with Abercrombie and Holland, reviving the Gateway trio.[7]

In 2004 he was nominated for a Grammy award for his work on Keith Jarrett’s live album The Out-of-Towners, and continued to work with that group into 2005.[5] In the next few years DeJohnette would begin and lead three new projects, the first of which was the Latin Project consisting of percussionists Giovanni Hidalgo and Luisito Quintero, reedman Don Byron, pianist Edsel Gomez, and bassist Jerome Harris.[19] The other two new projects were the Jack DeJohnette Quartet, featuring Harris again alongside Danilo Perez and John Patitucci, and the Trio Beyond, a tribute to DeJohnette’s friend Tony Williams and his trio Lifetime (consisting of Williams, Larry Young and John McLaughlin), featuring John Scofield and Larry Goldings.[20] He also founded his own label, Golden Beams Productions, in 2005. That same year, he released Music in the Key of OM on his new label, an electronic album which he created for relaxing and meditative purposes on which he played synthesizer and resonating bells, and which was nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Age Album category.[20] He continued to make albums as a leader and sideman throughout this period as well, one of which was The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers, a collaboration that documents the first meeting of DeJohnette and guitarist Bill Frisell in 2001 and led to another tour, with Frisell and Jerome Harris.[20] The next year Trio Beyond released Saudades, a live recording of a concert commemorating Tony Williams in London in 2004. In 2008 he toured with Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, and the Jarrett trio, and the next year won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album with Peace Time.[20] In 2010 he founded the Jack DeJohnette Group, featuring Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone, David Fiuczynski on double-neck guitar, George Colligan on keyboards and piano, and long-time associate Jerome Harris on electric and acoustic bass guitars.[21]
In 2012, DeJohnette released Sound Travels, which featured appearances by McFerrin, Quintero, Bruce Hornsby, Esperanza Spalding, Lionel Loueke, and Jason Moran.[22] The same year, he was awarded an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for his "significant lifetime contributions have helped to enrich jazz and further the growth of the art form."[23]

In 2016, Dejohnette collaborated with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison on the ECM CD In Movement.

Dejohnette also appears on Paul Simon's album "Stranger to Stranger", which also came out in 2016.


Style

 

DeJohnette's style incorporates elements of jazz, free jazz, world music, and R&B, contributing to him being one of the most highly regarded and in-demand drummers. Initially a traditional grip player, later he switched to matched grip due to a problem with tendinitis.[24]
His drumming style has been called unique; one critic writes that he is not merely a drummer but a "percussionist, colourist and epigrammatic commentator mediating the shifting ensemble densities" and that "his drumming is always part of the music's internal construction."[25] Modern Drummer magazine, in a 2004 interview, called DeJohnette's drumming "beyond technique."[16]
DeJohnette calls himself an "abstract thinker" when it comes to soloing, saying that he puts "more weight on the abstract than, 'What were you thinking in bar 33?' I don't like to think that way. I can do it, but I like to be more in the flow."[16] In terms of what he feels when he plays, DeJohnette said that when he plays, he goes "into an altered state, a different headspace. I plug into my higher self, into the cosmic library of ideas."[16] He has remarked that he has to play with a lot of restraint when playing in Keith Jarrett's trio, in order "to play with the subtlety that the music requires."[16]


Discography

 



Awards


 

Bibliography

 

  • Barnhart, Stephen L. Percussionists: a Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
  • Burgess, Marjorie. "Jack DeJohnette Biography", Musician Biographies (accessed April 23, 2012).
  • Himes, Geoffrey. "Jack DeJohnette and Art Blakey", The Washington Post, June 3, 1983.
  • Hovan, C. Andrew. "Live Reviews: Jack DeJohnette Latin Project", All About Jazz, February 19, 2005 (accessed April 24, 2012).
  • Nicholson, Stuart. Jazz Rock: a History. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998.
  • Porter, Lewis. "Jack DeJohnette". In Barry Kernfield, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, volume 1. New York: Grove, 2002.
  • Tingen, Paul. Miles Beyond: the Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991. New York: Billboard Books, 2001.
  • "Jack DeJohnette: Biography", Jack DeJohnette official website (accessed April 23, 2012).
  • "Jack DeJohnette", Modern Drummer, May 12, 2004 (accessed April 23, 2012).
  • "Sound Travels". Jack DeJohnette official website (accessed April 24, 2012).

 

References

 


  1. "Jack DeJohnette:Artist Info". Riad.usk.pk.edu.pl. August 9, 1942. Retrieved October 11, 2011.

  2. "Modern Drummer's Readers Poll Archive, 1979–2014". Modern Drummer. Retrieved 10 August 2015.

  3. Stephen L. Barnhart, Percussionists: a Biographical Dictionary (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 88.

  4. "Jack DeJohnette: Biography". Jackdejohnette.com. Retrieved April 23, 2012.

  5. "Jack DeJohnette: Biography". Jackdejohnette.com. Retrieved April 23, 2012.

  6. "Conversations with Jack DeJohnette". YouTube. 3 March 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2016.

  7. Lewis Porter, "Jack DeJohnette," in Barry Kernfield, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, volume 1 (New York: Grove, 2002), 594.

  8. Stuart Nicholson, Jazz Rock: a History (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998), 77–78.

  9. Nicholson, Jazz Rock, 81.

  10. Paul Tingen, Miles Beyond: the Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991 (New York: Billboard Books, 2001), 51.

  11. Tingen, Miles Beyond, 55.

  12. Jack DeJohnette, quoted in Tingen, Miles Beyond, 65.

  13. Tingen, Miles Beyond, 65.

  14. Nicholson, Jazz Rock, 115.

  15. Barnhart, Percussionists, 89; Nicholson, Jazz Rock, 117.

  16. Modern Drummer (May 12, 2004). "Jack DeJohnette". Moderndrummer.com. Retrieved April 23, 2012.

  17. Marjorie Burgess. "Jack DeJohnette Biography". Musician Biographies, Musicianguide.com. Retrieved April 23, 2012.

  18. Geoffrey Himes (June 3, 1983). "Jack DeJohnette and Art Blakey". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2012.

  19. C. Andrew Hovan (February 19, 2005). "Reviews: Jack DeJohnette Latin Project". All About Jazz. Retrieved April 24, 2012.

  20. "Jack DeJohnette: Biography". Retrieved April 24, 2012.

  21. "Jack DeJohnette:Biography". Retrieved July 16, 2011.

  22. "Sound Travels". Retrieved April 24, 2012.

  23. "National Endowment for the Arts Announces the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters". Retrieved July 16, 2011.

  24. Brenda Pike (October 25, 2009). "Students Improv with Jack DeJohnette". Berklee. Retrieved October 10, 2016.

  25. Stuart Nicholson (August 2, 1998). "Jazz: Jack DeJohnette/Oneness: Drum major". The Observer. Retrieved April 24, 2012.

  26. "United States Artists". Unitedstatesartists.org. January 16, 2015. Retrieved May 19, 2015.

    1. Muhal Richard Abrams. "NEA Jazz Masters | NEA". Arts.gov. Retrieved May 19, 2015.

    External links

    1. Official web site
    2. Jack DeJohnette's MySpace page
    3. At drummerworld.com
    4. Jack DeJohnette at BehindTheDrums.com – discography and equipment list
    5. Jack DeJohnette interview at underyourskin on YouTube
    6. Jack DeJohnette Interview – NAMM Oral History Library (2009)