Is there a more gifted, all round musician, composer and long-established player with such a comprehensive list of jazz greats than drummer, pianist and composer Jack DeJohnette? He’s played everything from R&B to free jazz with many great names, notably Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett. Moving from Chicago to New York in 1964 he gigged with Coltrane, Monk, Bill Evans and many others. He played drums on Miles Davis’s seminal album Bitches Brew.
This new release was recorded in August 2013 at the Chicago Jazz Festival, as DeJohnette turned 71. He’s used Chicagoans he has known for long periods: the two reeds players Henry Threadgill, and Roscoe Mitchell were his college classmates. Pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, aged 82 was the senior of the Chicago quintet, and bassist Larry Gray in his late fifties, the youngest.
The concert of six lengthy, experimental compositions opens with Mitchell’s 17 minute piece Chant, a wildly improvised work growing out of a reiterative four note theme of increasing dissonance. It builds into free jazz ensemble and solos – notably Threadgill’s raw-toned alto, Abrams wide-ranging abstract piano, and DeJohnette’s powerhouse drum work accompanied by fast, raw excursions from Mitchell’s soprano sax.
DeJohnette’s drumming is extraordinary throughout with his explosive solo of varied tonalities on Jack 5 especially impressive. Museum of Time is the most lyrical number where Abrams’s piano initially leads before the two horns work towards abstraction. Threadgill plays bass flute paired with Mitchell’s wooden bass recorder on This as Gray’s cello introduces a mystical atmosphere.
This is complex, often abstract music, played by accomplished pioneers of the genre.