Jack DeJohnette - 1978 [2000] "New Directions"

 

New Directions is an album by Jack DeJohnette released on the German ECM label. It was recorded June 1978 at Talent Studio in Oslo and released in 1978.

New Directions found drummer/pianist Jack DeJohnette reflecting on the multiple routes his musical life had taken and summarizing them in a single band. “My idea was to put together a cast of unlikely characters”. He’d worked with Eddie Gomez in the Bill Evans Trio, played extensively with John Abercrombie in the Gateway trio and a new alliance with Art Ensemble trumpeter Lester Bowie reconnected Jack to the experimental spirit of the early AACM. “With Lester added we had four strong and very different characters, could cover a lot of musical areas, and the chemistry was fantastic.” New Directions, recorded in 1978, won France’s Prix du Jazz Contemporain de L’Academie Charles Cros.

Jack DeJohnette's New Directions was a jazz supergroup (circa 1978) made up of Lester Bowie (of the Art Ensemble of Chicago), Eddie Gomez (known for his work with Chick Corea), John Abercrombie (an ECM guitarist whose previous work had been in the John McLaughlin vein) and, of course, DeJohnette himself on Drums. I would call this music ambient jazz, with an eery, yet beautiful, dreamlike quality.
The playing (of DeJohnette, Abercrombie, and particularly Lester Bowie) on this album is revelatory.
DeJohnette's cymbal and snare work, recorded here in ECM's pristine clarity, seems to flow directly out of the collective unconcious. He plays endless variations on rhythms, never ceasing to groove, oh so subtly. If you broke his beats down measure by measure, any given measure would be enough for another drummer to fill an entire song.
John Abercrombie lays back and plays atmospherics throughout most of the album. He displays very little of the Mahavishnu-esque pyrotechnics he was wont to spew previous to this album. The atmosphere's he creates remind me of Brian Eno's ambient music at times. Maybe he had been listening to Robert Fripp. I don't know. But his playing is beautiful and unique throughout most of the album. In fact, while I doubt many 1980's pop/rock guitarists ever listened to this album, Abercrombie's playing here is an ambient jazz precursor to the playing of people like the Edge (on Unforgettable Fire), or Johnny Marr, or the guitar work on Joy Divisions Closer album.
But it is the trumpet of Lester Bowie for which this album most deserves to be remembered. While Lester did much great work in his life, he would often interrupt his best work to express the clown spirit which was so much a part of his nature. Here, though, Lester seems on a mission to express the entirety of his spirit. There's clowning to be sure, but it's framed in the larger picture of "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future" which the Art Ensemble set out to express.
This album contains two tracks which should go down in the history of jazz as classics.
Bayou Fever is an extended, almost formless, field-holler with a a humid and surreal atmosphere. On this track Bowie plays the Blues as if he were it's culmination. It's not a blues, but Bowie's feel embodies the blues while, at the same time, being something else entirely.
Jack DeJohnette's piano ballad Silver Hollow is exquisite; touching and sentimental, without being sappy. Once again, Lester Bowie steals the show. Who would have guessed he could play this tenderly? His work on this track rivals Miles Davis' playing on tracks such as Blue in Green, Round Midnight, or Someday My Prince Will Come.

Jack's playing is perpetually crisp and inventive. He really has no clichés in his playing, yet his touch and feel are unmistakable. The real gem on this set has no drums at all, but Jack plays the piano. Silver Hollow is one of my favorite DeJohnette compositions, and its treatment here in the hands of Jack, John Abercrombie, Eddie Gomez and MVP Lester Bowie goes above and beyond. Buy it for that track, the rest is merely outstanding.

This is a great record -- nearly an all-time jazz classic. From the very first chords of "Bayou Fever," you're in a dreamscape created by four brilliant musicians at the very peak of their abilities, and enmeshed in a telepathic quartet setting that brought out the best in them. Abercrombie never sounded better -- he's at his most subtle and oracular here; Lester Bowie sounds like he's infected with some kind of voodoo that Miles himself never came down with; DeJohnette sounds like three guys, but never too busy, always selflessly stoking the groove; and Gomez is perfect here, adding lead notes that haunt the melodies like a voice you can't get out of your head. This is the stuff. The acoustic "Silver Hollow" at the end, after all that swirling blackness, is so beautiful it's almost too much!  

Track listing:

All compositions by Jack DeJohnette except as indicated.

    "Bayou Fever" – 8:40
    "Where or Wayne" – 12:25
    "Dream Stalker" (Abercrombie, Bowie, DeJohnette, Gomez) – 5:55
    "One Handed Woman" (Abercrombie, Bowie, DeJohnette, Gomez) – 10:49
    "Silver Hollow" – 8:24

Personnel:

Jack DeJohnette – drums, piano
John Abercrombie – guitar, electric mandolin
Lester Bowie – trumpet
Eddie Gómez – double bass