Jack DeJohnette

[mrjazzman]

Doing my own research, I can't find anything by J. D. that sounds boppish enough for me to hear. I thought "Sound Travels" came close but no cigar. So, to the experts. On which session will I find Mr. DeJohnette at his most boppish, leader or side man. Thanks.

[danasgoodstuff]

One of his sessions with Jackie Mac maybe, but Jack DeJ is not really all that 'boppish' in any context.

[Michael Weiss]

Cedar Walton: Spectrum (Prestige)

[CJ Shearn]

Hard question because he always teeters on the inside/outside spectrum, but he swings like a madman on pretty much anything, even when he plays his patented half eighth/swing feel it's so killing. His displaced funk playing is a thing I love too. Jack has never been straight bebop in the classic sense as danasgoodstuff notes. Keith Jarrett: Whisper Not may be as close as you can get to Jack playing "bop" b/c Keith plays a lot of bop standards on that record, it's terrific.

[Gheorghe]

Well, I´m a bebop lover, but Mr. DeJohnette is so much more than bop. That´s why I love him. The stuff he did with Miles is just incredible, the last BN album of Jackie McLean, the stuff with Charles Lloyd and Keith, and if you listen close, you hear enough in it that will exite you.

[BFrank]

See him live. ALWAYS a treat!

[Gheorghe]

See him live. ALWAYS a treat!

yeah, great drummers, and I´m the most happy person.....

[Guy Berger]

Guys, I keep trying to find JS Bach's best bluegrass album, but have so far been unsuccessful. Any recommendations?

[7/4]

Guys, I keep trying to find JS Bach's best bluegrass album, but have so far been unsuccessful. Any recommendations?

The years on Riverside are the best!

[Rooster_Ties]

Jack D might be my all-time favorite Miles drummer (even over Tony). Maybe. Or if not, it's a damn close race.

I mean, I *LOVE* Tony's playing with Miles (absolutely love it) -- but Jack just knocks me over on a deeper, maybe more 'emotional' level (mileage may vary).

Jack's playing with Joe Henderson in the early 70's is another favorite...

• Power to the People (1969)
• Black Is the Color (1973)
• Multiple (1973)

Also with Joe Henderson...

With Miroslav Vitous

• Infinite Search (1969)

Edited August 6, 2014 by Rooster_Ties

[CJ Shearn]

Jack is always pushing himself as a player and that's great, his playing with Michael Brecker I love, and pretty much any band project he's put out on his own in the past few years.

[BFrank]

Special Edition and Directions/New Directions were great groups, too.

[CJ Shearn]

Absolutely, I think all the "Special Edition" albums on ECM are great, but the first one, and "Tin Can Alley" really do it for me.

[JSngry]

Cedar Walton: Spectrum (Prestige)

Let me go out on a limb and throw in the two Prestige albums with Eric Kloss..at least some of them might be heard as "boppish", if one is willing be stretchy about what the means.

Same thing for the Bill Evans Montreux album on Verve...one of the relatively few "later" Verve albums that I embrace with gusto, and DeJohnette's contributions to the trio ethos are a big part of that.

A lot of variable mileage in all of that, though, because if the object is to find a JD appearance where he sounds like Art Taylor or somebody...such a thing probably doesn't exist.

[CJ Shearn]

Jack has an enormous knowledge of the tradition, all the way back to Baby Dodds. There's a few cases on the Standards Trio DVD's and on albums like "My Foolish Heart: Live at Montreux" where he plays things in exchanges with Keith or in solos that recall Philly Joe, Max and that type of thing filtered through his own unique prism, but as Jim notes, if you want something where Jack plays a pure bop vocabulary right out of the 40's and early 50's, that isn't really there, to my knowledge in his discography.