Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Ki (Libra, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

This year we are blessed with several trumpet-piano albums. There is the excellent duet between Sylvie Courvoisier and Wadada Leo Smith on "Angel Falls", and the excellent duets between Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura. 

I guess that "Ki" is their tenth duo album, out of the few dozen on which they perform in other ensembles. Over the years, their art has become more precise, more symbiotic, as if playing as one. "Ki" in Japanese means 'energy' or 'life force', but it can also mean 'wood'. All the title tracks on this album refer to trees, so we could assume that the two meanings of the word are possible, and they are penned by Tamura, except for the last track - "Dan's Ocean Side Listening Post" - which obviously does not refer to a tree and which is composed by Fujii. 

The music on this album is quiet, meditative, intimate. And in contrast to "Aloft", reviewed below, Tamura does not use extended techniques on his trumpet, staying well within the clarity of tone you expect from the instrument. Tamura explains: “This time, I wanted to play the entire album with the same atmosphere. The image of that atmosphere was of standing dignified in clear air. I wrote my seven songs in two days, so I was able to maintain that image. I just thought about the world I wanted to create.”

The atmosphere is further created by Fujii's sparse piano playing. It is less dense, with less dramatic energy as on her other albums. Like Japanese drawings, the sparsity of the sounds and the silences in between are an integral part of the whole. Fujii comments: “It was not easy for me to play it because the music forces me to play less than I usually do. At first, I wasn’t comfortable playing that way because it was so new to me!” There are even long moments when the trumpet is the only instrument to be heard. 

The album's strength is the wonderful coherence of all compositions, their lyrical and poetic quality and of course the excellent playing and interaction of both artists. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Natsuki Tamura & Satoko Fuji - Aloft (Libra, 2024)

"Aloft" is a different album from "Ki", and could almost be its mirror image. Even if all tracks are improvised, it is often Fujii's piano that sets the tone, builds the structure and brings the pieces to their closing. Her skills at composing on the spot are exceptional, and for some tracks it truly is hard to believe that they are improvised. While Fujii's compositional freedom gives the foundational structure, Tamura's trumpet playing acts as like a bird being kept aloft in the wind. His trumpet soars, yet he also resorts to many extended techniques, muffled sounds, squeezed sounds, stuttering sounds, oppressed and whispering sounds, as well as shouting and singing through his brass. 

All tracks have received titles referring to bird flight, and it's an apt imagery for the music, even if the titles were not used for inspiration but were added to the music many months later, once a selection of their improvisation session had been made. Fujii once told me that her music was not inspired by visual imagery, after I said to her that this was my impression, as you can easily picture natural sceneries when listening to her music, and this album is not different, but who is right: the artist or the art lover? 

“We just decided to play something,” says Fujii. “Natsuki listens to me very carefully and respects my playing so much but he has a very different sensibility and means of expression.” Tamura adds, “We listen carefully to each other, but at the same time we both understand that contrast and surprise are also important.” The liner notes add: "After being married for 36 years and sharing countless projects, they didn't even need to plan for it or bring any written material. They just let inspiration guide them through various improvisations."

The music was recorded on December 13, 2023 at Samurai Hotel, New York City, which is actually a recording studio and not a hotel.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Kazahana (Libra, 2025)

"Kazahana" - their eleventh duo album - brings us two fully improvised lengthy pieces, the first clocking at 18 minutes, the second at 33 minutes. Maybe because of their length, or maybe because they're fully improvised in a live environment, the sound is much rawer than on the two other records in this review. The music expands, there's tension, contradictions in style and mood, and the length of the pieces allows for developments, for unfolding narratives that need not be contained to a structure or a pattern. There are long moments of solo time for each of them, not in the sense to show off their skills, but rather as natural evolutions of the music itself. 

Both artists are deeply attuned to each other's styles, preferences, and responses, resulting in an interaction that is not only remarkably coherent but also a joy to witness in its spontaneous co-creation. Interestingly, near the end of the second piece, it is Tamura who introduces a repetitive phrase, offering a steady framework over which Fujii improvises with a distinctly modern classical sensibility.

The music was recorded during a live performance on December 25, 2024 at Koendori Classics, Shibuya, Tokyo. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Jung-Jae Kim's Shamanism 4tet

A intriguing new group from Berlin, the Shamanism 4tet is presented here at a show in late September at the at Kühlspot Social Club. The group is Jung-Jae Kim on tenor saxophone, Chris Heenan on soprano saxophone and the fantastic contrabass clarinet, Andreas Voccia on synthesizer and Marcello S. Busato playing drums. The group has a debut album out on Relative Pitch Records.

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Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Max Eastley - Some Uncharted Evening (scatterArchive, 2025)

By Martin Schray

I’ve been listening to a lot of John Butcher’s music lately, his entire repertoire. But when I heard this trio with Steve Beresford (piano and objects) and Max Eastley (electro-acoustic monochord, friction drum, percussion, piston flute), I was reminded of the discourse launched by Wynton Marsalis and the late musician and critic Stanley Crouch, who described free jazz as a dead end, whose experiments had damaged real jazz because the musicians simply weren’t virtuosic enough to carry on the jazz legacy. Especially Crouch claimed that free jazz was actually more European new classical music, mixed with a few bits and pieces of Ellington, Monk, and Bud Powell (he mentioned that as to Cecil Taylor’s music). He probably wouldn’t have been able to relate to this trio’s music, but the musicians wouldn’t have cared about his restrictive attitude either, because they simply are not interested in how their music is labeled. A certain beat might be foreign to them, but improvisation is not, because its spirit - along with all kinds of sound explorations - defines this album, recorded on September, 22nd in 2023 at Ferme-Asile in Sion/Switzerland, as part of the first edition of the Biennale Son.

“Part 1“ is indeed an excursion in new sounds; advanced, angular ambient music, so to say. Eastley’s flute hints a melody, the sounds from inside the piano rumble away, Butcher’s distorted saxophone tries to find its way. The music is more oriented towards the sounds of nature than jazz. However, when jazz does shine through, it’s as a distant echo in a piano line or a saxophone lick. And even then, only perhaps. In general, the use of silence and contrasts seems to be more important: the counterpoint of glockenspiel sounds and extreme bass noises, or the abrupt stopping of the briefly accelerated tempo.

“Part 2“ in particular exudes this spirit even more: power, accentuation, tumbling sequences of notes, dark monochrome drones, creaking noises, birdsong. One gets the impression that each of the three is at peace with himself, close to the others and yet distant at the same time. Changes in tempo, a wide range of dynamics out of nowhere - these accompany the progression of the music without becoming nervous or even affected. Max Eastley seems to capture the babble of voices from the piano and saxophone, especially when he lets his instrument (the aforementioned two-metre long electroacoustic monochord arc, which he developed from an Aeolian harp in the 1970s) howl like a monstrous animal in the middle section of the piece, before the trio almost lapses into a small folkloric passage. In general, the three comb through their material, freely and spontaneously, while at the same time being sensitive to all clichés, especially those of free jazz and new music. Throughout the set, it becomes increasingly clear that three kindred spirits are throwing themselves into the creative process of momentary music with enormous enthusiasm. Spurred on by bursts of energy, formulated with a striking sound language and - of course - with the utmost ability to listen to each other. In this trio, there is no single effervescent source of initiative; it is a collective process of the highest order that structures the discharges, the contrasts, the originality.

 An Uncharted Eveningis full of seething, mercurial layers of sound and highly differentiated ramifications. Perhaps the evening began “uncharted,” but after an hour, the sonic research has progressed very far. Jazz purists may not know what to make of it; for them, it will perhaps always remain uncharted territory. For open ears, it’s a feast.

Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Max Eastley: An Uncharted Evening is available as a download. You can listen to it and buy it here: https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/some-uncharted-evening

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Anthony Braxton Quartet - Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance, 2025)

Roundtable conversation with Gary Chapin, Andrew Choate, and Lee Rice Epstein

We join our trio of intrepids in the middle of a conversation about the new Burning Ambulance release of Anthony Braxton Quartet “bootlegs,” Quartet (England) 1985. The release presents music recorded by Graham Lock, who traveled with the quartet to write his book,Forces in Motion . Adding to the original Leo recordings of the tour, we now get sets from Sheffield, Bristol, Leicester, and Southampton, in addition to sound check recordings from throughout the tour. If you are into this kind of thing, the set amounts to 6+ hours of manna from Heaven.

Gary Chapin
Let's start with the magnitude that we talked about because it seems like this has always been an iconic tour. Partly based on the Leo recordings—which are great—but also because of Graham Locke's book. This is probably the most well documented tour in this kind of music. So, is this an iconic tour because of the documentation or because of the performances themselves?

Andrew Choate
I think that's a great question. The music definitely stands on its own and listening to all of these further recordings made me think this is the heart of Braxton's music for me, It's where I discovered his music, you know, the first time somebody played me some of his music. 16 years old. They showed me Forces in Motion and I was instantly intrigued and wanted to get to know more.

Graham's book helps a lot, but his book also talks about other aspects of Braxton's music. For me personally, this quartet was the height of when Braxton had a working band, and could do stuff on a really regular basis. They have this concentrated tour opportunity and I think it allowed a certain essence of his music to really get strong.

Lee Rice Epstein
Maybe before hearing these additional recordings, I might have said it was the book that helped cement these recordings. That tour is critical, but hearing more performances by the group—

You know what Andrew's getting at? It's a really transformational time for Braxton. He had already hit a bunch of highs, like his whole Arista run.

Andrew Choate
Yeah.

Lee Rice Epstein
Like Montreaux/Berlin (1976), I go back to that a ton. That's a classic live Braxton. But in a way—listening to it in 2025—it’still just kind of like, yeah, they're really really out there in the compositional structure, but they're also still doing a lot of head, solo, solo, solo, head, right? And England (1985) is like something else entirely. He's got three very brave musicians who are pushing as hard against expectations as he is. Marilyn Crispell's probably one of his most important all time partners in music.

Gary Chapin
I actually saw this quartet in New York City, and that was amazing. One of the things that I loved about this period was that Braxton was moving into his own universe. But he was still drawing from those compositions around the 40s and the thirty-threes and the twenty-threes. I saw them do 23G, which—I love that piece very much

Andrew Choate
There're a couple of sort of paradoxical things that I wrote down while I was listening. I kept thinking about Braxton's humbleness. Like he's writing these compositions and getting people to play them and push back. But I heard a sort of fundamental humility in the music, which I had never heard before. Like he's really excited about the music, but it's notFor Alto. The structures that he's created, and the young musicians with him pushing and pulling, emphasize that sense.

Lee Rice Epstein14:08
I for sure hear it. I've never met him. I only know people who know him, but he seems like one of the great humility engines in music.

[...]

Lee Rice Epstein
So what did you guys think [of the new set]? Even when you first heard they were coming out like, were you, “Oh yeah, that's gonna be all gold” or a little bit like, “I don't know.” They were very upfront about the fact that these were not professional recordings.

Gary Chapin
My first thought was that this is going to be extremely interesting. My second thought was that I am no longer the kind of person who listens to every archival recording recorded in the club bathroom with a mic snaked out to the bandstand. That kind of stuff just doesn't get me anymore. Since they warned us that it might not be great production, I said, “I'll manage my expectations.”

But there was nothing about the production that detracts from the music! For me it's just astounding that in 19—I don't know, what was that—80? 81? That they were able to get that quality from like a hand recording that Graham did.

Andrew Choate
Yeah, my first thought was also, “I bet the production is just not going to be very good.” But, I'm interested in the music and I can filter that out. But listening to it: these are absolutely acceptable recordings, really. The balance: you hear the differences in the halls. It's like, “Wow, this is, this is what a live concert feels like.

Gary Chapin
You can even hear the bass very clearly, which is so rare.

Lee Rice Epstein
One of them—I think it's the Bristol set—sounds like you're in a small room. And you’ve got all four instruments—I wasn’t ready for the quality of the playing. In a way it’s like the Leo sets were the safer ones because there is some very, very out playing here.

Gary Chapin
The opening of Sheffield, which is the first cut of the whole set, was such a blistering statement of purpose. It was just amazing, like a supernova of sound right from the start, so much energy. And it didn’t calm down for nearly 10 minutes.

Andrew Choate
A supernova of sound is a great way to put it because it is. It is really dense, it is really lively and it just grabs you right from the start.

Lee Rice Epstein
So, because I can't help myself. I made a playlist of the whole tour in order. I was looking at Graham's book a little bit online. Sheffield kicks off this set and is the first, yeah, but it's like the third, the third stop on their tour. By that point, they've really warmed up. And they sound it. They sound right. They don't let up for a minute. There's no coasting.

Gary Chapin
They're always interesting. There's a lot of emotional energy being spent.

Lee Rice Epstein
Additional thoughts? I don't know if we want to get into individual sets. We've talked about the whole of it, but are there specific highs? Listeners who haven't dipped into this yet, can get the set or you can get the individual concerts.

Andrew Choate
I mean, I would say if you're interested in this music, just get the whole thing. There's so much. I think the one show I came back to the most often though was Leicester, partly because in the first set there's just an extraordinary Mark Dresser solo.
There's also an extraordinary Gerry Hemingway solo, and they go on for more significant lengths of time than I think I would have guessed from reading Graham's book or from thinking about Braxton's compositions. They're significant.

Lee Rice Epstein
It's funny. This is exactly why I like the round table format for something like this, because I have my own favorite set that I've been going back to most, which is Bristol. So we each named a different one, right? Which is very fun, but I concur 100%. I think like anyone who's interested, there's no reason not to hear all, all, all the music. There's delight in every set.

Andrew Choate
We're really lucky that there's enough interest to have this stuff out there. It’s on a different level. There's no way not to be rewarded.

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Angelica Sanchez, Barry Guy & Ramon Lopez - Live at Jazzdor (Maya Recordings, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

The question why some albums never get reviewed is as baffling for a seasoned reviewer as it can be for the regular reader. This is one of them. A great trio with three excellent musicians: Angelica Sanchez on piano, Barry Guy on bass and Ramón López on drums and percussion. 

The performance was recorded at the JAZZDOR Festival in Strasbourg on the 15th November 2023. 

From the very beginning, the trio is full of sparkling energy, crisp playing and symbiotic improvisation. The music is so intense that it almost becomes tangible. It is full of surprises, as it alternates between uptempo driven passion and controlled calmer moments, and remains at all times fresh and memorable. It's suprising how the format of the piano trio can still be inventive, captivating and at times even overwhelming. Sanchez is brilliant in her capacity to lead improvisations to unexpected and rounded closures, as if she planned it from the start. And Guy's resonating bass is as good and creative as can be expected, as is López's percussion, astonishing, unpredictable and accurate. 

Barry Guy and Ramón López have performed many times before, and released dozens of albums on which both perform, notably in Barry Guy's "Blue Shroud Band". It's the first time Angelica Sanchez performs with either of the other musicians, something which surprises Barry Guy in his liner notes: "Jazz Festivals have often provide the opportunity for a first encounter with musicians that are “on the radar”, so to speak , but for various reasons (often geographical) never came to fruition." 

This one is in any case a winner. 

The happy shouts of the audience and the fun of the performers at the end says it all. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Ivo Perelman and Ray Anderson - 12 Stages of Spiritual Alchemy (Fundacja Słuchaj Records, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

An unusual pairing – that of sax and trombone makes for a worthy listen on this impressive recording. Saxophone player Ivo Perelman and trombone player Ray Anderson create some wonderful sounds, exploring the mystical depths of musical interaction.

The recording was made in 2022 by longtime Perelman engineer Jim Clouse at Park West Studios (Brooklyn). Fundacja Słuchaj's edition frames twelve concise movements named for stages of alchemy (Separation, Calcination, Coagulation, etc.), resulting in 56 minutes of magical chemistry. Perelman has a long relationship with Park West/Clouse. Perelman and Anderson recorded together on the 2-CD quartet set ‘Molten Gold’ with Joe Morris and Reggie Nicholson, released by Fundacja Słuchaj in 2023, although this is the first duo recording by the pair.

From the opening announcement of the trombone, this album is a musical delight, and the connection between the musicians is palpable. Across the twelve tracks here, the explorative nature of Perelman is tempered somewhat at times and matched by the astounding agility of Anderson on trombone. ‘Separation’, the opening track, sees the heavy, brassy nature of the trombone outshout the grainy, lower register of Perelman’s tenor at times, then pull back, leaving the sax to sing. The track develops as an intimate conversation, from opposing phrases to the final minute where the duo extends their phrasing and forms a beautiful, harmonic close.

‘Calcination’ is edgy, sharp, and prosaic in its essence, as the trombone skilfully weaves around the sax’s melodic phrasing. The character of both players emerges in the playful nature of the final section, where Perelman casually drops a line from a nursery rhyme into the continuing improvisation of the trombone.

‘Putrefaction’ is short, harmonious in parts, and very intense, while ‘Dissolution’ is laid back, swingy in places, and a dextrous exhibition of register-switching combines with acrobatic rises and falls from both players.

‘Coagulation’ sees both instruments creating short phrases which are swapped, extended, and moulded, the passages woven around each other and rhythmic changes that happen simultaneously yet spontaneously with that slight pause from one player, then the other, as they first lead, then follow – pure improvisational cooperation.

‘Conjunction’ begins with a funereal opening, reminiscent perhaps of a New Orleans death march, before the mood lightens and evolves into a triumphal procession of sound with a flourish to finish.

‘Sublimation’ is warpy, guttural, and both players work to create something sounding like a nest of hornets, so intense is the sound, while ‘Exaltation’ sees the growling, guttural sounds of the trombone pitted against Perelman’s cheekiness with his sax, swinging between lyrical melodies. As the track develops, a playfulness enters the music and staccato notes are exchanged, and a sharp, crackling melody develops between the instruments.

‘Projection’ is just over nine minutes of profound exploration with both musicians finding the extremes of their instruments’ range as well as introducing a variety of different musical phrasing and technique, while ‘Multiplication’ is a short romp across octaves and registers.

‘Fermentation’ is buzzy, fever-pitched in places and features blasts from the trombone, rivulets of sound from the sax, and some beautifully tempered harmonics before ‘Cibation’, the closing track, which sees both musicians finding melodies of their own, weaving towards and away from each other in glorious disharmony, yet using notation closely related so it makes sense.

This is a wonderful recording and sees Anderson’s exuberance infecting the music throughout. Paired with Perelman’s ability to switch mood, tempo, and his unerring musicality, the music is at times intense and always accessible for listeners preferring improvisation or harmony. The pairing of trombone and tenor sax creates a wealth of sound possibilities, none of which pass either musician by. The result is free improvisation that fuses the timbre of both instruments and creates character and a simple, but profound beauty.

For an experimental album, with all processes explored and gone through, the result is a discovery of new sounds and a well-tempered album.

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Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley - Polarity 4 (Burning Ambulance, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

Tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman and trumpet player Nate Wooley continue their long-running musical partnership with the release of Polarity 4. It is released digitally and as a limited edition of 500 CDs on Burning Ambulance Music.

Polarity 4 sees different directions explored as the duo find yet more ways to investigate musical possibilities between their individuality and shared musical imaginations.

Perelman has already amassed a varied and wide-ranging discography, with releases on numerous labels including Enja, Clean Feed, Leo, Homestead, and Cadence, to name a few. It might seem there are few ways still open to explore for Perelman yet, here with Wooley, Polarity 4 proves this is not the case. Its nine tracks include the first overdubbing in Perelman’s catalogue, with the opening track, Polarity 1, featuring ‘two’ of Perelman and Wooley improvising with each other and themselves. Perelman and Wooley prove themselves improvisers willing to seek and explore different thoroughfares among the much-travelled experimental landscape they inhabit. Perelman is always finding new ways to play with others, even those he has worked with many times before.

The Polarity 4 CDs are heavy-duty gatefold mini-LP sleeves printed on textured paper, with artwork by Burning Ambulance Music co-founder I.A. Freeman.

As ever, where Perelman is involved, the tracks on Polarity 4 serve as part of the continuing conversation Perelman is involved in with music and fellow musicians. Track 1 is busy, with the aforementioned overdubbing serving to create a textured sound with the musicians responding to each other and their own phrasing. The contrast in Track 2 is apparent because now we have ‘just’ two musicians, yet somehow they work a sound that is almost as busy as the opening track. Fast runs are echoed and tossed back and forth between the instruments, each return featuring a variation, however minuscule. Perelman regularly picks up the note that Wooley finishes on to create a continuum of sound. The lack of harmonics and the clarity of the streams of sound mean each note is crystal clear.

Track 3 sees more overlapping of individual phrasing, creating interesting conjectures of harmonies – sometimes jarring, but at other times gloriously developed as the staccato section sees each musician responding harmonically to the notation that goes before. Track 4 has a playful, yet competitive air as the musicians trade short, punchy lines and phrases. The middle section involves a back and forth of slurry, schmaltzy phrases, ranging from the depths of the sax to the highest trills of the trumpet.

Track 5 is wonderfully layered as trumpet and sax weave around each other, overlap, and work their individual lines, coming together for an almost classical duet format towards the end, while Track 6 has a gentle start, with hushed phrasing from both players before it slowly builds towards a tuneful end. Track 7 is an exploration of harmonics, while Track 8 is perhaps the stand-out track in terms of musical interaction, involving some brilliant register switching and changes between melodies and counterpoint. Track 9 sees the musicians finding yet more ways for sax and trumpet to interact, with full measure taken of the brassy tones of the trumpet, cutting across the timbre of the sax.

Polarity 4 features creative and explorative musicianship, as you might expect from players of this calibre. There is harmony, contrast, and above all, a sense of competitive, yet enjoyable and controlled mastery of sound.

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Jack DeJohnette (1942-2025) - a personal impression

Photo by Jeff Forman

By Stef Gijssels

Sad news about Jack DeJohnette, one of the most acclaimed and influential drummers ever. I will not go into his biography or enumerate his achievements: they are many and others have already done it better than I ever could. Suffice to say that he appears on 1154 album credits according to Discogs, and he performed with almost any jazz musician that mattered, from Bill Evans, over Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, John Surman to Wadada Leo Smith. He was part in many of the historical junctures in jazz music, and contributed to shaping it. 

Here is the story of my life with Jack DeJohnette as a musical guide. 

Jack DeJohnette New Directions (ECM, 1978)

I was not yet twenty when I bought this album by mistake. I knew Abercrombie from his previous fusion album "Timeless" (with Jan Hammer and Jack DeJohnette), and I loved fusion (please forgive me, I was in my teens then). When I heard this album, I was devastated to have spent my limited resources on music I did not like. So to teach myself a lesson, I punished myself to listen to it twenty times. Yet lo and behold: what I found unlistenable at the beginning, started opening up like a beautiful flower the more I listened to it. Its sense of freedom, the musicianship, its unpredictability and overall tone became even more appealing and enjoyable with each listen. I knew that this was it! This was absolutely brilliant. Today, this old vinyl is still within arm's reach. It has lost nothing of its power. Lester Bowie, John Abercrombie, Eddie Gomez ... and a bluesy and lyrical Jack DeJohnette.

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette – Gateway (ECM, 1975)

DeJohnette also teamed up with Dave Holland and John Abercrombie on what has become "Gateway", the trio named after their first album together. In this small guitar trio format, DeJohnette's drumming plays an absolutely essential part of the music. It's a strange, mysterious and wonderfully appealing album. Abercrombie is a very unusual guitarist, yet his style matches very well with DeJohnette's unique and subtle drumming. He's a lyricist as much as the other two.

Kenny Wheeler – Gnu High (ECM, 1976)

Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler's 'Gnu High' is one of ECM's iconic albums, with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette as members of the ensemble. ECM has always had the incredible value of bringing musicians together to create music that would otherwise not have seen the light of day. This is one of those examples. “What you hear,” says Jack DeJohnette, “is the spontaneity of the moment.” The band is stellar and lifts Wheeler to a truly high level of music. 

Terje Rypdal / Miroslav Vitous / Jack DeJohnette (ECM, 1979)

This album was also one of my favourites for many years. Rypdal's icey guitar pierces through the wonderful foundations laid by the other two virtuosi. Listen to the exquisite and subtle drums intro to "Sunrise"! Its atmosphere is chilling yet deeply emotional. All three musicians are excellent, yet DeJohnette's drumming is exceptional and already his signature sound: playing around the rhythm in a loose and flexible style with lots of little touches on his cymbals. He creates a percussive atmosphere, a percussive environment, co-creating the overall sound instead of keeping the pace. 

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette - Inside Out (ECM, 2011)

And then there are of course the numerous albums with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock. This is very much Jarrett's musical concept, yet the absolutely flawless interaction and fluidity of the three artists is exceptional and not a surprise that Jarrett kept asking them again and again to perform. Not all of it is good, and I'm less a fan of their take on jazz standards, but some are truly outstanding improvised piano trios, regardless of the genre. 

Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Dewey Redman, Mike Brecker – 80/81 (ECM, 1980)

I am not a Pat Metheny fan - a little too mellow to my taste - although I can appreciate this excellent album with a stellar cast of some of the luminaries in jazz. It has a great rendition of Ornette Coleman's "Turnaround", my favourite track on the double vinyl, ending with one of the musicians (I guess Dewey Redman) shouting enthusiastically: “Yooohoooo, boy!, Jack DeJohnette, man!” in praise of the drummer's exceptional contribution. 

A reviewer on CD Universe writes: "And perhaps the highlight of the recording is the intricate yet effortless drumming of Jack DeJohnette. It stands out throughout the recordings."

John Surman & Jack DeJohnette - Invisible Nature (ECM, 2002)

When I just started with this blog so many years ago, I reviewed this album succinctly. It is an exceptional co-created live duo recording between the British saxophonist and the American drummer. The result is an astonishing musical feast, an ode to life. It is in the most subtle moments, such as on "Mysterium" that it is fascinating to hear how DeJohnette captures the essence of the saxophonist's sonic vision and co-creates the perfect and nuanced sound to complete it. 

Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette - America (Tzadik, 2009)

The same joy of interaction can be found on this stellar duo album with Wadada Leo Smith. Both men are at the absolute top of their skills and the interplay is stellar as can be expected. From beginning to end this music. I reviewed it then in 2009 and the full text can be read here. I wrote it is "An absolute "must have" for anyone interested in music." I have not changed my opinion.

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970)

And then of course there is "Bitches Brew", on which DeJohnette is one of the drummers next to Lenny White and Charles Alias. A genuine jazz masterpiece, it breaks stylistic boundaries while highlighting DeJohnette’s extraordinary versatility and his talent for adapting his unique sound to any jazz style.

Other albums with Davis include "At Filmore" (1970), "Jack Johnson" (1971), "Live-Evil" (1971). "On The Corner" (1972) "Black Beauty" (1973), and "Big Fun" (1974).

Michael Mantler - The Hapless Child (Watt, 1976)

One more memorable album is this utterly bizarre production with "inscrutable stories" by Edward Gorey, sung by Robert Wyatt, and with the brilliant music of Michael Mantler performed by Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Jack DeJohnette and Terje Rypdal. The album defies classification. It's a kind of gothic prog rock album, with utterly dark horror stories, and hair-raising dramatic compositions and performance. No doubt one of the weirdest production ever, requiring some getting into, yet I can only suggest to keep listening, and preferably repeatedly. It's different, yet again, with DeJohnette adding a lot to the overall sound. This is actually the first album I ever heard with Jack DeJohnette, still in my teenage rock period and without being aware of his participation. 

Amidst all this fantastic and creative work, Jack DeJohnette also participated in the Blues Brothers movie, also not taking himself too seriously as the drummer of the Louisiana Gator Boys, an all-star bluesband with B.B.King, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton, Dr. John,  Steve Winwood and many more, performing "How Blue Can You Get".

We will miss him dearly but his art is here to stay and to be cherished forever. 

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Jack DeJohnette (1942 - 2025)

Jack DeJohnette.photo from the ECM website

By Martin Schray

When Jack DeJohnette played the drums, it sounded as if James Brown was singing the music of Miles Davis. Or the one of Albert Ayler. Admittedly, it takes a certain amount of imagination to hear the intricate percussion patterns of the jazz drummer from Chicago, the soulful ballads of the king of funk and R&B, and the specific timbres of the great jazz revolutionaries together.

For DeJohnette, this meant natural expression of vocal and instrumental leadership, an uninterrupted sequence of colors, rhythms, and moods, and perfect technique whose flawlessness was not flaunted. Musical natural phenomena, in other words.

Jack DeJohnette’s vocal sensibility apparently enabled him to transform robust rhythms into smooth melodies and textures, making not only the cymbals sing, but the entire drum set. When he played the drums, a big, powerfully intensifying sound always came out, a unique, free groove.

Jack DeJohnette had the best teachers one could have: Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchel, and Joseph Jarman, the musical social workers from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in his hometown, and later the hardcore avant-garde around John Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Elvin Jones, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis in New York. He first took piano lessons from the age of four to fourteen and switched to drums in high school; his musical role model at the time was Max Roach. He then studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. In his early years in Chicago, he played a wide range of music, from rhythm and blues to free jazz. In 1966, he moved to New York and accompanied organist John Patton on drums, worked with Jackie McLean, and accompanied singers Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln. From 1966 to 1969, he was a member of the Charles Lloyd Quartet alongside the young Keith Jarrett, the first “psychedelic jazz group”, which made him internationally famous, as Lloyd’s group was the first jazz band to also play in front of a rock audience, e.g. together with Grateful Dead. After playing with Miles Davis in several sessions in November 1968, he joined the Miles Davis band in the summer of 1969, replacing Tony Williams and participating in the recordings for Bitches Brew. DeJohnette remained in the Davis band, with interruptions, until June 1972 (during the recording of On the Corner), when he was replaced by Al Foster. By this time at the latest, he was one of the most influential jazz drummers.

His aesthetic openness, alertly picking up on his fellow musicians’ ideas, supporting and developing them, has probably made Jack DeJohnette the jazz drummer with the most and most diverse recordings in the recent history of jazz. Like Keith Jarrett, he benefited from his early collaboration with the Munich-based ECM label.

It is almost impossible to count the number of Jack DeJohnette’s recordings that have become milestones in jazz music. These include the live recording with the wonderful pianist Bill Evans from the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival and basically all eight recordings with Miles Davis’ band.

Additionally, there is the serene musical artistry with his own groups Direction with saxophonist Alex Foster, John Abercrombie on guitar, and Peter Warren on bass; New Direction again with John Abercrombie, Lester Bowie on trumpet, and Eddie Gomez on bass; Special Edition with saxophonists Arthur Blythe and David Murray and again with Peter Warren (the eponymous album is perhaps the one record you need from DeJohnette when it comes to recordings under his name). These are just the most notable ones. And finally, there are all the fantastic recordings with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock, who subjected the standard repertoire of the piano trio to a test of modern jazz counterpoint. They began touring in the early 1980s and released over 20 albums as a trio under Jarrett’s name over the next three decades. They deliberately took a step back, playing standards, that canon of jazz that is so successful because even the masses know the pieces, but so difficult because everything has already been said in this repertoire. But that’s where the three of them shone with their knack for discovering new depths even in well-worn tracks. The CD box set Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note - The Complete Recordings is a recording for the ages.

The list of projects Jack DeJohnette has worked on in the studio and on stage over the past few decades is long. His own trio with John Coltrane’s son Ravi and Matthew Garrison, son of Coltrane bassist Jimmy, once again explored the entire spectrum of African-American culture, from Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Serpentine Fire“ to Coltrane’s “Alabama“ (on In Movement, ECM, 2016). It was a statement of support for the revolution in the era of the Black Lives Matter movement, which showed that civil rights in the US have been against stake again. DeJohnette returned to his roots in Chicago, when jazz was not music for its own sake, but a manifesto for liberation and progress. It was his last battle. On Sunday, Jack DeJohnette died at home in Woodstock, surrounded by his family and friends.

Watch the recording sessions for In Movement, recorded at New York’s Avatar Studios in October 2015, produced by Manfred Eicher.

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Jazz & Experimental in Berlin 2025

By Paul Acquaro

The small, intimate Panda Platform, a performance space nestled located in the inner courtyard of the inner courtyard of Berlin's Kulturebrauerei, an expansive cultural center retrofitted into 19th century brewery buildings in the cities chic Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, is the perfect spot for a small, intimate experimental music festival. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the artist run label "Trouble in the East" label, the appropriately named "Jazz & Experimental" festival showcased a dozen label based and associated bands and musicians over the span of October weekends.

 

Hosted by label runners and Berlin based musicians, trombonist Gerhard Gschlößl and guitarist Alberto Cavenati, the festival brought together groups with current releases on the label and some label affiliates' active projects. Spread over two weekends in October, the compact but lively schedule offered a rich variety of imaginative music. I am only able to offer a first hand report of the second weekend, but this second weekend of concerts has provided plenty to discuss (and I trust my eye-and-ear witnesses attestations to the superb quality of the first one.)

 

The label, "Trouble in the East," is named after a track from Ornette Coleman's 1972 release Crisis. The album itself had a cover featuring the US Bill of Rights going up in flames. A blasphemous and prophetic statement. Fortunately, the festival itself was a peaceful and smooth running event featuring a capacity audience full of dedicated listeners and musicians. During the first evening I attended, it seemed as if the festival had even cracked the most vexing nut of all - getting young listeners interested, as a entire row of 20-somethings from Denmark somewhat brought the average age of attendance of the typical free-jazz crowd down.

 

Friday, Oct 17th

 

 

Peepholes

The festival's second weekend began with the quartet Peepholes, which provided an vivacious lift-off. Vocalist and electronicist Mat Pogo and trumpeter Liz Allbee interlocked in a spritely and energetic conversation from the opening moments, while drummer Steve Heather and bassist Antonio Borghini provided a solid, flowing pulse. Pogo seemed animated and in a excited conversation with cartoonish word-like sounds and gestures, while Allbee was just as visually engaging with her extended techniques that included the technique of extending her trumpet with a woodwind mouthpiece or pitch-pipe tuner, sometimes sounding like a burping bassoon in the process. The combination of instruments and voice was surprising, the rhythmic mayhem arresting, and overall a mesmerizing set. The group has a recent release on the label called Temporal Relief Keepers.

 

Antii Virtaranta

 Following the programming pattern, the second set was a solo, this time from bassist Antii Virtaranta. Seated in the middle of the stage with the electronic devices arrayed by his feet and  double bass in hand, Virtaranta employed a percussive approach, bouncing his bow off the strings of the highly amplified bass. Slight electronic sounds percolated through the syncopated drone, live sampling the bass and remixing them in real-time. Tapping out the notes and harmonics, overtones emerged from the acoustic instrument and merged with the electronic ones. 

Brad Henkel Quartet

The final set of the night was the adventurous and flowing music of the Brad Henkel Quartet. Comprised of trumpeter Henkel, pianist Rieko Okuda, bassist Isabel Roessler and drummer Samuel Hall, the quartet engaged in quickly passing hour of complex, syncopated and melodic compositions. Starting with Okuda's quite 'jazzy' introduction, the group joined in an accessible, uptempo manner before splitting up into a searching passage. Then, sliding into an easy, but by no means simple, groove, the group seemed to fold time upon itself as the groove grew uneasy and the playing clenched and intense. It was a truly rich set, the moments of exploratory sound segueing effortlessly into meticulously crafted melodies, laced with inspired improvisation. The group was celebrating the release of their record Overstory, which on first listen is as excellent as the live set.

Saturday, Oct 18th

 

Dead Leaf Butterfly

The following night found the age average climbing a bit - no Danes this time - but nevertheless, there were still faces in the crowd providing an encouraging hint of future audiences. The evening began with the wonderful flutterings of Dead Leaf Butterfly, a group featuring the expertise of trumpeter Lina Allemano, vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer, bassist Maike Hilbig and drummer Lucia Martinez. Playing a set of recent compositions, Vandeweyer's vibes seemed to ring loudest - she kicked off the set with a long vibrating drone with Hilbig's bass right beside her offering a long staccato note. A tinkle of percussion and a slow build of tension from Allemano then set the group going. Attention pivoted back to the vibraphone as an uptempo and vibrant solo passage ensued. Lithe and accessible, the tune set the stage for the rest of the zesty set. The second tune began with a deceptively melodic head that suddenly scattered into a polyrhythmic playing field. At times explorative, and quite often thrilling, the vibes often lent an air of mystery to their sound and a sense of enjoyment was carried in their music.

 

Dan Peter Sundland

The second set of the evening was another solo bass, though this time with the electric bass work of Dan Peter Sundland. Playing a well worn Gretsch, Sundland has extended the instrument with a contact mic that picks up percussive sounds from his hands and overtones from the strings. Using a bow, he played a repetitive figure for the duration, slowly moving up and down the instruments neck. The result was a minimalist techno, meditative but demanding.

 

Gordoa, Dörner and Pöschl

The final set was a mind-blower. The trio with drummer Sunk Pöschl, trumpeter Axel Dörner and vibraphonist Emlio Gordoa started with what was possibly a soundtrack to an alien abduction. Dörner's trumpet had an electronic controller attached and a laptop open before him, from which he seemed to be wirelessly communicating directly with the musical minds of his bandmates. Together they created a a tense, agitated atmosphere, pulling tighter and tighter until the sky cracked open. Dörner then dropped the electronics and broke out the slide-trumpet. Gordoa launched into an animated assault and Poeschl gave it a thriving pulse, but it was the trumpeter who seemed to be be pushing the energy the most. The success of the rest was a given - even through a long, exploratory section, they never lost the seething edginess of the opening moments. The trio has an album called Native Acts that seems to be coming out on soon.

 

Although this was only half the story of the Jazz & Experimental festival, it is one worth telling - and exploring more. Be sure to check out their 10 year's of activity here: https://www.troubleintheeast-records.com/.

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