Just because drummer Jack DeJohnette has played with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Bill Evans does not mean that he`s a jazz musician in the traditional sense. ”I call my music multidirectional,” DeJohnette said by phone from a New York stopover on his current tour, which brings him and his ”Parallel Realities” band to Ravinia Wednesday night.
”Before, in the Charlie Parker era, jazz was more defined. Today, everything is crossed over. To even describe a music as jazz is limiting. There`s a global world style, with South African, Brazilian, music from Cameroon, reggae, Johnny Clegg, a whole lot of influences. So you can`t just use what jazz once was. You have to stay awake and stay abreast of what`s going on.”
Part of what`s going on, at least in pop music, is the use of computer-programmed music to augment live performance in the recording studio. On DeJohnette`s latest release, ”Parallel Realities” (MCA), he invited Herbie Hancock to play piano and enlisted one of the leaders of fusion jazz, Pat Methaney, as his prime collaborator.
”Pat has broken through to a wider audience by drawing on the roots of traditions of jazz and utilizing technology, so it really helped to have him on board.” DeJohnette said.
Rather than writing up charts of the score the old-fashioned way, Methaney and DeJohnette prepared for ”Parallel Realities” by working up computer programs of the songs. ”Pat put a lot of work into preproduction, and I have my synths and computers. Both of us laid the stuff out and decided which way it was going to go, like road maps.” Once the material was programmed, DeJohnette said they realized a live bass player was superfluous. Instead, DeJohnette, Methaney and Hancock played to sequenced pre-recorded bass parts.
DeJohnette said his techno approach did nothing to inhibit spontaneity.
”We were using the compositions as satellites, and the bass was just there as a cushion. It didn`t get in the way of our improvising, and I liked the idea of just the three of us.”
The results of what DeJohnette described as ”a discreet way of integrating technology with natural sound,” is a soothing set of fusion tunes. Methaney instrumentals such as the bluesy ”John Mckee” and the title track are darker than his trademark sound, while DeJohnette`s compositions-especially ”Exotic Isles” and ”Indigo Dreamscapes”-convey a dreamy, almost serene atmosphere.
”It was a switchover for this record,” DeJohnette acknowledged. ”I wrote the kind of tunes that Pat is known for, and he had some darker things, kind of what I`ve been associated with. We`re all composers. Even though Herbie didn`t write any tunes, he`s a spontaneous composer when he improvises. We don`t like to be pigeonholed. It was like three minds, discovering new ideas.”
DeJohnette has been interested in breaking down barriers between different styles of music ever since he was a youngster studying classical piano on Chicago`s South Side. He switched to drums and jazz as a teenager, attended the American Conservatory of Music, and played with Muhal Abrams when the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians was getting started. ”One of the things we all got from the (association) was not to make separations between commercial music and the music you liked to play,”
DeJonnette said in an earlier interview with Downbeat Magazine. ”On different nights I`d play concerts for the (association), then do a blues gig, then a straight ahead jazz gig; it was great, because I was playing all kinds of music, without any attitude behind it. I still feel that way.”
In 1966, DeJohnette moved to New York, where his propulsive, melodic drumming immediately won him gigs with Jackie McClean, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans and many others. DeJohnette joined Miles Davis` band in 1969 and recorded ”Bitches Brew,” the first jazz-rock fusion album.
In the `70s and `80s, DeJohnette, now 47, began leading his own groups, and released a number of critically acclaimed records as a drummer and pianist on the ECM label. But playing with Methaney and Hancock, DeJohnette said, ”is helping to get my music across to larger audiences than my other group
(Special Edition) would find. You get access to the medium, then you try to broaden your base, and then maybe educate people.”
