The Jack DeJohnette Quartet

jackdejohnette.com

Jack DeJohnetteIn a career that spans five decades and includes collaborations with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz, NEA and Grammy winner Jack DeJohnette, an Ulster County resident, has established an unchallenged reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre. The list of creative associations throughout his career is lengthy and diverse: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Joe Henderson, Freddy Hubbard, Betty Carter and so many more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that allows room for hard bop, R&B, world music, avant-garde, and just about every other style to emerge in the past half-century.

Born in Chicago in 1942, DeJohnette grew up in a family where music and music appreciation was a high priority. Beginning at age four, he studied classical piano privately and later at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He added the drums to his repertoire when he joined his high school concert band at age 14.

“As a child, I listened to all kinds of music and I never put them into categories,” he recalls. “I had formal lessons on piano and listened to opera, country and western music, rhythm and blues, swing, jazz, whatever. To me, it was all music and all great. I’ve kept that integrated feeling about music, all types of music, and just carried it with me. I’ve maintained that belief and feeling in spite of the ongoing trend to try and compartmentalize people and music.”

By the mid-1960s, DeJohnette had entered the Chicago jazz scene – not just as a leader of his own fledgling groups but also as a sideman on both piano and drums. He experimented with rhythm, melody and harmony as part of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians during the group’s early days, and later drummed alongside Rashied Ali in the John Coltrane Quintet. He garnered international recognition during his tenure with the Charles Lloyd Quartet, one of the first jazz groups to receive crossover attention.

In 1968, DeJohnette joined Miles Davis’s group just prior to the recording of Bitches Brew, an album that triggered a seismic shift in jazz and permanently changed the direction of the music. Miles later wrote in his autobiography: “Jack DeJohnette gave me a deep groove that I just loved to play over.” DeJohnette stayed with Davis for three years, making important contributions to prominent Davis recordings like Live-Evil and A Tribute to Jack Johnson (both in 1971) and On the Corner (1972).

During this same period, DeJohnette also recorded his first albums as a leader, beginning with The DeJohnette Complex in 1968 on Milestone. He followed up with Have You Heard in 1970, then switched to Prestige, where he released Sorcery in 1974 and Cosmic Chicken in 1975.

The mid 1970s were marked by a series of short-lived groups and projects – many of them leaning toward the experimental side of jazz, including The Gateway Trio (featuring Dave Holland and John Abercrombie), Directions (with Abercrombie and saxophonist Alex Foster), and New Directions (Abercrombie, with Eddie Gomez on bass). Special Edition – which helped launch the careers of little known musicians like David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, John Purcell and Rufus Reid – remained active into the 1990s, although the project was frequently interrupted by DeJohnette’s various other collaborative ventures, especially recordings and tours with Keith Jarrett.

DeJohnette has worked extensively with Jarrett as part of a longstanding trio with Gary Peacock. The threesome will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2013.

Another of DeJohnette’s high-profile projects in the early 1990s was a touring quartet consisting of himself, Holland, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny. In 1992, the group released Music for a Fifth World, an album inspired by Native American culture that also included appearances by Vernon Reid and John Scofield. Given the diversity of players and styles that he had embraced by this point, DeJohnette was already describing his music in the „90s as “multidimensional.”

In 2004, DeJohnette recorded and toured with two Grammy nominated projects – Out of Towners,

with Jarrett and Peacock (aka the Standards Trio); and Ivey Divey, which featured Don Byron and Jason Moran. He continued to work with Jarrett and Peacock in 2005, but also launched numerous additional ventures that same year, the first of which was the Latin Project – a combo that consisted of percussionists Giovanni Hidalgo and Luisito Quintero, reedman Don Byron, pianist Edsel Gomez, and bassist Jerome Harris. Other projects in 2005 included The Jack DeJohnette Quartet, featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Harris; and the Beyond Trio, a group that celebrated the music of drummer Tony Williams, featuring John Scofield and Larry Goldings.

And if that weren?t enough to make for a busy year, 2005 also marked the launch of DeJohnette?s own imprint, Golden Beams Productions. His first two projects on the new label were Music from the Hearts of the Masters, a duet recording with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso, and a relaxation and meditation album entitled Music in the Key of Om, featuring DeJohnette on synthesizer and resonating bells. The latter recording was nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Age Album category. He closed 2005 with the release of Hybrids, a seamless weave of African jazz, reggae and dance music that featured Foday Musa Suso and an international cast representing musical styles from around the world.

Two live recordings emerged in 2006: The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers (Golden Beams), which captured his first musical encounter with guitarist Bill Frisell at the Earshot Festival in Seattle in 2001; and Saudades (ECM), a 2004 London concert celebrating the music of Tony Williams. DeJohnette and Frisell reunited in the fall of 2006 – along with multi- instrumentalist Jerome Harris and mix master Ben Surman – for a tour to promote The Elephant Sleeps.

DeJohnette continued to explore African music in 2007 via the Intercontinental project, a partnership with South African singer Sibongile Khumalo that included a successful European tour and culminated in a performance at the Capetown Jazz Festival in South Africa. Other projects in 2007 included studio gigs and tour dates with Bruce Hornsby, Christian McBride, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter. DeJohnette also appeared on Michael Brecker’s posthumously released final album, Pilgrimage.

Extensive touring continued in 2008, along with the recording of a trio album with Patitucci and Perez during a snow storm near DeJohnette’s home in upstate New York. The sessions resulted in Music We Are, released in April 2009 with a bonus DVD that provided a rare look at the trio?s friendship, their creative relationship and their approach to the recording process.

DeJohnette’s Peace Time won a Grammy in 2009 for Best New Age Album. The album consists of an hour-long, continuous piece of music that eMusic described as “flights of flute, soft hand drumming, and the gently percolating chime of cymbal play, moving the piece along a river of meditative delight.” But the 2009 Grammy is just one many awards that DeJohnette has received over the years, beginning in 1979 with the French Grand Prix Disc and Charles Cros awards. He has figured prominently into readers polls and critics polls conducted by Downbeat and JazzTimes over the past two decades. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1991, and was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society’s Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 2011, he was chosen to perform at the Kennedy Center in tribute to his longtime friend and musical inspiration, Sonny Rollins. Marking his 70s birthday in 2012, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Fellowship – the highest U.S. honor for jazz musicians – in recognition of his extraordinary life achievements, contributions to advancing the jazz art form, and for serving as a mentor for a new generation of aspiring young jazz

musicians. The year-long birthday celebration included performances at the Monterey and Newport Jazz festivals, a tour of Europe with The Jack DeJohnette Group (a quintet he formed in 2010) and several concerts with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke.

Despite all the awards and accolades, though, DeJohnette continues to make the creative process his highest priority. His latest projects include his long standing trio DeJohnette – Coltrane & Garrison. Hudson with John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier.

 

Matthew Garrison

garrisonjazz.com

Born June 2, 1970 in New York. Here he spent, with his mother Roberta Escamilla Garrison and sister Maia Claire Garrison, the first seven years of his life immersed in a community of musicians, dancers, writers, visual artists and poets. After the death of his father Jimmy Garrison (John Coltranes bassist), his family relocated to Rome, Italy where he began to study piano and bass guitar. In 1988 Matthew returned to the United States and lived with his godfather Jack DeJohnette for two years. Here he studied intensively with both DeJohnette and bassist Dave Holland. In 1989 Matthew received a full scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. Here he began his professional career with the likes of Gary Burton, Bob Moses, Betty Carter, Mike Gibbs and Lyle Mays to mention a few.

Matthew moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1994 and since then has performed, toured and recorded with artists such as Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chaka Khan, Pino Daniele, Meshell Ndege Ocello, Joni Mitchell, Whitney Houston, Wayne Shorter, Jack Dejohnette, Steve Coleman, Jim Beard, Arto Tuncboyaciyan, Rita Marcotulli, Bill Cosby, Paul Simon, Cassandra Wilson, Wallace Roney, Geri Allen, Gary Thomas, John Mclaughlin, Scott Kinsey, Scott Henderson, The Gil Evans Orchestra, Tito Puente, Mike Gibbs, John Scofield, The Saturday Night Live Band, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Pat Metheny and many others.

In 1998 Matthew founded GarrisonJazz Productions through which he currently Produces, Promotes and Markets his music. The latest projects are “Shapeshifter Live 2010 – Part 1, Matthew Garrison Solo”, “12 Months” and “GarrisonJazz Productions Music Center” a website which provides a modern approach to music education, production and proliferation.

In 2012 Matthew opened, alongside his business partner Fortuna Sung, ShapeShifter Lab which is quickly becoming one of the most important and influential music venues in New York. The Brooklyn based venue features performances by the most important artists on the music scene today and has been voted by Time Out New York (2013) as one the best 10 venues in NY, and by Downbeat (2014) as one of the best 160 jazz venues in the world. The space is also a place for audio and video capture, photo shoots, workshops, private events, lessons, art exhibits amongst a variety of other possibilities that can take place within the 4,200 square foot location.

Additional information and media may be obtained through:

http://www.garrisonjazz.com/
http://www.shapeshifterlab.com/

 

John Medeski
johnmedeski.com

Famed keyboardist JOHN MEDESKI is not easily contained to a single project or genre; he is credited on over 300 works to date, most notably as one third of the groundbreaking trio, Medeski Martin & Wood.

Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ or any number of vintage keyboards, Medeski is a highly sought after improviser and band leader whose projects range from work with John Zorn, The Word (Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars), Phil Lesh, Don Was, John Scofield, Coheed & Cambria, Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, Marc Ribot, Irma Thomas, Blind Boys of Alabama, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and many more. Classically trained, Medeski grew up in Ft.Lauderdale, FL where as a teenager he played with Jaco Pastorius before heading north to attend the New England Conservatory. He released his first solo piano record, A Different Time, on Sony’s Okeh Records in 2013, and current projects include a new album in the works with his band MadSkillet (Terrence Higgins, Kirk Joseph, Will Bernard), and HUDSON (a collaboration with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield & Larry Grenadier), plus a documentary on Medeski Martin & Wood.

 

 

 

Luisito Quintero
innovativepercussion.com

Master Timbalero Luisito Quintero hails from Caracas, Venezuela, where his father, a respected percussionist in his own right, tutored and encouraged his son to become one of music’s best percussionists.  Luisito comes from a long line of outstanding musicians including his uncle, Carlos Nene Quintero and cousin Robert Quintero.  He studied at the respected Orquesta Simfonica de Venezuela (The Symphonic Orchestra of Venezuela) and his percussion technique soon garnered attention from his colleagues.  Luisito joined the popular music ensembles Grupo Guaco and Oscar D’Leon, where he enjoyed worldwide acclaim.

Luisito Quintero has worked and recorded with many of music’s legends including The Rolling Stones, Vanessa Williams, Paul Simon, Santana, Jack De Johnette, David Sanborn, George Benson, Joe Sample, Bill Cosby, the late Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, Cachao, Eddie Palmieri, Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan, Richard Bona, Ravi Coltrane, Nathalie Cole, Diana Krall, Giovanni Hidalgo, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Spanish Harlem, Willie Colon and countless others.  One of his recent projects finds him as musical director for Louie Vega and the Elements of Life Band, as well as extensive work with Jack DeJohnette’s Latin Project.  He has also had the privilege to tour and record with the Tony & Grammy award winning Jazz artist, Dee Dee Bridgewater.  Quintero himself has earned more than thirteen Grammy certificate awards for his participation in numerous recordings.

Luisito Quintero has two solo projects under Vega Records/BBE, entitled “Percussion Maddness” and “Percussion Maddness Revisited”.  Scheduled for release in the spring of 2013, his upcoming production entitled “3rd Element”, features guest artists Gato Barbieri, Oscar Hernandez, Doug Beavers, Richie Flores, Steve Khan, Reynaldo Jorge and his cousin Roberto Quintero.  Currently, Luisito is the touring percussionist for the legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea.