Drummer Jack DeJohnette has spent five decades in jazz’s vanguard. Last century, he helped steer Miles Davis’ fusion excursions, led a stellar series of sessions for the ECM label, and later accompanied fellow giant Herbie Hancock. In more recent years, DeJohnette has built out that legacy with a range of work that has been notably diverse in character, even by the standards of someone with his eclectic track record.
In 2013, DeJohnette convened a group of avant-garde elders including Henry Threadgill and Roscoe Mitchell for the searing live set Made in Chicago. Then he teamed up with Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison for In Movement, an album that spent some time looking at jazz’s past without neglecting to push things forward. Now comes yet another new DeJohnette ensemble: the collaborative group Hudson. Since the lineup includes famed jazz guitarist John Scofield, keyboard stylist John Medeski, and the versatile bassist Larry Grenadier, Hudson is being billed as a “supergroup.” If that seems a stretch—given that no one else’s reputation is quite on the level of DeJohnette’s—it’s only a slight one.
The band’s self-titled debut opens with a song that’s also titled “Hudson”: a nearly 11-minute meditation on the subject of improvisational funk. Steering so close to the textures of Davis’ Bitches Brew might prove embarrassing for most groups, but Hudson pulls the homage off—and not just because DeJohnette played on that vintage landmark. Scofield’s distorted tone on the track suggests a cool, pristinely judged restraint. At the close of the song, the guitarist plucks some ghostly harmonics with just the right amount of bite, merging with the drummer’s quiet-but-crisp pulses. It’s electric, not histrionic.
Named after the valley that its members call home, the band also draws on the legacy of a few musicians associated with the area (at least in the broader pop imagination). So Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” gets a tender, bluesy airing. Hendrix, a Woodstock veteran, is conjured via a hurtling take on “Wait Until Tomorrow.” Medeski shines during an interpretation of Robbie Robertson’s “Up on Cripple Creek”—producing soulful figures on his electric instrument, at select points, while also crafting boisterous, early-jazz textures on an acoustic piano.
Scofield turns in some of his most inventive work on two Dylan covers: the guitarist lends “Lay Lady Lay” a cheerful vibe, while “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” inspires a harmonically adventurous solo. All of these covers sound successful on their own individual terms. But as a band, Hudson hits an interpretive high note on “Hard Rain.” They start out doing justice to Dylan’s melody—though as the performance progresses, the group collectively channels the song’s sense of portent, without any need of the recent Nobel laureate’s lyrics.
The originals have charm, too. DeJohnette’s “Dirty Ground” sounds like it could be an old-school R&B number. The composer-drummer’s vocals have a weathered quality, but his phrasing is catchy and assured. (The man knows what goes into a memorable rhythmic progression.) “Song for World Forgiveness” and “Great Spirit Peace Chant” further enforce the fusion-jazz-meets-Summer of Love concept. And since Bitches Brew was (roughly) part of that same moment, another new song—Scofield’s “Tony Then Jack”—references the lineage of Davis’ drummers (specifically, Tony Williams, who preceded DeJohnette in the trumpeter’s retinue). This is not the most fiery music DeJohnette has collaborated on, in his eighth decade. But the peaceable mastery that moves through Hudson does have the distinction of feeling comfortable without being too predictable.
