{"id":5431,"date":"2015-09-30T15:07:55","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5431"},"modified":"2015-09-30T15:07:55","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:07:55","slug":"a-trio-bound-by-intimate-connections-unbound-by-style-jack-dejohnette-ravi-coltrane-matt-garrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/30\/a-trio-bound-by-intimate-connections-unbound-by-style-jack-dejohnette-ravi-coltrane-matt-garrison\/","title":{"rendered":"A Trio Bound By Intimate Connections, Unbound by Style: Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane & Matt Garrison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image001-6\"<\/a>The last time I heard drummer Jack DeJohnette<\/strong>, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane<\/strong> and bassist Matt Garrison<\/strong> play, the trio did justice to the name of the Brooklyn venue hosting it (which is run by Garrison and his business partner, Fortuna Sung)\u2014ShapeShifter Lab<\/a>.
\nThe music flowed morphed before us, changing hue and style and mood and form in often surprising ways. It sounded experimental in the best sense of the word\u2014based on clear ideas and solid research but open to tinkering and unpredictable results.
\nThe band returns to ShapeShifter for two shows on October 10<\/a>.
\nThis is a powerhouse band, led by one of the most kind-hearted and open-minded of jazz\u2019s elder statesmen, DeJohnette, who at 73 is an NEA Jazz Master and a mentor to many.
\nThe spirit of John Coltrane runs through this trio, through bonds of direct lineage, clear influence and even via chance encounters.
\nRavi Coltrane, who is 50, is the second son of John and Alice Coltrane. (John died when Ravi was two years old; Alice, a renowned composer, pianist and harpist, raised Ravi on the West Coast and proved a strong role model in her own right.) Ravi has honored but never leaned on his parents\u2019 legacies. It\u2019s worth noting that, not long after Ravi moved to New York City to begin his career, he had a pivotal stint with drummer Elvin Jones, who anchored John Coltrane\u2019s quartet.
\nJones played a role in DeJohnette\u2019s development. Early in his career, DeJohnette split his time between drums and piano (he still plays some piano and keyboard). As he recalled for a Wall Street Journal profile:<\/p>\n

Saxophonist Eddie Harris, an early employer, told DeJohnette, \u201cYou play good piano, but you’re a natural drummer,\u201d he recalled. \u201cHe urged me to choose.\u201d He got early validation sitting in for drummer Elvin Jones during a John Coltrane performance. The legendary saxophonist was impressed enough to call on DeJohnette later, for a weeklong gig that also featured drummer Rashied Ali. (\u201cAn exhausting, but exhilarating experience,\u201d he said.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matt Garrison, 45, is the son of bassist Jimmy Garrison, another anchor of John Coltrane\u2019s quartet. After his father\u2019s death, and after considerable time in Rome, Garrison moved to back to the U.S. and lived for two years with DeJohnette, who is his godfather.
\nSo these three musicians are bound by overlapping connections. And John Coltrane\u2019s legacy is merely one of many through lines in the music they make, separately and collectively. As composers and musicians, these three are distinctly unbound.
\nEspecially DeJohnette\u2014whose achievements can no more easily be confined to a given style than a single instrument. As bandleader, his various ensembles have expressed manifold inclinations. As a sideman, he helped spark jazz’s plugged-in fusion (including Miles Davis’s 1970 classic, \u201cBitches Brew\u201d), has upheld its acoustic traditions (nearly 30 years in Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio), and remains a go-to player for veterans and rising stars alike. He is a sensitive partner in duos (with guitarist Bill Frisell and kora master Foday Musa Suso, among others) and within collectives (he first recorded \u201cOneness\u201d in 1995, with guitarist John Abercrombie and bassist Dave Holland, in the leaderless Gateway Trio). DeJohnette’s drumming has force enough to create driving rhythms and requisite delicacy for the subtlest nuance. He is both the source of what Davis called, in his 1989 autobiography, \u201ca certain deep groove that I just loved playing over\u201d and a Grammy Award winner in the New Age category for his meditative 2008 CD \u201cPeace Time.\u201d
\n\u201cI’ve never really planned anything,\u201d he once told me. \u201cI’ve just gone where the music took me, done whatever the sound called for.\u201d
\nOne thing I like about ShapeShifter Lab\u00a0<\/strong>is the fact that it\u2019s a short walk from my home. Yet that\u2019s the least of it. It\u2019s a smart, nicely sized space with great acoustics, created by and for musicians, with flexible staging and lighting that truly serves the music.
\nGarrison\u2019s and Sung\u2019s ambitions for ShapeShifter deserve support. I\u2019m told that the proceeds from these shows will fund new initiatives of ShapeShifter+<\/strong>, a nonprofit organization they\u2019ve created to develop more expansive festivals and educational programs.
\nAnd here\u2019s he big news: Shortly after these shows, this trio will head into Avatar studios to record its first project for ECM Records.<\/em><\/strong>
\nYou\u2019d be foolish not to\u00a0sneak\u00a0a peek at what they\u2019re cooking up in the lab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time I heard drummer Jack DeJohnette, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and bassist Matt Garrison play, the trio did justice to the name of the Brooklyn venue hosting it (which is run by Garrison and his business partner, Fortuna Sung)\u2014ShapeShifter Lab. The music flowed morphed before us, changing hue and style and mood and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A Trio Bound By Intimate Connections, Unbound by Style: Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane & Matt Garrison”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[25,11,328,12,14,329,330,331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5431"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}