JACK DeJOHNETTE”Dancing With Nature Spirits”ECM* * *DeJohnette’s...

JACK DeJOHNETTE

“Dancing With Nature Spirits”

ECM

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DeJohnette’s avowed purpose with this release, which features a new trio with Michael Cain, piano, and Steve Gorn, woodwinds, is to “bring back the tribal aspect of interaction between musician and listener.” He’s done that, and then some, urging jazz into a natural linkage with the kinds of elemental rhythms and timbres commonly heard in indigenous music.

The title piece, a 20-minute stage setting for the album, has the measured but irrepressible momentum of a Dionysian ritual, with DeJohnette’s percussion providing the energy. Other tracks are meditative (the floating clarinet melody of “Anatolia”), buoyantly rhythmic (“Time Warps”) and filled with the promised tribal musical interactivity in the sometimes thorny passages of “Healing Song for Mother Earth.” Only on the brisk “Emanations” does a traditional jazz sound make its appearance, but even here there is no loss of the spontaneous, free and open atmosphere of the other works.

In sum, a mesmerizing, innovative recording with plenty of rewards for the patient, receptive listener. Credit DeJohnette with finding a captivating new jazz perspective.

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