New Directions is the record on which Jack DeJohnette gathered several strands of his career into one quartet. It was recorded in Oslo in June 1978 and released by ECM the same year. Each partner came from a different chapter of the drummer's life, from mainstream piano trio to the Chicago avant-garde. "My idea was to put together a cast of unlikely characters," DeJohnette recalled. The album won France's Prix du Jazz Contemporain from the Académie Charles Cros.
DeJohnette plays drums and piano, John Abercrombie guitar and mandolin, Eddie Gomez double bass and Lester Bowie trumpet. Gomez had played with the drummer in the Bill Evans trio, and Abercrombie was his partner in Gateway. Bowie, trumpeter of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, reconnected him with the experimental spirit of the early AACM. "With Lester added we had four strong and very different characters, could cover a lot of musical areas, and the chemistry was fantastic," DeJohnette said. Manfred Eicher produced the session at Talent Studio, with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer.
Three pieces are DeJohnette's and two are credited to all four players. Bayou Fever begins loose and floating before settling into a swinging pulse, Bowie staying lyrical above an intense exchange between bass and drums. Where Or Wayne runs over twelve minutes, with Latin-tinged drumming, a melodic Gomez solo and fluid, prominent guitar from Abercrombie. The collective One Handed Woman turns fierce and funky, DeJohnette laying down a shuffle backbeat in its second half. The closing Silver Hollow puts the leader at the piano, with Abercrombie on acoustic guitar trading long lines with the bass.
In Jazz Journal in 2019, Mark Youll found Bowie "serene through the storm" in the opening track. He called Silver Hollow "a stunning piece bright with a buttery bass figure." Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews heard the closer as a tender, dawn-like ending. The same quartet was recorded in concert at Willisau a year later, on New Directions In Europe (1980).
This CD (ECM 1128) belongs to ECM's Touchstones series, which since 2008 has brought back catalogue albums in cardboard sleeves. This gatefold edition was issued in May 2019, the label's 50th anniversary year. The album was first released in 1978.
