Jack DeJohnette, Special Edition

Special Edition is the first album by Jack DeJohnette's group of the same name, recorded in New York in March 1979 and released by ECM in 1980. It put two saxophonists from the New York loft scene, David Murray and Arthur Blythe, in front of a wider audience. DownBeat readers voted it jazz album of the year in 1980, and the name carried on through several later ECM albums with changing line-ups.

DeJohnette plays drums, piano and melodica, with Murray on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, Blythe on alto saxophone and Peter Warren on bass and cello. The session took place at Generation Sound Studios with Tony May as engineer. DeJohnette is credited as producer himself, with Manfred Eicher as executive producer and, with Martin Wieland, responsible for the mix. Three of the five pieces are DeJohnette originals, and the other two come from John Coltrane.

One for Eric, which opens the album, is a tribute to Eric Dolphy, and Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews hears Dolphy's influence in its jagged, neo-classical energy. Zoot Suite, at more than eleven minutes the longest track, stayed with DeJohnette, and a shortened version returned on Album Album in 1984. The second side turns to Coltrane. The quartet pairs the brief Central Park West with a full reading of India, and DeJohnette's own Journey to the Twin Planet closes the record.

The readers' poll win came in the year of release, and the album has kept its standing since. On ECM Reviews, Grillo calls it "the inaugural effort of Jack DeJohnette's most influential project" and credits it with launching Murray and Blythe as leaders in their own right. Chico Freeman and John Purcell took over the saxophone chairs on the next album, Tin Can Alley, while Murray came back for the 1984 record.

This CD is the 2008 reissue of ECM 1152 in the first Touchstones series, which returned classic albums from the catalogue to print in gatefold card sleeves. Special Edition was first released on LP in 1980, and this remastered disc keeps its original five-track programme.