Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition
Tin Can Alley
Jack DeJohnette drums, piano, organ, congas, timpani, vocal
Chico Freeman tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet
John Purcell alto and baritone saxophones, flute
Peter Warren bass, cello
Recorded live at Studio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, September 1980
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher
“One, two, you know what to do.”
Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition came up with another winner in this second album for ECM. Most of the blood of Tin Can Alley flows through the work of reedmen Chico Freeman (on tenor sax and bass clarinet) and John Purcell (on alto and baritone). Their voices—one full of soul, the other provocative—define the title track. With the machine-gunned obbligato of DeJohnette and Peter Warren covering their backs, they unhinge themselves. An epic baritone solo from Purcell drops the heaviest weight on the scale. These dialogues continue above the skittering vamp of “Riff Raff,” even as Warren drops a heavy dose or two of his own. DeJohnette keeps tabs on every shift, all the way to his lusty swing in “I Know,” where a simulated crowd embraces his unbounded vocals. He also has a solo track, “The Gri Gri Man,” which is a smoothie of congas, cymbals, toms, and organ. The occasional boom of timpani adds chunkiness.
Our journey through Tin Can Alley would be far from complete without “Pastel Rhapsody.” Another dialogue, this time between flutes, blends into a piano solo, which in its quiet manner paints the darkness with a meteor shower. From this sprouts a brassy stem, unfurling leaves and petals to the tune of something beyond us. Downright cosmic, and one of the most straight-to-your-heart ballads of the entire ECM catalog.
This is prime, soulful creation without pretension, without disguise. As with each of DeJohnette’s Special Editions, the cover photo is emblematic of the band’s free spirit, making music for the sake of its joys. So if you happen to find yourself in this alley, they would much rather you stick around and feel what they’re doing than drop a dollar and move on.
