Vessel: A Conversation with Deron Johnson on Miles Davis and ‘Free to Dance’

From where does music derive? Some would argue the artist is the sole cause of their own creations. But, to many, music comes from somewhere supreme and flows through them. Hence, Sonny Rollins’ statements that he is simply a conduit to a higher power. Or William Parker’s that “No individual invented any music; we just discovered what was already there.” One also senses a similar thought in talking to Deron Johnson, who describes himself as a mere vessel. After listening to the pianist’s Free to Dance (Colorfield, 2024), one would be hard-pressed to disagree.

A longtime sideman, Johnson has worked with everyone from Stanley Clarke and David Sanborn to Alanis Morissette and Seal. He was also Miles Davis’ last keyboardist, even playing on the trumpeter’s final album, Doo-Bop (Warner Bros., 1992). These elements of his background can be heard in certain moments on Free to Dance. That includes the incorporation of an audio sample of Miles’ voice.

But what sets the album apart is its reliance upon creation in the moment. Like the other releases on Colorfield, Johnson was encouraged to compose in the studio and leave his comfort zone to see where the music led him. This included playing instruments he is less comfortable with. So, in addition to piano and Rhodes, the leader can also be found on several drum machines, drums, bass, Gamelan strips, synthesizers, and vocoder. An impressive list of collaborators – including Mark Turner, Mark Guiliana, Gretchen Parlato, and Sam Gendel – expertly add to the recording but its heart lies in the freedom given to Johnson.

The result is music that is, at times atmospheric, as though it is coming from another plane of existence. This aspect is particularly evident in “Talk Mourner” which first allows synthesized sounds to emerge and then gradually decay before providing a peaceful backdrop to Turner’s yearning tenor. Taking a cue from minimalism, “I Don’t Have to Wait for a Clear Day” shows the majesty that can emerge from repeated thoughts. The closer, “Unfettered,” presents folksy Keith Jarrettish lines on piano with only very subtle electronic manipulation. Throughout, Free to Dance is a deeply intimate work whose beauty unquestionably points to something higher than a single person or group of them.

PostGenre: Free to Dance is coming out on Colorfield Records, which seeks to have musicians come in to record fully improvised pieces without preconceptions. What interested you in doing that? 

Deron Johnson: Man, yeah, those are always the bigger questions. I love to improvise. I also love getting out of my head, whether trying to write something or trying to do something. I do a lot of that when I’m at home.  But I think the magic of this project was that I knew I would be in the arms of someone who could aid in documenting it the right way and also help lead me into different areas and question me in certain ways. I love to work that way. 

It was a bit daunting putting this recording together with another person and being safe and open with that person. But I also love [producer] Pete [Min] as a friend. We are great friends, and that helped a lot with the trust factor. But, still, when you have that naked approach and always want to sound good while taking those risks, you need someone you can trust. I think Pete was one of the perfect people for me that way. 

PG: Perhaps related to being safe and open, the press materials quote you as stating that you are a vessel. A vessel for who or what? 

DJ: Yeah. The vessel aspect is from things I’ve read and have come to believe in over the years when thinking about the artists we love, from Picasso to Stravinsky. The question is, do we really write this music? Do we really write these tunes, or do they come from another world?  I know we could edit, overthink, and do things. Obviously, incredible music has been made, but I do believe we are mere channels. The magic of music comes seemingly out of nowhere. I’m getting attracted to that light more and more every year and increasingly understanding that we musicians are not the creators of a lot of this stuff. 

PG: Is that part of why Free to Dance sounds a bit atmospheric, in a way, at times? 

DJ:  The funny thing is that if five people were sat down and told to play something original, all five would do something different from each other. We’re all unique individuals. It’s also going to be five different moods, probably. So the word atmospheric is safe to say for me, but I don’t know if that’s completely tied to an improvisatory approach for what everyone would do. Some people would get up there and start banging away. In my case, I sort of approach life in a way analogous to what this record sounds like. That’s why every time I listen back – I don’t generally listen often to stuff I’ve done – it sounds like things I would do. What I was trying to get out was the insides of my existence. 

PG: And being a leader in this project would seem to give you much more liberty to shape the trajectory of the project than in your various sideman gigs. Your other recordings to date have been as a sideman. After the experience of putting together Free to Dance, do you plan to explore being a leader more in future recordings? 

DJ: Yes. I definitely want to explore that more now. It is quite late in my career at this point, but making this project and fully owning who I am as a person has been great. I want to give that aspect of me, the whole of who I am, to a project. Sometimes, when you’re a sideman, you are primarily of service. It is similar to making music for films. I am really into film composition these days, where you’re in service to the story, which is all good and well. But there is something special about making your own artistic statement that speaks primarily to who you are, not someone else’s vision. 

PG: To ask you about one of your sideman experiences, you worked with the recently departed David Sanborn. Do you have any favorite memories of your times with him? 

DJ: I think mainly with someone like David, just as an individual, what stood out the most to me was just how positive he always was. I never saw a depressive or darker side of David. He was all about the music. And, because of that, the music flourished. On stage, he really brought it to life with his sound. But his positivity was every bit as important as his sound.

David also surrounded himself with other amazing musicians. When I first joined his band, he was playing with G.O.A.T.s like Don Alias, Omar Hakim, and Marcus [Miller]. I was quite young at the time, and when I later played with him again, in the 2000s, he still had amazing players. But at that time, he was playing with Hiram Bullock. Seeing David surround himself with such incredible musicians shaped a lot of my thought process. 

Working with Miles was an incredible experience. But it was like an infant me being shaped. Your musical style will never be the same after that experience. But to play with somebody like David – Stanley [Clarke] and a few others, as well, but especially David – was always top music, great positivity, and tons of laughs on the bandstand and everywhere else. David truly respected what I brought to the situation, and you can’t ask for anything more than that. 

PG: So, was David’s positivity and optimism wildly different from working with Miles, given his reputation as “The Prince of Darkness” and those sorts of things?

DJ: It was hugely different. Miles wouldn’t readily show that he supported you. But it was kind of like being in the mob. Once you got within the family – part of his circle – you would catch a smile from him. Or you’d catch a little quip that made you think, “holy shit, did he say that?” The more time I spent with him, the clearer it was that he liked to keep people guessing. Keeping you on your toes. No room for boredom. 

Miles was never going to say, “My God, that was a great gig. We had a great gig. Right, fellas?” That just wasn’t him at all. Instead, it was some little phrase that you walked away with from him. When the music was funky or when it was ripping, Miles would let you know. He would say a few things, but then he’d have other little critiques and tell you to try this or that. Working with him was a big learning experience. It was the biggest learning experience because he was constantly giving you things to think about and ideas to grow. 

PG: On Free to Dance, there is a track called “Call Me Back,” which features a voice message Miles left on your answering machine. What led you to include the message on the album?

DJ: I love doing things like that. I’m a fan of both Steve Reich and the punk group Modern Warfare.  I like doing mashups and having recordings going while I improvise on the piano. I used to do that live a lot more than I do now. But all of that worked its way into my playing to my manager recordings that I had of not just Miles but of fifteen or twenty different people. They were from those old classic answering machines that we all had. Some were insanely hilarious. Some were sad. But the Miles ones stuck out. There’s another one with Miles that didn’t end up on the album. I have used it in a live setting, though.  

The challenge with that track was seeing how we could bring this recording that was thirty-plus years old to life again. The tune had already been improvised. It was part of a fully improvised piece I had done. We threw it together, and it just worked. The title came from a friend and my manager, Jasmine Joseph-Danielpour. It comes from another message by Miles that didn’t end up on the record, where he says, “You know, this is your boss calling. Call me back.”

PG: You mentioned Steve Reich a little earlier. “(I Don’t Have to Wait) For A Clear Day” was partly influenced by Phillip Glass. Has minimalism, in general, been a significant influence on you?

DJ: Yeah, kind of. But I would say I didn’t grow up shedding a lot of minimalist music or even classical music more generally. I did my repertoire, and it didn’t include any of those guys. It was much later, when I finally decided I wanted to become a film composer, that I started listening to classical music. The guys that greatly attracted me at that point were Reich and Glass. From there, I jumped pretty deep into that world. 

I have a lot of respect for musicians who make music that people now call neoclassical. I am thinking of people like Max Richter or Dustin O’Halloran. But also the chance and risk-takers like Morton Feldman, Reich, and Philip Glass. To me, Phillip straddled the line between giving you something that you could digest and being adventurous.

For the past ten to twelve years, I have been greatly shedding more adventurous music, and it’s l informed even the shapes of my fingers. I used to have shapes a lot like Herbie [Hancock]’s. Some people like Keith Jarrett can do anything with smaller hands. But I felt that the shapes of my chords were a lot like Herbie’s. But playing minimalist music has morphed my hands into different shapes. That is where the Glass connection comes in on that song. A friend of mine, Alan Hampton, who also sings with The Rolling Stones, sang on the track, and gave it a full-on New York loft scene kind of sound.  

PG: Since you just mentioned Herbie and Keith, they are part – along with Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Lonnie Liston Smith, and so many others- of a long line of incredible keyboard/piano players that played with Miles. When you first got with Miles, did you find it a little daunting to be a part of that line? 

DJ: Probably. But to go back to the vessel thing, you are put into a moment, and it’s not going to last forever. My time with Miles ended within a year. I was meeting a few of those people anyway, like Chick Corea and a few lesser-known, but still very important, people. 

I’ll also add that at that time,  I was not a heavy listener to Miles’ later recordings since Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) or, really, In a Silent Way (1969). It seems like I was very single-minded. I definitely listened to Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). That was one of my favorites early on. But his 60s band – his Second Great Quintet- with Herbie was it for me. 

So yeah, it was daunting. But I was like, “Man, you know, I know this vibe. I know this sound. I’ve listened to this so much. I think I could do this.” Well, I know I could express what he was doing on albums like Tutu (Warner Bros., 1986). We were touring on Amandla (Warner Bros., 1987) and all this stuff. I didn’t do a lot of thinking about Bill Evans or Keith or all these people. Just Herbie. I was so far up inside of Herbie’s vibe.

PG: It is interesting to hear that you were drawing inspiration from Miles’ earlier projects because he almost never looked back and was somewhere else musically by the time you worked with him, compared to the two Great Quintets.  

DJ: Absolutely. 

PG: One thing that interested him towards the end of his life was the relationship between jazz and hip hop.  He passed away before Doo-Bop, which merged the two, was finished. You are one of the few musicians who was involved in that project. Do you think that album came out the way he intended? 

DJ: Great question. I’d say yes. I didn’t know exactly what he was after when we recorded. I just knew he wanted to record something with a hip hop flavor. We were playing a lot of Prince’s music around that time as well, and he loved that. I remember we were in Germany, went into a studio there, and played some of those Prince songs that we played live. It sounded totally different from Doo-Bop. But when Miles got with Easy Mo Bee and then called me in to go back and forth from [Los Angeles] to New York, he had in mind that he would be playing over some hip grooves. And in that sense, he accomplished that with the album. 

PG: Granted, stuff like A Tribe Called Quest predated Doo-Bop, but do you think Miles foresaw how much the jazz-hip hop hybrid would proliferate? 

DJ: I see what you’re saying. I never thought before about whether he saw it or not. I don’t know, man. I mean, he was the Prince of Darkness, so I’m sure he saw a lot. I remember Guru putting out his Jazzmatazz albums and making a huge wave, which came after Doo-Bop. All I can say to that is that Miles knew how to nail down a style and then have people follow along. 

PG: A minute ago, you mentioned recording some Prince songs. Prince sent Miles eight instrumental compositions in early 1991. Was there a plan to release an album of Prince pieces? 

DJ: Yeah, I talk to Vince [Wilburn] every now and then. In addition to being a drummer for Miles, and his nephew, he also manages a lot of the estate. At one point, about two or three years ago, Vince told me there was a plan to compile that stuff, maybe layer some stuff on top of it, and then release it. But that plan kind of fell by the wayside. I think there are other releases and other things teed up for Miles’ estate. I remember about four years ago, I listened to a couple of those tracks, and while they probably need a mix on them, I do think they’re relevant, for sure. 

PG: Going back to something you said earlier about Miles and David Sanborn surrounding themselves with the best musicians, on Free to Dance, you have done something similar. How did you go about selecting who would be on the recording? 

DJ: Our process for recording the album was to go into the studio, record a track, then leave. I’d then come back in, a week later, make another track, and leave. We did that for eleven tracks. And every time, I came out with something substantial and full. As I listened to our recordings, I kept thinking we needed more people on the album. I know a lot of people and have a ton of connections in the music world. But dialing up someone and asking them to play with me has never been my strong suit. But, here, luck kicked in. Pete’s Colorfield Records and his studio, Lucy’s Meat Market, have been working with some very interesting musicians. It’s kind of a beehive for cool people. I went to Pete one day and told him that I’d love to have Mark Turner on the album and he told me that about a week earlier, Mark called him wanting to book some time at the studio. 

And after that, we got Gretchen [Parlato] to sing lyricless on “Can A Song Save Your Life.” The piece just screamed Gretchen to me. I’ve played with her before and did a couple of recordings with her, this was before she was big. Pete had a lot of numbers and I reached out to who I wanted. Only one person said no because they were out of town. Everyone else was interested. It all happened so quickly and before I knew it, everybody on the record was on it. I’m very happy with how it all turned out. 

‘Free to Dance’ will be released on June 28, 2024 on Colorfield Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information on Deron Johnson can be found on his website.

Photo credit: Charlie Weinmann2