Four Masters in the Room Together
DeJohnette, Grenadier, Medeski, and Scofield made something vigorous and genuinely engaged.
Hudson arrived as a supergroup project where four seasoned players — Jack DeJohnette on drums, Larry Grenadier on bass, John Medeski on keyboards, and John Scofield on guitar — convened to make their first album together. What made this work was that none of them needed to prove anything. DeJohnette brought the restless energy of a drummer who'd spent decades pushing rhythm into unexpected places. Grenadier and Medeski had history from other collaborations, a shorthand that let them move fluidly between structured grooves and looser territory. Scofield arrived with his particular gift for making a guitar sound like it's thinking out loud, capable of texture and attack in equal turns.
The music sprawls across styles without sounding confused about it. The opening title track plunges into free improvisation, fuzzed guitars and clanging keyboards orbiting a steady ceremonial beat — it's the kind of move that could feel forced, but here it feels earned. DownBeat's Paul de Barros heard what mattered: "It would be easy to dismiss the supergroup Hudson as mere boomer nostalgia, but that would overlook just how vigorous, original, engaged and downright pleasurable this welcome debut sounds." Scofield's raunchy, distorted guitar work and Medeski's skronky keyboard clanks aren't nostalgia gestures; they're active choices that pull the record away from smoothness.
This is DeJohnette doing something different from his solo records — less about the drummer as bandleader and composer, more about four strong voices in the same room making real-time decisions. For listeners curious about how these four musicians think when they're playing together, Hudson is the document. It's not the most explosive record any of them have made, but it's solid and purposeful, a group that knew exactly what kind of space they wanted to occupy.
