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My conversation with Jack DeJohnette got off to a rocky start. This occurred during the summer of 2000, as DeJohnette was visiting London to perform with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Referring to him in my initial question as a “drummer” felt appropriate, but DeJohnette didn’t appreciate being pigeonholed and responded sharply: “I’m a complete musician.” Shortly after, attending a performance at the Royal Festival Hall watching the Standards Trio, a moment of transcendent magic captivated the audience as Jarrett sustained a long sequence of recurring tones high on the piano and DeJohnette propelled the sound with a labyrinthian drum solo as melodically exploratory as anything Jarrett had played. Complete musician indeed.

“The concept of spontaneous creation,” DeJohnette explained, “is linked to the very essence of being. We don’t expect our life to evolve without transformation and we never know what’s round the corner – why should music be any different?”

He further explained that each part of his drum kit he viewed as a musical being “with its own identity.” He designed and tuned his cymbals according to his personal standards. Combine the tones of cymbals with the drums and then “you think harmonically on the kit,” he noted. The auditory ideas inside DeJohnette’s head could never be contained by the conventions of drum technique. He was additionally a keyboardist of considerable merit – who issued a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and every facet of his musicianship seemed to be on display all of the time, until his passing at the age of 83.

An Unmatched Energy in Musical Expression

Numerous percussionists adjust their equipment to a bespoke design, but DeJohnette’s playing radiated a vitality that was entirely his own. Listening to his performance on “What I Say” from Miles Davis’s album Live-Evil is to be amazed by seemingly boundless energy as he sustained a powerful funk/rock beat for 20 minutes. DeJohnette, who additionally performed on Davis’s groundbreaking Bitches Brew, had by 1970 emerged as Davis’s preferred percussionist in a meeting of mighty musical minds. His drums rooted What I Say deep in the Earth and allowed Davis, and later saxophonist Wayne Shorter, all the space they needed to explore, while DeJohnette filled his performance with rattling rhythmic asides – maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the other musicians.

Early Innovations and Creative Autonomy

His own 1968 first record, The DeJohnette Complex, quickly established that his was a style intimately connected with a jazz scene exploding in a thousand directions around him, while he stayed fiercely autonomous. The compositions DeJohnette created for his album were melodically intricate and embodied a fusion vibe while also occasionally leaning towards free-form improvisation. He featured himself playing a wind instrument, and his rustic tune creations took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex revealed that DeJohnette’s aesthetic was indeed delightfully complex and, following his departure from Davis’s group, he was signed to ECM Records. In 1976 he issued Untitled, a energetic five-piece record, but also Pictures in which he performed on multiple instruments, and collaborated on several pieces with guitarist John Abercrombie, an album that was sparse and bare-bones in contrast to Untitled.

Landmark Collaborations and Key Albums

His 1981 ECM album with saxophonist John Surman, The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon, emerged as a pivotal point for both musicians, and a much-loved classic too. Surman and DeJohnette played their usual instruments while also adding electronic elements, merging their personal styles inside lavishly orchestrated soundscapes of pastoral tones. Another essential album was Oneness, recorded in 1997, which presented expansive forms with pieces such as “Free Above Sea” and “Priestesses of the Mist,” their titles reflecting the primal energy expressed through the music. Hearing that work around the time of its release, it recalled an earlier encounter with DeJohnette, when I heard his group Special Edition play in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance took its time to establish its space, as ambient, slow-burn forms gradually telescoped towards percussive climaxes.

Reflective Thoughts on Music and Life

Talking to DeJohnette all those years later, these ideas of pushing structural boundaries became clearer. He explained that he loved playing those rhythmic patterns with Davis because “I could immerse in rhythms and let them saturate me,” but also mentioned his aim to create broader auditory landscapes, always unrestricted and therefore healthy for the brain. He cited the “predictable limits” of pop music with its repetitive patterns. “With improvisation, though,” he said, “you’re open to a full range of possibilities. Individuals have the ability for highly inventive yet often only access their potential during crises. But if people were more conscious of our place within nature, stopped abusing the Earth and restored balance, we would have a healthier environment and society.”

No question that DeJohnette viewed his art as reflecting those utopian goals. “Creativity mirrors the soul of that cleansing, which is passed to us as energy – and all artists have to draw on that.”