The Legendary Jack DeJohnette: More Than a Jazz Drummer – A Superhuman Force in Musical Arts

My conversation with Jack DeJohnette didn’t begin smoothly. This occurred during the summer of 2000, when 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.” A few days later, sitting in the Royal Festival Hall observing the Standards Trio, an instance of transcendent magic captivated the audience as Jarrett held a long sequence of repeated notes high on the piano and DeJohnette powered the music forwards with a labyrinthian drum solo as harmonically searching as anything Jarrett had played. Truly a multifaceted artist.

“The idea of improvisation,” DeJohnette told me, “is linked to the very essence of being. We don’t anticipate life unfolding without changing and we never know what lies ahead – why should music be any different?”

He went on to clarify that every component of his percussion setup he considered to be a musical being “in its own right.” He crafted and adjusted his cymbals to his own specification. Combine the tones of cymbals with the drums and then “you think harmonically on the kit,” he added. The sounds inside DeJohnette’s head were never limited by the traditional rules of percussion. He was also a pianist of considerable merit – who issued a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and each aspect of his musicianship seemed to be on display continuously, until his passing at the age of 83.

An Unmatched Energy in Artistic Performance

Numerous percussionists tune their kit to a custom setup, but DeJohnette’s playing radiated a vitality that was uniquely personal. Listening to his performance on “What I Say” from Miles Davis’s album Live-Evil is to marvel at apparently superhuman drive as he maintained an impactful funk/rock beat for 20 minutes. DeJohnette, who additionally performed on Davis’s groundbreaking Bitches Brew, had by 1970 become the trumpeter’s drummer of choice in a collision of brilliant artists. His drums anchored the track firmly and allowed Davis, and subsequently saxophonist Wayne Shorter, all the space they needed to explore, while DeJohnette filled his performance with complex percussive interjections – keeping a continual discussion with the other musicians.

Pioneering Beginnings and Creative Autonomy

His own 1968 debut album, The DeJohnette Complex, immediately proposed that his was a voice deeply linked with a jazz scene exploding in a thousand directions around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The pieces DeJohnette created for his album were harmonically ornate and asserted jazz/rock energy while also sometimes drifting into free-form improvisation. He included his own playing melodica, and his rustic tune creations took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex revealed that DeJohnette’s aesthetic was indeed delightfully complex and, after leaving Davis, he was signed to ECM Records. In 1976 he issued Untitled, a hectic quintet album, but also Pictures in which he played piano, drums and organ, and collaborated on several pieces with guitarist John Abercrombie, an album that was minimalist and stripped-down in contrast to Untitled.

Iconic Partnerships 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 performed on their primary tools while also adding electronic elements, merging their personal styles inside richly arranged compositions of pastoral tones. A further critical record was Oneness, recorded in 1997, which dealt up large-scale structures with pieces such as “Free Above Sea” and “Priestesses of the Mist,” their titles reflecting the primal energy unleashed by the music. Listening to that album around the time of its release, I was reminded of an previous experience with DeJohnette, when I heard his group Special Edition perform in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance took its time to establish its space, as atmospheric, gradual developments gradually telescoped towards rhythmic blows.

Philosophical Insights on Art and Existence

Conversing with DeJohnette much later, these ideas of pushing structural boundaries became clearer. He explained that he enjoyed performing those funk figurations with Davis because “I could immerse in rhythms and allow them to envelop me,” but also spoke of his desire to create broader auditory landscapes, always unrestricted and therefore healthy for the brain. He cited the “safe confines” of pop music with its repetitive patterns. “However, through spontaneous play,” 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 aware 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 modelling those idealist aspirations. “Creativity mirrors the soul of that cleansing, which is transmitted as vitality – and all artists must tap into that source.”