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My conversation with Jack DeJohnette didn’t begin smoothly. This occurred during the summer of 2000, when DeJohnette had come to London for a series of concerts with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Referring to him in my initial question as a “drummer” seemed logical, but DeJohnette didn’t appreciate being categorized and shot back instantly: “I’m a complete musician.” Shortly after, attending a performance at the Royal Festival Hall watching the Standards Trio, an instance of transcendent magic thrilled me as Jarrett held a long sequence of recurring tones high on the piano and DeJohnette powered the music forwards with a complex percussion display as harmonically searching as anything Jarrett had played. Truly a multifaceted artist.

“The concept of spontaneous creation,” DeJohnette told me, “is linked to the very nature of our existence. We don’t anticipate life unfolding without transformation and we never know what lies ahead – why should music be any different?”

He further explained that every component of his percussion setup he viewed as a musical being “with its own identity.” He crafted and adjusted his cymbals to his own specification. Mix the sound of cymbals with the drums and then “your approach becomes melodic on the kit,” he noted. The auditory ideas inside DeJohnette’s head were never limited by the conventions of drum technique. He was additionally a keyboardist of significant talent – who released a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and each aspect of his musicianship was consistently evident all of the time, before his death at the age of 83.

A Unique Life-Force in Artistic Performance

Numerous percussionists tune their kit to a bespoke design, but DeJohnette’s playing exhibited a life-force 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 also played on Davis’s epoch-defining Bitches Brew, had by 1970 become the trumpeter’s drummer of choice in a collision of brilliant artists. His drums rooted What I Say deep in the Earth and gave Davis, and subsequently saxophonist Wayne Shorter, all the space they needed to explore, while DeJohnette packed his playing with complex percussive interjections – keeping a continual discussion with the other musicians.

Early Innovations and Artistic Independence

His own 1968 first record, The DeJohnette Complex, quickly established that his was a voice intimately connected with a jazz scene exploding in a thousand directions around him, while he remained doggedly independent. 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 melodica, and his rustic tune creations took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex revealed that DeJohnette’s aesthetic was truly multifaceted and, following his departure from Davis’s group, 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 duetted on some tracks with guitarist John Abercrombie, an album that was sparse and bare-bones in contrast to Untitled.

Landmark Collaborations and Essential Recordings

His 1981 ECM album with saxophonist John Surman, The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon, became a landmark moment for both musicians, and a much-loved classic too. Surman and DeJohnette performed on their primary tools while also adding electronic elements, subsuming their own identities inside richly arranged compositions of natural themes. 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 mirroring the primal energy unleashed by the music. Hearing that work around the time of its release, it recalled an earlier encounter with DeJohnette, when I listened to his band Special Edition play in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance took its time to stake out its terrain, as atmospheric, gradual developments slowly condensed towards rhythmic blows.

Reflective Thoughts on Music and Life

Conversing with DeJohnette much later, these ideas of pushing structural boundaries made more sense. He told me how he loved playing those funk figurations with Davis because “I could sit in grooves and allow them to envelop me,” but also spoke of his desire to create broader auditory landscapes, always open-ended and therefore beneficial for the mind. He cited the “safe confines” of pop music with its repetitive patterns. “With improvisation, though,” he said, “you’re open to a complete spectrum of options. Individuals have the ability for very creative but only seem to tap into their potential during crises. But if people were more aware of our place within nature, ceased harming the planet and restored balance, we would have a healthier environment and society.”

Undoubtedly DeJohnette viewed his art as modelling those idealist aspirations. “Art is the spiritual equivalent of that cleansing, which is passed to us as energy – and all artists must tap into that source.”