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My conversation with Jack DeJohnette got off to a rocky start. It was the summer of 2000, when DeJohnette was visiting London for a series of concerts with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Labeling him in my initial question as a “drummer” seemed logical, but DeJohnette resisted being pigeonholed and shot back instantly: “I’m a complete musician.” Shortly after, attending a performance at the Royal Festival Hall observing the Standards Trio, an instance of pure enchantment thrilled me as Jarrett sustained a long sequence of repeated notes high on the piano and DeJohnette propelled the sound with a labyrinthian drum solo as melodically exploratory as anything Jarrett had played. Truly a multifaceted artist.

“The concept of spontaneous creation,” DeJohnette told me, “is tied up in the very nature of our existence. We don’t anticipate life unfolding without changing and we never know what’s round the corner – why should music be any different?”

He went on to clarify that every component of his percussion setup he viewed as a musical being “in its own right.” He designed and tuned his cymbals according to his personal standards. Mix the sound of cymbals with the drums and then “you think harmonically on the kit,” he noted. The auditory ideas inside DeJohnette’s head were never limited by the traditional rules of percussion. He was additionally a keyboardist of significant talent – who released a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and every facet of his musicianship was consistently evident continuously, 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 uniquely personal. Listening to his performance on “What I Say” from Miles Davis’s album Live-Evil is to be amazed by 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 rooted What I Say deep in the Earth and allowed 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.

Pioneering Beginnings and Creative Autonomy

His own 1968 first record, The DeJohnette Complex, immediately proposed that his was a voice intimately connected with a jazz scene rapidly diversifying around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The compositions DeJohnette wrote for his album were harmonically ornate and asserted jazz/rock energy while also occasionally leaning towards free-form improvisation. He included his own playing melodica, and his rustic tune creations took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex demonstrated 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 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, 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 lavishly orchestrated soundscapes of pastoral tones. Another essential album 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 play in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance was in no hurry to establish its space, as ambient, slow-burn forms gradually telescoped towards percussive climaxes.

Reflective Thoughts on Music and Life

Talking to DeJohnette much later, these ideas of pushing structural boundaries became clearer. He told me how he loved playing those funk figurations with Davis because “I could immerse in rhythms and let them saturate me,” but also spoke of his desire to create broader auditory landscapes, always unrestricted and therefore beneficial for the mind. He complained about the “safe confines” of pop music with its repetitive patterns. “However, through spontaneous play,” he said, “you’re open to a complete spectrum of options. People are capable of highly inventive yet often only access their potential when there is a major earthquake. But if people were more conscious of our place within nature, ceased harming the planet and restored balance, we would have a healthier environment and society.”

Undoubtedly DeJohnette heard his music as modelling those idealist aspirations. “Art is the spiritual equivalent of that cleansing, which is transmitted as vitality – and all artists have to draw on that.”