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The interview 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 opening inquiry as a “drummer” seemed logical, but DeJohnette didn’t appreciate being categorized and responded sharply: “I’m a complete musician.” Shortly after, attending a performance at the Royal Festival Hall watching the Standards Trio, an instance of pure enchantment thrilled me as Jarrett sustained a long sequence of recurring tones high on the piano and DeJohnette powered the music forwards with a labyrinthian drum solo as harmonically searching as anything Jarrett had played. Complete musician indeed.

“The concept of spontaneous creation,” DeJohnette told me, “is tied up in the very nature of our existence. 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 went on to clarify 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. Mix the sound of cymbals with the drums and then “you think harmonically on the kit,” he noted. The sounds inside DeJohnette’s head were never limited by the traditional rules of percussion. He was also a pianist of considerable merit – who released a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and each aspect of his musicianship seemed to be on display all of the time, until his passing at the age of 83.

A Unique Life-Force in Artistic Performance

Many drummers adjust their equipment to a bespoke design, but DeJohnette’s playing exhibited a life-force that was entirely his own. To hear him play 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 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 anchored the track firmly and allowed Davis, and subsequently saxophonist Wayne Shorter, ample room to explore, while DeJohnette filled his performance with complex percussive interjections – keeping a continual discussion with the other musicians.

Early Innovations and Creative Autonomy

His own 1968 first record, The DeJohnette Complex, quickly established that his was a style deeply linked with a jazz scene rapidly diversifying around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The pieces DeJohnette wrote 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 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 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.

Iconic Partnerships 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 highly regarded work too. Surman and DeJohnette played their usual instruments while also adding electronic elements, subsuming their own identities inside richly arranged compositions of pastoral tones. A further critical record 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 elemental force expressed through the music. Hearing that work around the time of its release, I was reminded of an earlier encounter with DeJohnette, when I listened to his band Special Edition perform in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance took its time to stake out its terrain, as ambient, slow-burn forms slowly condensed towards percussive climaxes.

Reflective Thoughts on Music and Life

Conversing with DeJohnette much later, these ideas of pushing structural boundaries made more sense. 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 beneficial for the mind. He cited the “safe confines” of pop music with its recurring motifs. “With improvisation, though,” he said, “you’re open to a full range of possibilities. Individuals have the ability for highly inventive but only seem to tap into their potential during crises. But if people were more aware of our place within nature, stopped abusing the Earth and put things back into it, we would have a better world and community.”

No question that DeJohnette viewed his art as reflecting those utopian goals. “Creativity mirrors the soul of that purification, which is passed to us as energy – and all artists must tap into that source.”