Jack DeJohnette

At his peak, Jack DeJohnette ranks among jazz’s most relentlessly creative percussionists. His approach spans an exceptionally broad spectrum, enabling him to perform credibly across contemporary styles while retaining a sharply personal identity. DeJohnette exhibits an unusually supple grasp of rhythmic flow; his precision remains intact even when he stretches, displaces, or dissolves the pulse to the point of near invisibility, yet an emphatic swing feeling never disappears. Equally expansive is his command of timbre, for no other drummer attends so closely to the sonic character produced by the drum set. This breadth of musicianship distinguishes him among jazz drummers and may stem from his early training as a pianist.

Beginning at age four, DeJohnette pursued classical piano studies; as a teenager he gravitated toward blues, pop, and jazz, with Ahmad Jamal serving as an initial model. By his late teens he had taken up drums, which quickly supplanted piano as his principal instrument. The pivotal moment in his early career arrived in the first half of the 1960s when he was invited to perform with John Coltrane. During the middle of that decade he joined the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Relocating to New York in 1966, he renewed his association with Coltrane and also collaborated with Jackie McLean. His profile rose sharply after joining the popular Charles Lloyd Quartet, where he remained from 1966 through 1968.

DeJohnette’s debut recording as a leader, The DeJohnette Complex, appeared in 1968. The following year he succeeded Tony Williams in Miles Davis’s ensemble and contributed to the trumpeter’s landmark jazz-rock album Bitches Brew. After departing Davis’s group in 1972, he increased his activity as a bandleader. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he functioned as a frequent collaborator for ECM, appearing both as leader and sideman alongside such label stalwarts as Jan Garbarek, Kenny Wheeler, and Pat Metheny.

His earliest ensemble, Compost, was followed by the more durable Directions and Special Edition. The stylistically hybrid, avant-garde fusion project Directions originally included bassist Mike Richmond, guitarist John Abercrombie, and saxophonist Alex Foster; in its later New Directions configuration, bassist Eddie Gomez replaced Richmond and trumpeter Lester Bowie replaced Foster. Under both names the group recorded several ECM albums from the mid-1970s onward. Starting in 1979 DeJohnette also directed Special Edition, a more conventionally swinging quartet that spotlighted saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe.

For a period the two units operated concurrently, yet Special Edition ultimately became DeJohnette’s preferred vehicle for live performance. Initially an acoustic free-jazz group that applied the drummer’s unconventional perspective to standard repertoire, the band later shifted toward a more overtly commercial orientation; the addition of electric guitars and keyboards led DeJohnette to explore loud, backbeat-driven instrumental music that nevertheless retained considerable sophistication. Even so, his fusion projects stood apart from most comparable efforts. Although his skill at generating grooves is formidable, listeners often missed the nuanced timbral detail of his acoustic playing. That dimension surfaced effectively in his work with Keith Jarrett’s Standards trio and in periodic reunions with Abercrombie and Dave Holland under the Gateway trio name.

DeJohnette sustained an active career, issuing Peace Time on Kindred Rhythm in 2007. In 2009 he released the trio album Music We Are with pianist Danilo Pérez and bassist John Patitucci. Sound Travels, an eclectic 2012 collection, highlighted collaborations with Bruce Hornsby, Esperanza Spalding, Ambrose Akinmusire, and additional guests.

Invited by the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2013 to curate a program, DeJohnette assembled former classmates Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill—both of whom had studied with him at Wilson Junior College on Chicago’s South Side—along with Muhal Richard Abrams, whose Experimental Band the three had previously joined as AACM members. Augmented by bassist and cellist Larry Gray, the quintet performed at the festival and on subsequent dates in varying formations; the historic concert was documented by ECM on the 2015 release Made in Chicago.

DeJohnette next formed a trio with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and electric bassist/electronicist Matthew Garrison, son of the classic John Coltrane Quartet bassist Jimmy Garrison. Although the three had played together informally for years, the ensemble’s ECM debut, In Movement, appeared only in 2016, marking the first appearance on the label for both Garrison and Ravi Coltrane.

Long resident in New York’s Hudson Valley, DeJohnette has frequently drawn inspiration from his surroundings. In 2017 he convened guitarist John Scofield, keyboardist John Medeski, and bassist Larry Grenadier—all likewise based in or near the Hudson Valley—to record Hudson, an album reflecting the region’s musical character. Alongside original compositions the quartet interpreted works associated with the area by Bob Dylan, the Band, Joni Mitchell, and Jimi Hendrix. Issued for DeJohnette’s 75th birthday, the recording was followed by a tour. Early the next year, Keith Jarrett’s long-running Standards trio with the drummer and bassist Gary Peacock issued After the Fall, a double-disc live set captured in November 1998 that documented the pianist’s return to performing after a two-year absence.