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The interview with Jack DeJohnette didn’t begin smoothly. It was the summer of 2000, as DeJohnette was visiting London for a series of concerts with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Labeling him in my initial question as a “drummer” felt appropriate, but DeJohnette resisted being categorized and responded sharply: “I’m a complete musician.” Shortly after, attending a performance at the Royal Festival Hall observing 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 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 explained, “is linked to the very essence of being. 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 “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 “your approach becomes melodic on the kit,” he noted. The sounds inside DeJohnette’s head could never be contained 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, before his death at the age of 83.

An Unmatched Energy in Artistic Performance

Numerous percussionists adjust their equipment to a custom setup, 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 marvel at apparently superhuman drive as he sustained a powerful funk/rock beat for 20 minutes. DeJohnette, who additionally performed on Davis’s epoch-defining Bitches Brew, had by 1970 become the trumpeter’s drummer of choice in a meeting of mighty musical minds. His drums anchored the track firmly and gave Davis, and later saxophonist Wayne Shorter, all the space they needed to explore, while DeJohnette filled his performance with complex percussive interjections – maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the other musicians.

Pioneering Beginnings and Artistic Independence

His own 1968 debut album, The DeJohnette Complex, immediately proposed that his was a style intimately connected with a jazz scene rapidly diversifying around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The compositions DeJohnette created for his album were melodically intricate and embodied a fusion vibe while also sometimes drifting into free-form improvisation. He featured himself playing a wind instrument, and his rustic tune creations took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex demonstrated that DeJohnette’s aesthetic was indeed delightfully complex and, following his departure from Davis’s group, he joined ECM Records. In 1976 he released 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 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 highly regarded work too. Surman and DeJohnette played their usual instruments while also doubling on keyboards and synthesisers, 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 reflecting the primal energy unleashed by the music. Hearing that work around the time of its release, it recalled an previous experience with DeJohnette, when I heard his group Special Edition play in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance took its time to establish its space, as atmospheric, gradual developments slowly condensed towards percussive climaxes.

Philosophical Insights on Music and Life

Talking to DeJohnette much later, these ideas of stress-testing form and scale made more sense. He told me how he loved playing those rhythmic patterns with Davis because “I could sit in grooves and allow them to envelop me,” but also mentioned his aim to create broader auditory landscapes, always unrestricted and therefore healthy for the brain. 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.”

No question that DeJohnette viewed his art 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.”