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The interview with Jack DeJohnette didn’t begin smoothly. It was the summer of 2000, as DeJohnette was visiting London to perform with Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. Referring to him in my opening inquiry as a “drummer” felt appropriate, 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 observing the Standards Trio, an instance of pure enchantment thrilled me as Jarrett held a long sequence of recurring tones high on the piano and DeJohnette propelled the sound with a complex percussion display as harmonically searching as anything Jarrett had played. Complete musician indeed.

“The idea of improvisation,” DeJohnette explained, “is linked to the very essence of being. We don’t anticipate life unfolding without changing and we never know what lies ahead – why should music be any different?”

He further explained that each part of his drum kit he considered to be 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 sounds inside DeJohnette’s head could never be contained by the conventions of drum technique. He was also a pianist of considerable merit – who released a solo piano album, Return, in 2016 – and each aspect of his musicianship was consistently evident all of the time, until his passing at the age of 83.

A Unique Life-Force in Musical Expression

Many drummers adjust their equipment to a bespoke design, but DeJohnette’s playing radiated a vitality 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 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 meeting of mighty musical minds. His drums rooted What I Say deep in the Earth and allowed Davis, and subsequently saxophonist Wayne Shorter, ample room to explore, while DeJohnette packed his playing with complex percussive interjections – maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the other musicians.

Early Innovations and Artistic Independence

His own 1968 debut album, The DeJohnette Complex, quickly established that his was a style intimately connected with a jazz scene rapidly diversifying around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The pieces DeJohnette created for his album were harmonically ornate and embodied a fusion vibe while also sometimes drifting into 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, after leaving Davis, he was signed to ECM Records. In 1976 he released Untitled, a hectic quintet album, but also Pictures in which he played piano, drums and organ, 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 much-loved classic too. Surman and DeJohnette performed on their primary tools while also doubling on keyboards and synthesisers, merging their personal styles 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 mirroring the elemental force expressed through 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 perform in Leeds during the late 1980s. This performance was in no hurry to establish its space, as atmospheric, gradual developments slowly condensed towards rhythmic blows.

Reflective Thoughts on Art and Existence

Talking to DeJohnette much later, these ideas of stress-testing form and scale became clearer. He explained that 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 generate more wide-angled musical soundscapes, always unrestricted and therefore beneficial for the mind. He complained about the “predictable limits” of pop music with its repetitive patterns. “However, through spontaneous play,” he said, “you’re open to a full range of possibilities. Individuals have the ability for highly inventive yet often only access their potential during crises. But if people were more conscious of our place within nature, stopped abusing the Earth and restored balance, we would have a healthier environment and society.”

Undoubtedly DeJohnette heard his music as reflecting those utopian goals. “Creativity mirrors the soul of that purification, which is transmitted as vitality – and all artists have to draw on that.”