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The interview with Jack DeJohnette got off to a rocky start. 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” seemed logical, but DeJohnette didn’t appreciate being categorized and shot back instantly: “I’m a complete musician.” A few days later, sitting in the Royal Festival Hall watching the Standards Trio, an instance of pure enchantment captivated the audience 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. Complete musician indeed.

“The concept of spontaneous creation,” DeJohnette told me, “is linked to the very essence of being. We don’t expect our life to evolve without changing and we never know what lies ahead – 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 “your approach becomes melodic on the kit,” he noted. The auditory ideas 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 was consistently evident all of the time, before his death at the age of 83.

An Unmatched Energy in Musical Expression

Many drummers tune their kit 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 seemingly boundless energy as he sustained a powerful funk/rock beat for 20 minutes. DeJohnette, who also played on Davis’s groundbreaking Bitches Brew, had by 1970 emerged as Davis’s preferred percussionist in a collision of brilliant artists. His drums anchored the track firmly and allowed Davis, and subsequently saxophonist Wayne Shorter, ample room to experiment, while DeJohnette packed his playing with rattling rhythmic asides – 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 voice deeply linked with a jazz scene exploding in a thousand directions around him, while he remained doggedly independent. The pieces DeJohnette created for his album were melodically intricate and embodied a fusion vibe while also sometimes drifting into free-form improvisation. He included his own playing melodica, and his folky melodic inventions took flight.

The DeJohnette Complex revealed that DeJohnette’s aesthetic was truly multifaceted and, after leaving Davis, 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 sparse and bare-bones in contrast to Untitled.

Landmark Collaborations 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, merging their personal styles inside lavishly orchestrated soundscapes of pastoral tones. 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 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 was in no hurry to stake out its terrain, as ambient, slow-burn forms gradually telescoped towards rhythmic blows.

Philosophical Insights on Music and Life

Conversing with DeJohnette much later, these ideas of stress-testing form and scale became clearer. He told me how he enjoyed performing those funk figurations with Davis because “I could immerse in rhythms and allow them to envelop me,” but also mentioned his aim to create broader auditory landscapes, always unrestricted and therefore beneficial for the mind. He cited the “predictable limits” of pop music with its recurring motifs. “With improvisation, though,” he said, “you’re open to a complete spectrum of options. Individuals have the ability for very creative yet often only access their potential during crises. But if people were more aware of our place within nature, stopped abusing the Earth and restored balance, we would have a healthier environment and society.”

No question that DeJohnette heard his music as modelling those idealist aspirations. “Art is the spiritual equivalent of that purification, which is transmitted as vitality – and all artists must tap into that source.”