DeJohnette, Jack
Jack DeJohnette
Pianist, percussionist
Pointing out the far-reaching talents of Jack DeJohnette, Down Beat’s Bill Milkowski labeled the jazz musician “swinging and brilliant no matter what context he’s in.” The versatile artist has been a drummer, keyboardist, pianist, composer, and producer involved in numerous jazz projects. His work with John Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, John Abercrombie, Keith Jarrett, New Directions, and Special Edition underscores the fact that he is one of the most coveted drummers of the modern jazz era.
Jack DeJohnette was born August 9, 1942, in Chicago to Jack and Eva Jeanette DeJohnette. Although his parents enjoyed music, DeJohnette was influenced at an early age by his uncle, Roy Woods, to take a particular interest in jazz. A jazz disc jockey who later became vice-president of the Black Network of Broadcasters, Woods owned a collection of 78s that included recordings by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday; he encouraged DeJohnette to play the albums on an old Victrola. “I couldn’t even read—I was about three or four at the time,” DeJohnette recalled to Chip Stern in Down Beat, “but I could tell what record I wanted to hear by the label, and the distance from the end of the record to the label.”
DeJohnette was four when his mother and grandmother decided he should study piano with Antoinette Rich, the leader of an all-female symphony orchestra in Chicago. Rich was struck by the youngster’s perfect pitch, which she discovered when DeJohnette performed on the kazoo. Becoming proficient on the instrument at an early age, DeJohnette was only five years old when he played the kazoo on stage with T-Bone Walker at a Chicago jazz club called the Persian. The kazoo, however, remained secondary to his classical training, which was continued under his next teacher, Viola Burns. Though he studied the piano for ten years, DeJohnette lost interest in early adolescence.
Great Moments in Chicago
DeJohnette returned to the piano as a high schooler, when he heard Fats Domino play his classic song, “Blueberry Hill.” Though he began taking drum lessons at the age of 13 in order to join the high school band, he continued to pound out 1950s hits on the piano at home. From 1957 to 1965, he exhibited his talents as a pianist in various jazz bands around Chicago. “At that time you didn’t have to come to New York City because there was so much music in Chicago,” DeJohnette recalled to Stern. “There used to be jams going on all the time.… There were so many great musicians in Chicago—the scene was really happening.”
For the Record…
Born August 9, 1942, in Chicago, IL; son of Jack and Eva Jeanette (Wood) DeJohnette; first wife, Deatra; married second wife, Lydia Ann Herman, August 4, 1968; children: Farah, Minya, and Erica. Education: Attended Wilson Junior College, Chicago, IL, 1959-60.
Pianist, drummer, and composer. Began playing piano at age four and drums at age 13. Played at various clubs in Chicago, IL, 1957-65; moved to New York City in 1966; played with numerous musicians as a sideman and leader, including John Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, John Abercrombie, Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, New Directions, and Special Edition; writer.
Awards: Grand Prix du Disque, Paris, 1978; named top drummer in numerous Down Beat readers polls; named Most Influential Musician on His Instrument for the 1970s by Musician, 1980; NEA fellow, 1978; grant from CAPS composers, 1980.
Addresses: Publicist —c/o Warner Bros. Publicity, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10019.
Also during this time, the musician began taking drums seriously, and in studying other percussionists, he found his greatest inspiration in Max Roach, whom DeJohnette felt was a complete musician. He also took courses at the American Conservatory of Music, played avant-garde gigs, performed with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) Big Band, and discovered his social consciousness when he was prohibited from fraternizing with the white people in the piano bars where he played on the North Side.
But DeJohnette also had some stellar moments in Chicago. “The biggest thrill I got when I was playing in Chicago was the time Coltrane came to town,” he told Stern. “There were many beacons, but in jazz none shone so brightly as John Coltrane.… His music was a projection of love and peace; it was medicinal; it was a healing force.” DeJohnette became Coltrane’s drummer in 1962, but he felt he had exhausted all of his opportunities in Chicago; he left for New York City in April of 1956 upon the encouragement of his first wife, Deatra.
That same year, DeJohnette joined Charles Lloyd, whose group was the first jazz band to play the Fillmore. A member of one of the most popular jazz groups of the late 1960s, DeJohnette stayed with Lloyd until 1969, when he recorded Bitches Brew with Miles Davis. He joined Davis in 1970, and DeJohnette’s reputation burgeoned as one of the most highly respected of world-class drummers with the recording Live-Evil.
Jazz With a Pop Appeal
After his stint with Davis, which ended in 1971, DeJohnette began a series of groups made up of like-minded musicians. “I call what I do ‘multidirectional music,’” he explained to Jeff Levenson in Down Beat, noting the eclectic approach that he evolved, which had a pop appeal but still qualified as good jazz. Although the group Compost was formed in 1972 with some friends, DeJohnette confessed to Howard Mandel in Down Beat that the music was too cerebral and experimental to be commercially successful.
The musician’s next efforts fared better. During the late 1970s to the early 1980s, he formed Directions with Alex Foster, Mike Richards, and John Abercrombie, and the New Directions, featuring Lester Bowie, Eddie Gomez, and Abercrombie. In addition, he made recordings under the ECM label as a leader, beginning in 1976. With the formation of the ensemble Special Edition and the subsequent release of Album Album in 1985, DeJohnette found his greatest response. “Of course,” he told Mandel, “[Saxophonist] Arthur Blythe was hitting then, and David Murray was hitting—they were both in the band—and the World Saxophone Quartet was hitting, and there was a play called Zoot Suit on Broadway, and my tune “Zoot Suite” on the record—which is also on Album Album.… The timing of that first record was just right.”
Over the years, the make-up of Special Edition varied, but the prestige of the group, led by the man chosen top drummer in seven consecutive Down Beat readers polls, was fixed with the albums Irresistible Forces, Audio Visualscapes, and 1992’s Earth Walk. “Special Edition hones the venerable dialectic of group over individual, sounding grand and expansive, but still lean and mean,” declared critic Fred Bouchard in Down Beat. People contributor Eric Levin stated that DeJohnette and Special Edition deliver “thrilling virtuosity and freshness, a tempestuous ride across the frontiers of jazzrock fusion, where the terrain is by turns slippery and sinister, eerily beautiful, sparkling and convoluted.”
Penned The Art of Inspiration
The success of the Special Edition albums prompted DeJohnette to keep the format of assembling highly talented musicians, and in 1990 he recorded Parallel Realities, a decision that was not without some risk. Josef Woodard expounded in a Down Beat review that “all-star outings can be thrilling blowing sessions. They can also be stillborn by virtue of crossed signals, battling humility (or hubris), or a confused sense of direction. The mating of DeJohnette, [Pat] Metheny, and [Herbie] Hancock turns out to be something altogether different, a highly original project in which the elements come together in a marvel of empathy.”
In spite of his many musical projects, DeJohnette found time to author The Art of Improvisation in 1981. The multifaceted, award-winning musician has made a home near Woodstock, New York, with his second wife Lydia Ann Herman—whom he married August 4, 1968—and his daughters, Farah, Minya, and Erica. He has found additional creative inspiration in this wooded setting to make his music both aesthetically pleasing and consciousness-raising.
“That’s what’s so fascinating about jazz,” he remarked to Levenson. “It’s that you have individualism within the collective context, but it works democratically. We’ve got to get to the point where money is not the issue, but substance is. Everything now is based on dollars, not on compassion and caring. That’s what we really need. We’ve got to get decent housing for people, get homeless people off the streets.… The demise of certain things always opens the doors to other things. There are alternatives coming. It’s not as bleak as it seems. People want to hold onto things, to musical things, to bebop, to the mainstream, to whatever. We have to be able to be renewed. We have to keep renewing ourselves. When stuff gets too safe and comfortable, that’s when it falls apart. We ought to come up with alternative ways of thinking.”
Selected discography
The Jack DeJohnette Complex, Milestone, 1968.
Complex, Milestone.
Have You Heard?, Milestone, 1970.
Cosmic Chicken, Prestige, 1974.
Sorcery, Prestige, 1974.
Untitled, ECM, 1976.
Pictures, ECM, 1976.
New Rags, ECM, 1977.
New Directions, ECM, 1978.
New Directions in Europe, ECM, 1979.
Special Edition, ECM, 1980.
Tin Can Alley, ECM, 1980.
Inflation Blues, ECM, 1982.
The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album, 1985.
Album Album, ECM, 1985.
Irresistible Forces, MCA/Impulse, 1987.
Audio Visualscapes, MCA/Impulse.
Parallel Realities, MCA, 1990.
With Keith Jarrett
Changes, ECM.
Standards Vol. 2, ECM.
Standards Vol. 1, ECM.
Rita and Daitya, ECM.
With Charles Lloyd
Soundtrack, Atlantic.
Journey Within, Atlantic.
In the Soviet Union, Atlantic.
In Europe, Atlantic.
Flowering of the Original Quartet, Atlantic.
Love In, Atlantic.
Dream Weaver, Atlantic.
Best Of, Atlantic.
Forest Flower, Atlantic.
With John Abercrombie
Timeless, ECM.
Gateway One, ECM.
Gateway Two, ECM.
Night, ECM.
With Miles Davis
Live-Evil, Columbia, 1970.
Live at the Fillmore, Columbia, 1970.
Bitches Brew, Columbia, 1970.
In a Silent Way, Columbia.
Other
(With Pat Metheny/Ornette Coleman) Song X, Geffen.
(With Metheny) 80/81, ECM.
(With Dave Holland) Triplicate, ECM.
(With Lester Bowie) Zebra, MCA, 1989.
(With Eliane Elias) Cross Currents, Denon.
(With Tommy Smith) Step by Step, Blue Note.
(With Ralph Towner) Batik, ECM.
(With Collin Walcott) Cloud Dance, ECM.
(With George Adams) Sound Suggestions, ECM.
(With JoAnne Brackeen) Keyed In, Columbia.
(With Brackeen) Ancient Dynasty, Columbia.
(With McCoy Tyner) Supertrios, Milestone.
(With Miroslav Vitous) Mountain in the Clouds, Atlantic.
(With Terje Rypdal and Vitous) To Be Continued, ECM.
(With Rypdal and Vitous) Trio, ECM.
(With Jan Garbarek) Places, ECM.
(With Kenny Wheeler) GNU High, ECM.
(With Wheeler) Deer Wan, ECM.
(With Gary Peacock) Tales of Another, ECM.
(With Richie Beirach) ELM, ECM.
(With Bill Evans) At the Montreux Jazz Festival, Verve.
(With Sonny Rollins) Reel Life, Milestone.
(With Special Edition), Earth Walk, Blue Note, 1992.
Sources
Audio, December 1989; May 1990.
Down Beat, November 2, 1978; May 1981; August 1987; September 1987; February 1988; March 1988; November 1988; January 1989; December 1989; May 1990; March 1992.
High Fidelity, March 1988.
People, October 31, 1988.
Rolling Stone, September 18, 1980.
Stereo Review, August 1987; February 1989; September 1989; December 1989.
Variety, June 17, 1987.
—Marjorie Burgess
Dejohnette, Jack
JACK DEJOHNETTE
Born: Chicago, Illinois, 9 August 1942
Genre: Jazz
Best-selling album since 1990: Parallel Realities (1998)
Jack DeJohnette is among the most supple, powerful, broadly experienced, and subtle jazz drummers of the past three decades. He is an imaginative bandleader and an anchor for improvisers such as the pianist Keith Jarrett, whom he met when they were both in the Charles Lloyd Quartet from 1966 to 1968 and in whose long-running trio he remains a key member.
DeJohnette was encouraged in his childhood musical interests by his uncle, Roy L. Wood Sr., a popular jazz DJ who later became vice president of the National Network of Black Broadcasters. DeJohnette began piano lessons at age four. He studied classical music for ten years but switched to jazz as a teenager, playing in blues and rock and roll bands while falling under the influence of the pianist Ahmad Jamal. He started playing drums at age eighteen and met musicians with avant-garde interests who later formed the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an artists' collective. He also sat in with John Coltrane in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1966.
DeJohnette found more work in New York as a drummer than as a pianist, employed by vocalist Abbey Lincoln, saxophonists Jackie McLean and Charles Lloyd, and pianist Bill Evans, with whom he toured Great Britain. He also worked with saxophonist Stan Getz, and he replaced drummer Tony Williams in Miles Davis's band in 1969, in time to record Davis's groundbreaking double album Bitches Brew, which set the direction for jazz-rock-fusion efforts to come. In Davis's group he played with pianists Jarrett and Herbie Hancock, and bassist Dave Holland. He recorded The DeJohnette Complex (1969) with his drum mentor Roy Haynes and formed Compost, a jazz-rock band in which he played keyboards with Don Alias as a drummer/percussionist. After considerable freelancing, including the recording of Ruta and Daitya (1973), his first album with Keith Jarrett on the ECM label, DeJohnette established the trio Gateway in 1976 with Holland and guitarist John Abercrombie.
DeJohnette has often used his bands—including Directions, formed in 1976, New Directions (1978–1979), and Special Edition—as incubators for new talents, collaborating with trumpeter Lester Bowie; saxophonists David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Gary Thomas, and Greg Osby; and pianists John Hicks and Michael Cain, among others. DeJohnette has been lauded for his compositions for these bands, including lyrical melodies such as "Silver Hollow," "Where or Wayne," "New Orleans Strut," and "Zoot Suite."
DeJohnette has recorded with so many different leaders of ECM sessions that he is considered the label's house drummer; he has worked constantly in Keith Jarrett's trio (with the bassist Gary Peacock) since 1985. He recorded The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album (1985), which was well received but has not generated a sequel. He toured with Hancock, Holland, and Pat Metheny in 1990 (the group plans to re-form in 2004) and singer Betty Carter (resulting in the live album Feed the Fire [1993]), and he helped introduce Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba to audiences in the United States (The Blessing [1991]).
Since 1990 DeJohnette has focused on earth studies, ecology, and cultural preservation with his album Music for the Fifth World (1992), featuring guitarists Vernon Reid and John Scofield and Native American singers; his meditative releases Dancing with Nature Spirits (1995) and Oneness (1996); his duets with British reeds virtuoso John Surman in Invisible Nature (2002); and participation in Surman's composition for reeds, strings, pianos, and drums, Free and Equal (2003). In the summer of 2003 DeJohnette led ensembles in a partial career retrospective over four nights at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
DeJohnette has never won a Grammy Award, but he has been honored innumerable times in Down Beat magazine polls, and he is revered by Japanese audiences. Heir to Roy Haynes, Max Roach, and Elvin Jones, DeJohnette is the preeminent living jazz drummer of his generation.
SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:
The DeJohnette Complex (Milestone, 1969); Ruta and Daitya (ECM, 1973); Cosmic Chicken (Prestige, 1975); New Directions (ECM, 1978); Tin Can Alley (ECM, 1980); Album, Album (ECM, 1984); The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album (Landmark, 1985); Earthwalk (Blue Note, 1991); Music for the Fifth World (Manhattan, 1992); Extra Special Edition (Blue Note, 1994); Dancing with Nature Spirits (ECM, 1995); Oneness (ECM, 1996); Parallel Realities (Universal/GRP, 1998); Invisible Nature (ECM, 2002); Free and Equal (ECM, 2003).
WEBSITE:
howard mandel
Dejohnette, Jack
Dejohnette, Jack
Dejohnette, Jack , jazz drummer, pianist, composer, band leader; b. Chicago, III, Aug. 9,1942. He is a unique, powerful, and brilliant drummer, one of the most inspiring since the mid-1960s; he is also a superb pianist and composer. He was a classical piano student for over a decade and an American Music Cons, graduate, but it was the drums that became his instrument of choice. His background in R&B and free jazz got him regular work in Chicago (where he played alongside Rashied Ali in Coltrane’s group at least once) before he moved to N.Y. in 1966. He soon worked with John Patton, Jackie McLean, Abbey Lincoln, and Betty Carter. He became well-known touring with Charles Lloyd (1966–69). He toured with Bill Evans, and worked with Joe Henderson. He played on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew in 1969 and worked with Davis again in 1970–71. He led the group Complex, which made an album on CBS in 1969. He has recorded for ECM as a leader since 1976; from 1979 worked with varying personnel as Jack Dejohnette’s Special Edition. His own groups have featured Arthur Blythe, John Purcell, Greg Osby, Benny Maupin. Since the early 1980s, he has been based in Woodstock, N.Y., where he can often be seen performing in informal settings. He has continued to be associated with his Lloyd bandmate Keith Jarrett, and since 1983 has toured regularly in a trio with Jarrett and Gary Peacock, playing standards.
Writings
The Jack Dejohnette Collection (14 contemporary jazz compositions, melodies, harmonies, bass lines, vamps, and drum parts: “Ahmad the Terrible,” “Ebony,” “Herbie’s Hand Cocked,” “Indigo Dreamscapes,” “Irresistible Forces,” “Jack In,” “Lydia,” “Milton,” “Monk’s Plumb,” “One for Eric,” “Oneness,” “Silver Hollow,” “Where Or Wayne,” “Zoot Suite”; Milwaukee, Wise., 1997); Jack Dejohnette and Charlie Perry, The Art of Modern Jazz Drumming (Merrick, N.Y., 1981).
Discography
De Johnette Complex (1968); Have You Heard? (1970); Compost (1972); Sorcery (1974); Cosmic Chicken (1975); Gate Way (1975); Ruta and Daitya (1975); WORKS (1975); Directions (1976); Pictures (1976); New Rags (1977); Tales of Another (1977); New Directions (1978); Special Edition (1979); New Directions in Europe (1979); Tin Can Alley (1980); Inflation Blues (1982); Album, Album (1984); Jack Dejohnette Piano Album (1985); Zebra (1985); Irresistible Force (1987); Audio-Visualscapes (1988); Parallel Realities (1990); Earthwalk (1991); Music for the Fifth World (1992); Extra Special Edition (1994); Dancing with Nature Spirits (1995); Oneness (1997).
—Lewis Porter