Jack DeJohnette

Jack DeJohnette (August 9, 1942 – October 26, 2025) was an American jazz drummer, pianist and composer. Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, Alice Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, and John Scofield, DeJohnette was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2007. He won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for six others. The Times said that as a drummer "few could rival his virtuosity or his dynamism". He recorded more than 35 albums under his own name as a band leader.

DeJohnette was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 9, 1942, to Jack DeJohnette (1911–2011), a labourer, and Eva Jeanette DeJohnette (née Wood, 1918–1984). Although of predominantly African-American heritage, DeJohnette stated that he had some Native American ancestry, specifically Seminole and Crow. His parents moved to California to find work and he was raised by his grandmother Rosalie Ann Wood. His childhood was spent in a musical environment and his mother, who returned to Chicago without his father, was said to have composed the jazz standard 'Stormy Monday' and sold it for 50 dollars.

He was found to have perfect pitch and began his musical career as a pianist, studying from the age of four with Antoinette Rich, the leader of an all-female symphony orchestra in Chicago, and first playing professionally when he was 14 years old. At school he sang lead tenor in a doo-wop quartet and played acoustic bass in a dance band. When Jack was 13 he switched to drums, although he still saw piano as his first instrument and played in the clubs of Chicago. He was taught drumming techniques by a local jazz drummer, Bobby Miller Jr, who lived in the same neighborhood, and practised three hours on drums and three hours on piano each day. DeJohnette credited his uncle, Roy Wood Sr. (1915–1995), a Chicago jazz disc jockey and vice president/co-founder of the National Black Network, as his inspiration to play music, introducing him to jazz and taking him to clubs.

DeJohnette played R&B, hard bop, and avant-garde music in Chicago. He led his own groups in addition to playing with Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and other eventual core members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (founded in 1965). DeJohnette also occasionally played drums for the Sun Ra Arkestra, and later in New York. He graduated from Chicago Vocational School in 1961, by which time he was well-known in the city's jazz clubs. One night when John Coltrane and his quintet were playing a residency at a club, the drummer was late back for the final set and DeJohnette sat in for three numbers to cover for him.

In 1966, DeJohnette moved to New York City, where he became a member of the Charles Lloyd Quartet, a band that recognized the influence of rock and roll on jazz. In Lloyd's group DeJohnette first encountered pianist Keith Jarrett, who would work extensively with him throughout his career. He collaborated with Jarrett for almost 40 years.

DeJohnette left the group in early 1968, citing Lloyd's deteriorating "flat" playing as his reason for leaving. Lloyd's band was where DeJohnette received international recognition for the first time, but during his early years in New York he also worked with other groups, including Jackie McLean, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, and Bill Evans. He joined Evans' trio in 1968, the same year the group headlined the Montreux Jazz Festival and produced the album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In November 1968, DeJohnette worked briefly with Stan Getz and his quartet, which led to his first recordings with Miles Davis.

In 1969, DeJohnette left the Evans trio and replaced Tony Williams in Miles Davis's live band. Davis had seen DeJohnette play many times, once during a stint with Evans at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in 1968, where he also first heard bassist Dave Holland, and Davis recognized DeJohnette's ability to combine the driving grooves associated with rock and roll with improvisational aspects associated with jazz.

DeJohnette was the primary drummer on the album Bitches Brew, recorded in 1969 and released the following year. DeJohnette and the other musicians saw the Bitches Brew sessions as unstructured and fragmentary, but also innovative. "As the music was being played, as it was developing, Miles would get new ideas ... He'd do a take, and stop, and then get an idea from what had just gone on before, and elaborate on it ... The recording of Bitches Brew was a stream of creative musical energy. One thing was flowing into the next, and we were stopping and starting all the time." DeJohnette was not the only drummer involved in the project, as Davis had also enlisted Billy Cobham, Don Alias, and Lenny White, but he was considered to be the leader of the rhythm section. He played on the live albums that followed the release of Bitches Brew, assembled from recordings of concerts at the Fillmore East in New York and Fillmore West in San Francisco. These ventures were undertaken at the suggestion of Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records.