Remembering Jack DeJohnette

Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer

I saw Jack DeJohnette perform twice, once with Special Edition at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 1981, and, much more recently, as part of the charming Hudson at St. Louis’s Sheldon Concert Hall in 2017. For the former, I was part of a Grant Park crowd thinned out by rain and the end of the weekend and festival. For the latter, I was three rows away at eye level with the maestro, periodically visible between those glorious cymbals. That show was a chance to see a giant of the music with a faultless band (John Scofield, John Medeski, and Larry Grenadier). I would have been happy with whatever they chose to play, but they indulged me and themselves with, well, Woodstock music—Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and The Band. They were fine tunes I was glad to hear, but this wasn’t Gershwin, Porter, and Rogers nor Strayhorn or Golson. It really didn’t matter as, above all, it was a chance to see the decades of technique DeJohnette accumulated—the nuanced fills and embellishments across the kit, the incessant pulse, and, my favorite part of his playing, his shimmering cymbal work. The original “Tony Then Jack” told the important story of the evolution of the Davis band when DeJohnette took over for Tony Williams.

I had been listening for decades, almost from the start, as he was part of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew which was the first jazz album I bought. It was released in 1970, but Fritz drove both of us on that record buying trip, so it was after May 1971. DeJohnette’s Miles era included Live-Evil and Live at Fillmore East which, despite the presence of Keith Jarrett, were intense even as I listened dutifully. I listened even less his work with Charles Lloyd and Jarrett despite those albums having also been marketed to young rock fans like me. What did rivet me was the glorious Live at Montreux with Bill Evans and Eddie Gomez. This new rhythm section couldn’t be THE trio of Evans with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, but they pushed the pianist in interesting ways. DeJohnette in particular added a particularly fresh element, the youthful energy from Lloyd that Miles would harness, but married to great taste and maturity, captured for me by those cymbals.

As I returned to serious jazz listening 15 years ago, DeJohnette’s work in the Standards Trio with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock was a further distillation of their collective wisdom on their instruments and as servants to the music.  DeJohnette’s mere presence was, as usual, a mark of quality. When I was first into jazz, he was all over the albums I would buy; he was virtually the house drummer for Manfred Eicher on ECM. I didn’t have to collect Jack DeJohnette albums consciously; I just bought records that interested me and there he was.

His own projects were of particular interest. I was the Chicago friend who shared New Directions in Europe with Fritz when he visited me, an occasion he recalls in his blog post memorial to DeJohnette. We were captivated by how brilliantly Lester Bowie, John Abercrombie, and Eddie Gomez jelled under his leadership. They were each their own distinctive selves and yet as distinctively contributors to their leader’s vision as generations of Jazz Messengers were to Art Blakey’s.  

My particular favorite though was Special Edition. The first album had David Murray and Arthur Blythe, particularly significant to my listening at the time, bringing their complementary, yet contrary horns together on the front line for two Coltrane tunes and three DeJohnette originals, one evoking Eric Dolphy. Tin Can Alley was in even heavier rotation. I knew Chico Freeman from the Chicago scene, though John Purcell was new to me. Together they gave their leader an even broader palette with flute, bass clarinet, and baritone saxophone to go with the tenor and alto saxophones that were, respectively, their primary instruments. Peter Warren added cello as well as his usual bass. The most striking doubling was DeJohnette himself on piano. “Pastel Rhapsody” remains to this day a composition I savor.  It has a chamber-music quality that captivates me with each of the different reeds adding their colors. At some point in the recording DeJohnette double tracks the drums, but throughout it is his piano that defines the tune.

At Grant Park 44 years ago, they must have played most of Tin Can Alley and parts of the Blythe/Murray album. It is lost to the proverbial mists, or even dusk and damp, of time, but still vivid is “Pastel Rhapsody” when DeJohnette’s piano work became clearly so central, not just to the tune but to his musical vision. Piano was his first instrument and, I’ve read, he once got a gig with Herbie Hancock playing bass for a night. He played more than composer’s piano and, like Charles Mingus, recorded very capable solo piano albums. It struck me then that he was such a musical drummer because of that grounding. All drummers are musical—fans said that they could step out during a Max Roach solo and return knowing exactly where he was in the tune by the way he kept its structure and even hints of the melody. No, what I mean is that, either as an accompanist but particularly as a leader, he took responsibility for the whole tune, putting his playing in its singular service.

That’s what Jack DeJohnette gave us. The giver is gone but the gift remains.