Jack DeJohnette, named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2015, has established an unchallenged reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre. In a career spanning five decades, he has collaborated with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Joe Henderson, Freddy Hubbard, Betty Carter and many more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that moves effortlessly between hard bop, R&B, world music and avant-garde.
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Born in Chicago in 1942, DeJohnette grew up in a family where music was highly valued. He took up classical piano at the age of four, and later studied it at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He added the drums to his repertoire when he joined his high school concert band aged 14. “As a child, I listened to all kinds of music and I never put them into categories,” he recalls. “I had formal lessons on piano and listened to opera, country and western music, rhythm and blues, swing, jazz, whatever. To me, it was all music and all great. I’ve kept that integrated feeling about music, all types of music, and just carried it with me. I’ve maintained that belief and feeling.”
DeJohnette has recorded prolifically for ECM since 1971. His first disc for the label was Ruta & Daitya, a duet with Keith Jarrett. Numerous subsequent recordings with Jarrett include many albums with the popular ‘Standards Trio’ completed by Gary Peacock; highlights include the six-CD set At The Blue Note. DeJohnette has led a series of distinguished groups of his own at ECM beginning with Directions, followed by New Directions and Special Edition. Special Edition’s recordings, with line-ups including David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, John Purcell, Howard Johnson and Baikida Carroll, were reprised in ECM’s Old & New Masters box-set series in 2012 to great critical acclaim. DeJohnette also co-led the Gateway trio with John Abercrombie and Dave Holland (albums Gateway, Gateway 2, Homecoming, In The Moment) and has recorded with frequent musical partner John Surman (The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon, Invisible Nature, Free And Equal).
DeJohnette’s unique solo album Pictures stands as a classic among early ECM recordings. He has also appeared as drummer on numerous ECM sessions, including albums by Kenny Wheeler, Collin Walcott, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, George Adams, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Gary Peacock, Bill Connors, Ralph Towner and Mick Goodrick.
With Made in Chicago, an exhilarating live album recorded at the 2013 Chicago Jazz Festival, Jack DeJohnette celebrated a reunion with old friends Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams and Henry Threadgill. Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph called it “moving” and “ecstatic”, adding: “The range of expression these players draw from their instruments is astonishing.”
The 2016 release In Movement introduced Jack DeJohnette’s adventurous new trio. Fifty years ago, as a guest with John Coltrane’s group, DeJohnette played with the fathers of Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison. In a programme full of references to jazz history, the forward movement of this trio is nonetheless unmistakeable. The drummer says of this collaboration: “We are connected at a very high and extremely personal level that I believe comes through in the music.”