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Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Jack DeJohnette boasted a musical resume that was as long as it was fearsome.
(Photo: Steven Sussman)Jack DeJohnette, a bold and resourceful drummer and NEA Jazz Master who forged a unique vocabulary on the kit over his 60-year career, died Oct. 26 at a hospital in Kingston, New York. He was 83.
His death was confirmed by his wife and manager, the former Lydia Herman, who said that DeJohnette had passed surrounded by family and close friends. The cause of death was congestive heart failure.
DeJohnette was one of the most distinctive drumming stylists of the post-bop era. He was a propulsive and melodic player, but also highly inventive with timbre and texture by dint of spreading his rhythms across the kit — often using unexpected pieces of the kit for ostinatos and accents. The sound was often explosive, with his snare taking on an instantly recognizable snap.
But DeJohnette was not satisfied to rest on these laurels, spending the entirety of his career searching for new ways to evolve what he called a “multidirectional” approach. At the same time, this stylistic evolution was not entirely a conscious one. “When I play, I go into an altered state, a different headspace,” he told Modern Drummer. “I plug into my higher self, into the cosmic library of ideas.”
Boasting a resume as long as it is fearsome, DeJohnette may be best known for his stint with Miles Davis, with whom he played in the first part of the trumpeter’s jazz fusion period (1969–’72), and his much longer tenure in pianist Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio from 1983 to 2018. However, in addition to his prolific work as a sideman, DeJohnette was a major and innovative bandleader in his own right. In particular, DeJohnette became associated with ECM Records, with whom he recorded frequently for over four decades and pioneered what was sometimes regarded as the “ECM sound.”
He was also an accomplished pianist, having trained on that instrument as a child, and would often demonstrate that ability on record or in concert.
Jack DeJohnette Jr. was born Aug. 9, 1942, in Chicago to Jack DeJohnette Sr., a laborer, and Jeanette Wood DeJohnette. However, he was largely raised by his grandmother, Rosalie Ann Wood, in the Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. He attended Frances E. Willard Grammar School, then Chicago Vocational School, from which he graduated in 1961, then briefly attended Wilson Junior College.
Taking piano lessons from the age of 4, DeJohnette studied the instrument for several years, losing interest for a time and regaining it with the advent of Fats Domino and rock ’n’ roll. While gigging in local bands as a teenager, however, he taught himself to play along to the radio on the kit of his band’s drummer. “It took me about a week just to get my independence on the drums,” he recalled in a 2011 Smithsonian oral history. “It somehow came natural to me.” He gained enough of a reputation to start working around Chicago as a drummer — including rehearsals and gigs with Sun Ra — and to go on the road with saxophonist Eddie Harris. He was also a member of the Experimental Band, the early ’60s rehearsal ensemble led by pianist Richard Abrams that became the seed of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Making what he thought was a weekend trip to New York in 1965, DeJohnette went to Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem and was hired on the spot by organist John Patton to play drums. He took it as a sign, relocating permanently both to New York and to the drummer’s chair. He met and quickly befriended trumpeter Charles Tolliver, who recommended him to alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. It was with McLean that DeJohnette made his first recording, the September 1965 session Jacknife (Blue Note).
DeJohnette then became the drummer for saxophonist Charles Lloyd, a star player who provided the drummer with his breakout opportunity. A greater one, however, came in 1969, when trumpeter Miles Davis encountered DeJohnette’s playing behind saxophonist Stan Getz. He hired both DeJohnette and Getz’s pianist, Chick Corea, first for his live working band (often called “The Lost Quintet” because they made no official recordings), then for his in-studio electric experiments. DeJohnette played on what became the seminal Bitches Brew album, remaining with Davis until 1972 and playing on albums such as Jack Johnson, Live-Evil and On The Corner.
DeJohnette had first recorded as a leader in 1968 at the head of a sextet, The DeJohnette Complex; he continued making recordings throughout the 1970s, including with the bands Compost, Directions and New Directions, while also freelancing prolifically. His first major success under his own name, however, was with 1979’s Special Edition, an envelope-pushing album with bassist Peter Warren and saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe.
Special Edition became DeJohnette’s primary vehicle as a bandleader for the next few decades — although he was the only constant in its lineup — and a model for the kind of blend of progressivism and hard groove that would characterize DeJohnette’s own music. In later years, these projects included a trio with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and bassist Matthew Garrison; Hudson, a quartet with guitarist John Scofield, pianist John Medeski and bassist Larry Grenadier; and collaborations with pianist George Colligan, trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Franco Ambrosetti and guitarist Joel Harrison. In 2018 he won a Grammy Award for Skyline, a trio album with pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba and bassist Ron Carter.
In the December 2025 issue of DownBeat, DeJohnette will be inducted as the 176th member of the DownBeat Hall of Fame. The readers honored him in the 90th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll. That issue was sent to the printer just prior to DeJohnette’s passing, but he was able to sit for what was his last interview. The issue will be available the first week of November.
In addition to his wife, Lydia, DeJohnette is survived by two daughters, Farah and Minya Erica DeJohnette. DB
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