Jack DeJohnette Enters the DB Hall of Fame

Interview, From the Magazine, Jack DeJohnette

By Willard Jenkins I Nov. 13, 2025

Jack DeJohnette: a tireless explorer who robustly embodied the jazz aesthetic as a kaleidoscopic drummer, pianist, tireless collaborator and marvelously creative and productive bandleader.
(Photo: Michael Jackson)

Editor’s Note: The print issue of our December issue went to press just two days before Jack DeJohnette passed away on Oct. 26. While sad to lose this great artist and human being, we at DownBeat take solace in the fact that he was here long enough to know that our readers inducted him into the Hall of Fame, an overdue ovation. Below is DownBeat’s feature article based on the interview he sat for after learning that he was being enshrined.

With Jack DeJohnette entering the DownBeat Hall of Fame — his musical odyssey having begun at the piano and evolved to a drumming career that is one of the hallmarks in the evolution of that essential set of instruments — one hears reverberations of that age-old adage, “A band is only as good as its drummer.” When considering DeJohnette’s vast discography and musical affiliations, one cannot help but consider that maxim as gospel truth.

As sideman alone — from the Charles Lloyd Quartet (Forest Flower edition) to the bandstands of Jackie Mclean, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner and decades with Keith Jarrett — Jack DeJohnette has been one of the primary reasons those units were among the greatest in the post-1960s evolution of the music. And that’s even before taking into account his career as a bandleader. Indeed, during a recent video call from his home in New York’s Hudson Valley, DeJohnette began the conversation by pronouncing, “The best gift I have is the ability to listen”: a straightforward aphorism that sums up his remarkable career in a nutshell.

At 83, DeJohnette is dealing with the inevitable pause brought on by physical challenges and recovery, “I’ve had some health challenges that were really serious,” he confirmed. As wife Lydia detailed in a subsequent communication, though not touring, the 2020s have seen the Chicago native performing on occasions in their home community at venues such as the Woodstock Playhouse and the Bardavon/UPAC. Included among those performances were a trio engagement with Dave Holland and Jason Moran, a duet with tap dancer Savion Glover (whom the drummer refers to as “the John Coltrane of tap”), a birthday concert and tribute to Miles Davis with the Santanas (Carlos & Cindy) and providing live percussion to two Sam Shepard plays featuring such noted thespians as nonagenarian Estelle Parsons and David Strathairn — all examples of DeJohnette’s tireless quest for creative collaboration.

His Hall of Fame induction along with his 2012 NEA Jazz Masters fellowship elicit a humble “I’m quite surprised, I feel honored but I didn’t expect it, definitely not.”

Jack DeJohnette first addressed the piano at age 4, the drums arriving by his eighth birthday. So what drove his decision to pursue the drums professionally as his primary instrument? That epiphany arrived early on. “I worked with Eddie Harris a little bit in Chicago,” he said of the saxman who himself occasionally doubled on keyboards, “replacing [drummer] Harold Jones. I was known as a piano player in Chicago and an up-and-coming drummer. Eddie said to me, ‘Listen, man, you play nice piano, but you’re a natural drummer, so if you make the drums your primary instrument, you’ll go far.” Thus it was on for Jack DeJohnette, drummer.

A further epiphany arrived when he inevitably migrated to New York. “When I came to New York in the mid-’60s, and I was up at Minton’s sitting in with Freddie Hubbard. The organist Big John Patton was also there. He said, ‘Hey, man, you got a set of drums? If you do, you’ve got a gig!’ So that’s when I made the decision to make the drums my main voice.” Considering his ’70s Japanese record date Jackeyboard (Trio), with George Ohtsuka on drums and Mitsuaki Furuno on bass, along with his 1985 Piano Album (Landmark), a trio date with bassist Eddie Gomez and that true “drummer’s drummer,” the late Freddie Waits, plus his 2016 Return, a solo piano date for the subscription label Newvelle (currently listed as “sold out”), clearly the pianistic pursuit has never truly exited DeJohnette’s muse. “The piano was always there,” he confirmed. “It helps me to write … one feeds the other, the drums feed the piano, the piano feeds the drums — they’re both percussive instruments,” recalling the Cecil Taylor aphorism that the piano is “88 tuned drums.”

DeJohnette was particularly pleased with his boutique Newvelle release. “The great thing about that was I was a big fan of Fazioli pianos. My manager at the time hooked me up with Fazioli and they had a warehouse on 52nd Street, so I struck up a deal with them where they would provide the piano for me at the recording studio. It was like a piano player’s dream, all those fantastic pianos at the Fazioli warehouse,” the bandleader recounted. “The Fazioli piano is different from other pianos. It’s extremely sensitive to the touch. They sent a French technician over to work on the action and be at the recording session to tune it up between tracks.”

One of the hallmarks of DeJohnette’s career was his 31 years in the Keith Jarrett Trio with Gary Peacock on bass, where the erstwhile drummer reprised a partnership that began as members of the 1960s Charles Lloyd Quartet, a recollection that’s certainly personal for this writer. As a green Kent State college freshman, an indelible memory was traveling to Oberlin College for a 1968 performance of that quartet, rounded out by Cecil McBee on bass. Clearly this was a drummer to file away for future record store forays and the inevitable personnel discoveries that drove those early purchases. Suddenly any record with Jack DeJohnette on drums was worth investigating.

Another DeJohnette touchstone arrived in the early ’60s. Asked which artist he most productively connected with in his earliest experiences, without hesitation DeJohnette declared: “John Coltrane; it happened the first time I heard his music,” citing Trane’s monumental 1961 recording of “My Favorite Things.” “That quartet was a big influence on me,” he said, recounting the impact of Coltrane, McCoy Tyner (with whom DeJohnette went on to make notable recordings), Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. “I played with Coltrane for a week at the Plugged Nickel in Chicago. At the time, the band was Alice [Coltrane], Pharoah Sanders and another drummer of note — Muhammad Ali,” younger brother of late-period Coltrane drummer Rashid Ali. “It was an amazing experience, one of the most challenging gigs I’ve ever had. Playing with Coltrane, keeping up the stamina, the concentration to play as long as John played,” he marveled. “John took long solos but he was always saying something when he spoke on his horn.”

The next major figure DeJohnette encountered arrived in 1969 when he joined an evolving Miles Davis unit. “I first worked with Miles when Tony Williams wasn’t able to work with the band. We played around the Northeast.” Though Williams had established a groundbreaking relationship with the trumpeter, DeJohnette was circumspect about what he brought to Davis’ bandstand.

“I didn’t think I was trying to fit in [Tony’s] shoes. I was trying to come up with a fresh outlook and contribute to the creative ideas I had on the instrument working with Miles.” His previous experiences “playing around New York” with Davis’ “second great quintet” members Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock served him well.

Certainly Aug. 19–21, 1969, marked a turning point in the Miles Davis voyage. Arriving at Columbia Records’ Studio B in New York, DeJohnette joined two other drummers, a young Lenny White and Don Alias, as well as a battery of instrumentation for the recorded moment that resulted in the landmark Bitches Brew album.

This was also a particularly vibrant period when the legendary Slugs’ Saloon operated in a section of the East Village known as Alphabet City, at 242 E. 3rd St. (just past Avenue B). DeJohnette spoke enthusiastically about the period that produced the two-disc 2024 archival recording aptly titled Forces Of Nature Live At Slugs’ (Blue Note), featuring McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson and Henry Grimes with DeJohnette on drums. The subsequent release was co-produced by the intrepid Zev Feldman, DeJohnette and his wife, Lydia DeJohnette. “Lydia and I and our assistant have amassed this amazing archive of music that I’ve recorded over the years, and Forces Of Nature will take you back and push you forward.”

Original credit for the well-received album goes to the relentless jazz club habitué Orville O’Brien, “the guy who recorded Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard in Brooklyn for Night Of The Cookers. He’s the one responsible for Charles Tolliver’s Strata-East stuff. He would go around with a recorder and record musicians on spec. That music with Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner and Henry Grimes would not have seen the light of day if I hadn’t asked Orville for a 7½-inch copy of the tape of that session. Because after that, [O’Brien] died and all the masters are nowhere to be found.”

That mid-1960s period sparked fond memories for DeJohnette. “Things were opening up, FM radio was expanding its playlist and there was experimentation in the air — lots of groups experimenting with different things,” he recalled. “You also had people like Jimi Hendrix, whose music is beyond categorization. One of the things I liked about Jimi was that he left a lot of space for the drums. [Hendrix drummer] Mitch Mitchell’s drum parts had very much a jazz foundation. Unfortunately, I missed any opportunity to play with Hendrix. I wish I had.”

Among DeJohnette’s myriad touchstone bandstand affiliations were two co-op units — Gateway, with fellow Davis alum Dave Holland on bass and guitarist John Abercrombie, and Trio Beyond with guitarist John Scofield and organist Larry Goldings — and the Jack DeJohnette Quartet with pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and bass guitarist Jerome Harris. One particularly rewarding unit he fondly recalled was a band where he stretched a bit beyond drums to incorporate his keyboard sensibilities, which he refers to as his first band.

“Special Edition was really that,” DeJohnette said, recalling his 1979 unit “with [saxophonists] Arthur Blythe and David Murray, two players that were coming into prominence then, and Peter Warren on bass.

“We all sort of came together with the idea of the songs I wrote. At the time I had something called an electro melodica, a sort of keyboard synthesizer you could hold in your hand. So, I wrote music with the idea of taking four pieces and making it sound much bigger. And we explored a lot of things that got to the point real quick.”

DeJohnette’s melodica also showed up later on his 1984 Special Edition recording Album Album (ECM). The cover pictures Jack, Lydia and their two daughters in the Hudson Valley woods.

“I used it later for special occasions because you could really color the music. That instrument had a nine-octave range. … The sound and the colors, it was nice because Howard Johnson [who contributed tuba and baritone saxophone to the date] wrote a very beautiful version of ‘Monk’s Mood’ and the electro melodica really helped that out a lot. I was able to make it fit right in so you could hardly tell it was an electronic instrument.”

DeJohnette’s extensive discography and touring experience are hallmarked by so many affiliations. There was the 1990 quartet tour with Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Dave Holland; his distinctive duos with Lester Bowie that resulted in Tadayuki Naito/Zebra; his hookup with Gambian kora master Foday Musa Suso, which yielded Music From The Hearts Of The Masters for Jack’s own Golden Beams imprint; and the concert recording The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers with guitarist Bill Frisell on Golden Beams, which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Age Album.

DeJohnette is the 176th inductee into the august DownBeat Hall of Fame, a tireless explorer who robustly embodies the jazz aesthetic as a kaleidoscopic drummer, pianist, tireless collaborator and marvelously creative and productive bandleader. DB

To read DownBeat’s obituary on Jack DeJohnette, CLICK HERE.