ABSTRACT
Jack DeJohnette, born August 9, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, was introduced to jazz through his uncle who was a disc jockey on a local jazz radio station. He began performing as the lead singer in a doo-wop before taking a more serious interest in jazz piano by high school. DeJohnette found that he had a natural tendency toward the drums when he began practicing a set of drums a friend had left at his house. After achieving an equal ability on both piano and drum set, it was saxophonist Eddie Harris who told him, “If you decide to stay with drums as your main voice, you will go somewhere.” DeJohnette was mentored early on by saxophonist Pat Patrick and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music. He first met John Coltrane when he had the opportunity to sit in with his quartet at a local club on Chicago’s South Side. “I realized why Elvin [Jones] had to play so ferociously. Whatever you threw at John, he just soaked up all the energy.” Making the decision to move to New York City in 1964, DeJohnette quickly became part of the jazz scene, working with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Charles Lloyd, Michael Brecker, and John Scofield, to name a few. In 1968, DeJohnette joined Miles Davis’s group, recording the groundbreaking fusion album Bitches Brew, and continued to work with Davis for the next three years. By the mid ’70s, he began developing a series of groups and projects as a leader and worked extensively with pianist Keith Jarrett as part of a longstanding trio along with bassist Gary Peacock that would continue for over thirty years.
