Jack DeJohnette, a prolific and versatile jazz drummer who played with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis, including on Davis' groundbreaking 1970 album “Bitches Brew” that launched jazz-fusion era, died Sunday. He was 83.
His death was announced in an Instagram post saying he died at a hospital in Kingston, New York, near his home in Woodstock. DeJohnette's wife, Lydia, said NPR cause was congestive heart failure.
Being a member of Davis's band in the late '60s and early '70s, a band that also made a difference. Chick Corea, Wayne ShorterWith Keith Jarrett and Billy Cobham among his members, DeJohnette produced psychedelic rock and funk rhythms that put Davis's music in dialogue with the music of artists such as James Brown and Tricky Stone. In addition to “Bitches Brew,” which was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry this year, DeJohnette played on Davis' albums “At Fillmore,” “Live-Evil” and “On the Corner,” the latter of which was panned by critics when it was released but is now considered a milestone. jazz-funk.
DeJohnette has won two Grammy Awards from six categories; in 2012 he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Living Colour's Vernon Reed, who played on DeJohnette's 1992 album Music for the Fifth World, called DeJohnette “GOAT” took to social media Monday and wrote that his “influence and importance to jazz and contemporary improvised music cannot be overstated.”
DeJohnette was born on August 9, 1942 in Chicago. Inspired by an uncle who worked as a jazz radio DJ, he learned to play piano as a child and continued to play with Sun Ra while moving among the forward-thinking artists of the Chicago Association. for the development of creative musicians. He moved to New York in the mid-'60s and joined the Charles Lloyd Quartet, then began collaborating with Evans and then Davis.
“We couldn’t wait to play,” he said about his time in Davis' band in an interview with The Times in 1990. “Miles developed our talents by allowing us to develop naturally, forcing us to play his music and accept the responsibilities that came with discipline and freedom. He learned from us, and we learned from him.”
After leaving Davis' group, DeJohnette continued his collaboration with Jarrett, an influential pianist; they, along with bassist Gary Peacock, formed a long-running group known as the Standards Trio, which focused on material from the Great American Songbook. The drummer also led the bands New Directions and Special Edition, and formed bands with Ravi Coltrane and John Scofield.
In 2016, he released Return, a solo piano album that served as a sequel of sorts to 1985's The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album. According to DeJohnette's survivors include his wife, who also managed his career, and their two daughters, according to the New York Times.
