Style
Jack DeJohnette successfully incorporates elements of free jazz and world music, while maintaining the deep grooves of jazz and R&B drummers. His exceptional experience of time and style, combined with astounding improvisational ingenuity, make him one of the most highly regarded and in-demand drummers. He also occasionally appears on piano, on his own recordings. His drumming style has been called unique by many; some see him not as a drummer but as a “percussionist, colourist and epigrammatic commentator mediating the shifting ensemble densities” in his groups. Though he is often content with his drumming remaining behind the music, “his drumming is always part of the music's internal construction.” Modern Drummer magazine, in a 2004 interview, called DeJohnette’s drumming “beyond technique.” While most of his drumming is considered free and flowing, he commented that he has to play with a lot of restraint when playing with Keith Jarrett and his trio, saying that he’s challenged when playing in that group “to play with the subtlety that the music requires.” His work on the cymbals especially has been described as “loose,” creating an almost free tempo, and he calls himself an “abstract thinker” when it comes to soloing, saying that he puts “more weight on the abstract than, ‘What were you thinking in bar 33?’ I don’t like to think that way. I can do it, but I like to be more in the flow.” In terms of what he feels when he plays, DeJohnette said that when he plays, he goes “into an altered state, a different headspace. I plug into my higher self, into the cosmic library of ideas.”
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