As news of the death of Jack DeJohnette on October 26th, 2025, reaches us, it seemed fitting to share our take on some iconic albums he played on. We’d love to hear yours in the comments.
Drummer Jack DeJohnette’s remarkable career as one of jazz’s most innovative musicians and composers spans more than five decades, producing an extraordinary catalogue that helped shape the genre’s evolution.
From his groundbreaking work with Miles Davis on albums like Bitches Brew to his extensive leadership of ECM recording projects, DeJohnette has demonstrated a unique ability to blend traditional jazz with avant-garde exploration, fusion and world music influences.
His discography reveals a master craftsman who has released over three dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, moving fluidly between free improvisation, jazz-rock fusion and atmospheric piano-driven works.
DeJohnette’s adaptable style made him equally at home in Charles Lloyd’s expansive compositions, Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio, and his own experimental Golden Beams label releases.
Understanding DeJohnette’s essential recordings means examining both his cornerstone solo works and his transformative collaborations with jazz legends.
His influence extends far beyond drumming technique, encompassing his roles as composer, bandleader and musical innovator who consistently pushed jazz into new territory while maintaining deep respect for its roots.
The Bandleader: Cornerstone Albums from Jack DeJohnette’s Career
DeJohnette’s leadership discography charts his evolution from ECM’s experimental landscape to more personal explorations of groove, world music and ambient textures.
These four albums highlight his compositional depth and his talent for assembling ensembles that expanded jazz’s creative possibilities.
Special Edition (1979)
DeJohnette launched his Special Edition project in the late 1970s as his primary creative vehicle on ECM Records. It became his longest-running group endeavour, spanning more than a decade of boundary-pushing recordings.
The ensemble featured rotating line-ups of exceptional musicians including David Murray, Arthur Blythe, John Purcell and Peter Warren. These collaborations produced some of DeJohnette’s most harmonically adventurous work.
The music blended post-bop sensibilities with avant-garde freedom, world music textures and carefully structured composition. DeJohnette’s drumming anchored the ensemble’s exploratory tendencies while encouraging individual expression within collective improvisation.
The resulting albums established him as a bandleader of major artistic stature — not just a sideman to legends.
Tin Can Alley (1981)
This ECM release represents DeJohnette at a creative peak as both composer and drummer. The Special Edition ensemble is in particularly inspired form here.
David Murray and Arthur Blythe provide contrasting saxophone voices, creating a vibrant interplay between structured themes and freer passages. The title track demonstrates DeJohnette’s rhythmic sophistication, supporting evolving melodic ideas with intricate yet fluid grooves.
The recording reflects ECM’s hallmark spacious production, allowing each instrument to inhabit a clear sonic space within the ensemble sound. Critics praised the album for balancing accessibility with creative risk — a defining quality of early 1980s creative jazz.
Parallel Realities (1990)
This album marked DeJohnette’s collaboration with Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock, forming a short-lived but remarkable trio.
“Dancing” became one of his most recognisable compositions, showcasing his pointillistic cymbal work against Metheny’s shimmering guitar textures. Each track explores a different ensemble configuration, demonstrating DeJohnette’s remarkable adaptability.
The album bridges his ECM experimental period with later ventures into broader fusion and world-music-inflected projects, capturing his playing at a moment of confident expansion.
Made in Chicago (2015)
DeJohnette returned to his AACM roots with this celebrated reunion project, reconnecting with the experimental collective that shaped his early years.
The recording features long-time associates Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams and Larry Gray — musicians whose shared history stretches back to Chicago’s creative music scene of the 1960s.
Here, DeJohnette balances the exploratory energy of his youth with seasoned musical wisdom. Critics praised the album for authentically reflecting AACM values while demonstrating the vitality of veteran improvisers. It stands as both a retrospective statement and a forward-looking artistic document.
The Collaborator: Jack DeJohnette Masterpieces
Many of DeJohnette’s most celebrated recordings emerged through long-term collaborations with jazz legends, especially Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock.
These projects helped define modern jazz performance and solidified his reputation as one of the most sensitive and imaginative drummers of his generation.
Keith Jarrett Trio
The Keith Jarrett Trio — later known as the Standards Trio — became one of jazz’s most enduring ensembles. Beginning in 1983, DeJohnette joined pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Gary Peacock to reinterpret the jazz standards repertoire with extraordinary subtlety and invention.
Their ECM recordings, including Standards, Vol. 1 and Standards, Vol. 2, reveal DeJohnette at his most understated. His brushwork and cymbal textures created space and lift, complementing Jarrett’s lyrical piano playing and Peacock’s elegant bass lines.
While Jarrett’s Köln Concert is a solo recording, the trio’s live and studio output would go on to achieve its own iconic status, defining a chamber-jazz aesthetic that influenced countless piano trios.
Miles Davis Sessions
DeJohnette joined Miles Davis in 1968 as part of the so-called “Lost Quintet” alongside Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea and Dave Holland. Though the group was never officially recorded in the studio, it became legendary for its live performances and for establishing the rhythmic vocabulary that would drive Davis’s electric period.
His most significant contribution came on Bitches Brew (1970), one of the most famous jazz albums of all time. DeJohnette’s loose, polyrhythmic drumming helped shape the fusion sound of the era, bridging rock energy with open-form improvisation. His inventive approach remains a touchstone for modern drummers.
Herbie Hancock Projects
DeJohnette’s collaborations with Herbie Hancock span several decades and a wide stylistic range, from acoustic to electric. Their most high-profile partnership appears on Parallel Realities, where Hancock and Metheny join DeJohnette for a set of ambitious, genre-blurring compositions.
Their musical rapport — built over years of shared performances — highlights DeJohnette’s gift for matching harmonic sophistication with rhythmic fluidity. These recordings demonstrate how two master improvisers can stretch each other while maintaining clarity and form.
DeJohnette’s Legacy and Influence on Modern Jazz
Jack DeJohnette’s revolutionary approach to rhythm redefined what a jazz drummer could be.
Rather than simply keeping time, he pioneered a multidirectional concept of drumming — interacting melodically and dynamically with every element of the music.
His Impact on Jazz Drumming
DeJohnette fused rock and funk grooves with the sophistication of post-bop improvisation, creating a flexible and elastic rhythmic language. His work with Miles Davis in the late 1960s established a new model for interactive rhythm sections in jazz.
His innovations include:
- Pointillist cymbal textures that made rhythms shimmer and breathe
- Full-kit melodic phrasing that blurred the line between timekeeping and soloing
- Rhythmic permutations combining the elegance of Tony Williams with the fire of Elvin Jones
This fluidity became essential for modern jazz drummers working across multiple styles.
Mentorship and Collaborations
DeJohnette’s collaborative spirit also made him a mentor to younger generations.
Through the AACM, he helped foster experimental music in Chicago, and in later decades he worked with artists such as Ravi Coltrane, Matthew Garrison and Michael Brecker, offering real-world learning through performance and recording.
His decades with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock created a model of trio interplay that has influenced countless piano trios. Even into his later years, projects like Made in Chicago showed his unwavering commitment to creative music.
Remembering Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette’s discography reflects the history of modern jazz itself: rooted in tradition, alive to innovation, and constantly evolving.
From Special Edition and Bitches Brew to the Standards Trio and AACM reunions, his career traces the path of an artist who never stopped pushing musical boundaries.
His legacy isn’t just in the notes he played but in the way he reimagined the drummer’s role — as a full, equal voice in the musical conversation.
What are your favourite albums or memories? Feel free to share in the comments below.