Jack DeJohnette, Renowned Jazz Drummer Who Played on Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew,’ Dead at 83

Jack DeJohnette, the renowned jazz drummer who played in Miles Davis’ electric period band, died on Sunday at the age of 83.

Joan Clancy, DeJohnette’s assistant, confirmed the musician’s death to Rolling Stone, adding that the cause was congestive heart failure. “He was very comfortable and at peace,” Clancy tells Rolling Stone. “He was surrounded by his wife, Lydia, family, and friends. He was an NEA Jazz Master, and his legacy will go on for generations.” 

The Chicago-born DeJohnette spent his childhood playing piano before moving to drums at the age of 18, ultimately creating a legacy of recordings that landed him at Number 40 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time list.

“That relatively late start didn’t hold him back: an early stint with Chicago avant-garde institution the Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians led to live work with John Coltrane and a position in Charles Lloyd’s chart-topping quartet,” Rolling Stone wrote of DeJohnette.

After performing in groups led by saxophonists Jackie McLean, Stan Getz and Joe Henderson (including appearing on the latter’s 1969 LP Power to the People) and a stint in the Bill Evans Trio — as featured on the Grammy-winning 1969 album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival — DeJohnette was enlisted to join Miles Davis’ group for a fruitful stretch in that jazz legend’s career.

In 1969, DeJohnette replaced Tony Williams as drummer in Davis’ band just as the trumpeter was about to embark on his “electric period.” Joined by saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland, that formation with Davis was later dubbed the Lost Quintet as they never actually recorded in the studio together, but played a now-legendary run of European shows together, as captured on 2013’s Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2.

In the studio, DeJohnette and a larger ensemble accompanied Davis as he began to explore the jazz-rock genre, resulting in albums like his 1970 masterpiece Bitches Brew and — later, after DeJohnette had already exited the group — Circle in the Round and Big Fun. DeJohnette also played on a portion of “Yesternow” off Jack Johnson, as well as Davis’ jazz-funk LP On the Corner, which marked DeJohnette’s last recordings with Davis.

DeJohnette’s stint with Davis and his ever-changing lineups of the time also include live albums from 1970 concerts from both the Fillmore East and Fillmore West, a 1969 gig from the Newport Folk Festival documented on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4, and Davis’ jazz-fusion live/studio classic Live-Evil.

“It was great to play with Miles, because Miles loved the drums,” DeJohnette explained to Jazz.com in 2009. “Everything came from the drums. He liked boxing, he was a big boxing fan, and he saw drums in jazz as having similar aspects.”

Following his tenure with Davis, DeJohnette spent the Seventies in groups led by Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, and Freddie Hubbard, as well as embarking on his own lengthy career as a bandleader that began with 1969’s The DeJohnette Complex. Other notable LPs include his Gateway albums alongside Dave Holland and guitarist John Abercrombie, 1992’s Music for the Fifth World, and 1992’s genre-shift Peace Time, which was awarded the Grammy for Best New Age Album.

As Rolling Stone noted of DeJohnette in the Greatest Drummers list, “As a bandleader and composer, DeJohnette fuses all that he’d learned — A.A.C.M.-honed experimentation, Coltrane’s integrity, Davis’s pugilistic groove — with his own innate knack for turning a memorable tune.”