Obituary: Jack DeJohnette, musician

Jack DeJohnette made his name backing Miles Davis on the jazz-fusion classic Bitches Brew album, a high point in a six-decade-long musical career. Chicago born DeJohnette was a trained classical pianist with perfect pitch, who took up drums aged 14 with his high school band. A regular player in Chicago’s jazz clubs from his early teens, DeJohnette moved to New York in 1966 and three years later joined Davis’ live band. He was one of four drummers to play on the Bitches Brew sessions but was on all the subsequent live albums, helping to change the sound of modern jazz until departing in 1972. He received a Jazz Master Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012, which noted that DeJohnette had gone on to play with virtually every major jazz figure from the 1960s on, including longtime friend Keith Jarrett, Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Hancock. In addition to his own many projects and bands, he was a member of the Standards Trio, with Jarrett and Gary Peacock, for more than 25 years. He also won two Grammy Awards. DeJohnette died on October 26, aged 83. — Agencies/Allied Media