Twenty-six years old when this album was recorded in 1968, Jack DeJohnette had already been in the bands of Bill Evans and Jackie McLean, had been essential to the success of the Charles Lloyd group, and was working with Stan Getz. He was about to replace Tony Williams in the most influential combo in jazz, that of Miles Davis. As can be clearly heard in The DeJohnette Complex, the drummer was perfectly aligned with Davis’s restless compulsion to move the music away from the traditional and the expected. His compositions and the musicians he chose to improvise on them were adventurous and unconventional. In addition to drums, DeJohnette is heard here on the Melodica, with Roy Haynes providing the percussion.

with Bennie Maupin, Stanley Cowell, Miroslav Vitous, Roy Haynes, Eddie Gomez