Elvin Jones

Elvin began playing professionally in the 1940s, working with the Army Special Services program, Operation Happiness, and in 1949 had a short-lived gig in Detroit's Grand River Street club. Eventually he went on to play with artists such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Wardell Gray. In 1955, after a failed audition for the Benny Goodman band, he found work in New York, joining Charles Mingus's band, and releasing a record called J is for Jazz.

In 1960, he joined with the classic John Coltrane Quartet, which also included bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner.

Jones and Coltrane often played extended duet passages, both giving and taking energy through their instruments. This band is widely considered to have redefined "swing" (the rhythmic feel of jazz) in much the same way that Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker et al did during earlier stages of jazz's development.

He stayed with Coltrane until 1966. By that time, Jones was not entirely comfortable with the direction Coltrane was moving in and his polyrhythmic style clashed with the "multidirectional" approach of the group's second drummer, Rashied Ali.

After leaving the Coltrane group, Jones played with Duke Ellington, and eventually formed his own touring group. Jazz Machine, normally a quintet, continued in the same musical direction. His sense of timing, polyrhythms, dynamics, timbre, and legato phrasing - as well as the sheer mass of sound he produced - brought the drumset to the fore. Jones was touted by Life Magazine as "the world's greatest rhythmic drummer", and his free-flowing style was a major influence on many leading rock drummers, including Mitch Mitchell (whom Jimi Hendrix called "my Elvin Jones") and Ginger Baker.

In 1999, Jones worked with Our Lady Peace, to punt out their album Happiness...Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch.

Jones, who taught regularly, often took part in clinics, played in schools, and gave free concerts in prisons. His lessons emphasized music history as well as drumming technique. Elvin Jones died of heart failure in Englewood, New Jersey on May 18, 2004. He is survived by his first wife, Shirley Jones and his second, albeit common-law wife, Keiko Jones (Elvin married Keiko before divorcing Shirley, meaning that legally he and Keiko were not married).

John Coltrane: Sun Ship

Read "Sun Ship" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 14, 2023

Why is a 180-gram vinyl reissue of John Coltrane's Sun Ship, remastered from the original tapes, important? If you are old enough, you'll remember the advent of the compact disc. After the CD was introduced in the 1980s, listeners abandoned their vinyl collections in favor of the promise of this new technology which was free from the nasty clicks and pops their LPs delivered. What they gave up in the name of cleanliness did come at a cost, and we're ...

Album Review

John Coltrane: Evenings At The Village Gate

Read "Evenings At The Village Gate" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
July 14, 2023

All music is, as are all our greater gestures and pursuits--poetry, painting, literature, sculpture, dance--spiritual by nature. An outreach by the artist and thus, by extension, us, beyond the daily argot of the ordinary. But sometimes those instances are so far and in-between, so masked by the lawlessness of the present moment, that our higher selves are forgotten, or worse, denied. And sometimes the music is downright holy. Welcome to the church known as the Village Gate. Welcome ...

Album Review

Ornette Coleman: New York Is Now & Love Call Revisited

Read "New York Is Now & Love Call Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
July 13, 2023

Verso la fine degli anni Sessanta, il jazz deve combattere una battaglia impari contro il mondo del nuovo rock, sviluppatosi dopo l'anno del flower power e dell'influsso dei nuovi gruppi inglesi negli USA. Il pubblico è attratto dalle insorgenti fusioni stilistiche--che Miles Davis intercetta con genialità--ed evita con indifferenza il mainstream e ancor più la durezza dell'avanguardia legata al free jazz. Anche la figura cristallina di Ornette Coleman non se la passa troppo bene, tra difficoltà discografiche e ...

Extended Analysis

A Supreme Love

by Duncan Heining
July 10, 2023

Alan Skidmore is one of the finest saxophonists to come out of the United Kingdom, Europe or indeed anywhere. In fact, it was hearing Skidmore's tenor solo on “Have You Heard?" from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (Decca, 1966) that encouraged a young Michael Brecker to take up the instrument. Skidmore had also served his apprenticeship with blues singer Alexis Kornerin the sixties and by the end of the decade was equally well-versed in the blues and in the ...

Album Review

John Coltrane: Evenings At The Village Gate

Read "Evenings At The Village Gate" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 7, 2023

It is important to emphasize, at the outset of this review, that Evenings At The Village Gate is a John Coltrane album of headline significance. Recorded during a four-week run at the New York City club in August and September 1961, the disc is a snapshot of Coltrane partway through the most momentous year of his development. He is in incandescent form from start to finish, leading an astounding sextet completed by multi-reedist Eric Dolphy, pianist McCoy Tyner, twin bassists ...

Liner Notes

John Coltrane: Song Of Praise: New York 1965 Revisited

by Mark Corroto
January 18, 2023

Witness [ wit-nis ] an individual who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing; a beholder, spectator, or eyewitness. Have you ever considered yourself a witness to history? If you answered in the affirmative, let me posit that it was only after time and reflection that this notion occurred to you. Did the soldiers standing in the mud and muck at the Somme during the Great War in 1916 comprehend the significance of the moment? And more ...

Reassessing

Momentum Space

by Dan McClenaghan
December 27, 2022

Momentum Space was released in 1999 on Verve Records. Considering the players--saxophonist Dewey Redman, pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Elvin Jones--the album didn't make much of a splash. Reviews were mixed, leaning toward the dismissive. Taylor was 70 at the time. Jones was in his early 70s and saxman Redman was in his late 60s. Taylor was widely considered a genius of free jazz, or a madman who was going out there on the bandstand and jiving us--the ...

Recording

Alfredo Dias Gomes Releases 'Tributo A Elvin Jones,' In Honor Of The Legendary Jazz Drummer

Source: Alfredo Dias Gomes
March 16, 2024

Accompanied by a respected team of musicians (Jessé Sadoc, trumpet and flugelhorn; David Feldman, piano; Jefferson Lescowich, acoustic bass), Rio de Janeiro drummer Alfredo Dias Gomes released Tributo a Elvin Jones. Recorded in his home studio with sound engineer Thiago Kropf, the album arrived on digital platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Amazon and YouTube Music) on March 1st. “The fascination with Elvin Jones’ style is longstanding,” says Gomes. “The first time I saw him play was on a VHS video ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Elvin Jones

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Elvin Jones' birthday today!

Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer. He was born in Pontiac, Michigan, the youngest child in a family of ten. His father worked for General Motors. Two of Jones' brothers were also jazz musicians: Hank (piano), and Thad (trumpet/flugelhorn). Elvin began playing professionally in the 1940s, working with the Army Special Services program, Operation Happiness, and in 1949 had a short-lived gig in Detroit's Grand River Street club. Eventually he ...
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Recording

Elvin Jones: Revival - Live at Pookie's Pub

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 19, 2022

Pookie's Pub was a mousey Manhattan club at Hudson and Dominick Streets in an area known since 1962 as SoHo—the area south of Houston Street and ending at Canal Street. Located at the base of a narrow, four-story brick building built in 1900, the venue in 1967 was on the moon, so to speak. Back then, as live electric rock and soul surged and thrived in Greenwich Village, live jazz by non-marquee groups was pushed to the far corners of ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Elvin Jones

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Elvin Jones' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Elvin Jones

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Elvin Jones' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Elvin Jones

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Elvin Jones' birthday today!

Video / DVD

Thad, Hank and Elvin Jones

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 12, 2020

It's not surprising that Thad Jones, Hank Jones and Elvin Jones were jazz musicians. What is astonishing is that all three were exceptional, each with a distinctive and accomplished playing and recording career. By my count, the three brothers recorded together four times, on Keeping Up With the Joneses (1958), Herb Geller's Gypsy (1959) and Elvin Jones's And Then Again (1965) and Midnight Walk (1966). The first album was their best. Recorded for Metrojazz, an MGM subsidiary, in May 1958, ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Elvin Jones

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Elvin Jones' birthday today!

Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer. He was born in Pontiac, Michigan, the youngest child in a family of ten. His father worked for General Motors. Two of Jones\' brothers were also jazz musicians: Hank (piano), and Thad (trumpet/flugelhorn). Elvin began playing professionally in the 1940s, working with the Army Special Services program, Operation Happiness, and in 1949 had a short-lived gig in Detroit\'s Grand River Street club... Read more. ...
read more