One of the greatest jazz drummers, Elvin Jones first came to international prominence with the groundbreaking John COLTRANE Quartet in the early 1960s. He was known for his powerful playing style and also for his characteristic time feels—incredibly complex and polyrhythmic, but also completely swinglike. Along with drummer Tony WILLIAMS, who played with the Miles DAVIS group, Jones was largely responsible for creating a new school of modern jazz drumming built on the traditions of the bebop masters, and has influenced all subsequent generations of modern jazz, rock, and avant-garde players.
Jones was born in 1927 in Pontiac, Michigan, into a musical family that included brothers Hank (a well-known jazz pianist) and Thad (trumpeter, composer, arranger, and conductor best known for the Mel Lewis-Thad Jones Big Band). Elvin began showing up on the nearby Detroit jazz scene in the 1940s, performing at the famed Bluebird club, and worked with various leaders throughout the 1950s, including greats such as Sonny ROLLINS and Bud POWELL.
In 1960, Jones teamed up with saxophonist John Coltrane. Along with the other members of the Coltrane Quartet—McCoy TYNER on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass—he now set about changing the concepts and musical vocabulary of jazz forever.
Jones’s drum style was based on his polyrhythmic conception of time—the beat was stated, solid, and swinging, but with a highly elastic quality. He used cross-rhythms and multiple time signatures to great effect, within the solid framework of swinging, post-bop jazz. Some called his approach “circular,” in that every beat got an even amount of emphasis (either every beat got an accent, or no beat got an accent). The sound was modern in its complexity, yet primal in its use of tribal rhythms and 3 over 4 feels. Jones’s use of triplets played “through the kit” (alternating between hands and feet) has been appropriated by succeeding generations of drummers of all styles. Jones’s concept of solo drumming and distinctive drum tuning is also of note. He was one of the few true “melodic” drum soloists, basing his improvisations on melodic as well as rhythmic ideas and working around the structure of a tune, similar to the method used by a jazz horn player or vocalist. The music was based on a formidable technique that he developed, the most significant in modern drumming, anchored in traditional snaredrum technique overlaid with independence playing among his four limbs.
Jones worked with many jazz artists following his days with the Coltrane Quartet, but he spent much of the time performing with groups under his own direction. In the late 1970s, his piano-less trio featured George Coleman on tenor saxophone and Wilbur Little on bass. Later, he concentrated on his own band, The Jazz Machine, which featured a revolving line-up of musicians and fluctuated in size between trio and quintet formats.
Key Elvin Jones recordings include works with the Coltrane group, particularly on live recordings from the early 1960s where he played with a liberating abandon. He also recorded material from his own groups, Skyscrapers (Volumes 1–4) and Earth Jones.
Jones proved that he was equally at home in a range of musical situations, from straight swing and bebop to cutting-edge modern jazz and experimental music. In the liner notes to Earth Jones (1982), Lee Jeske describes Jones’s contribution to modern drumming in the following glowing terms: “The words ’genius’ and legend’ are bandied about too much when it comes to jazz. Similarly, the term ’innovator’ is applied to nearly everyone who can dot an eighth note. Yet these adjectives all fit the percussive abilities of Elvin Jones like the proverbial glove.”
Gregg Juke
SEE ALSO:
HARD BOP; JAZZ; MODAL JAZZ; ROCK MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Gitler, I. “Playing the Truth: Elvin Jones” (Down Beat, vol. xxxvi, no. 20, 1969, p. 12);
Taylor, Arthur, ed. Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews (London: Quartet, 1983).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Brother John; John Coltrane: The Paris Concert; Art Pepper: The Trip.