E-Mail This Article to a Friend Talking about Elvin (continued)

Maybe that’s why Gullotti hesitates to place Elvin in any particular genealogy. "You can talk about the tree of jazz, but Elvin isn’t another limb on the tree, he’s a different trunk. Elvin’s technique came from what he heard. He listened to Sid Catlett, and so some of that’s there, but Elvin’s conception of comping — no one did it that way. You could say the lineage from Max Roach to Alan Dawson to Tony Williams is very clear. But Elvin came from another planet."

Schuller offers that in the ’60s, Elvin and the young virtuoso Williams were the two big influences: Williams aggressively on top of the beat, always pushing it with his relentless ride-cymbal strokes and fast patterns in the snare and kick drum, Elvin with his all-over propulsion and relaxation. "In a sense, Elvin was a throwback. I don’t know if other drummers would agree with me on that — but I think in a way he’s closer to Jo Jones and Sonny Greer and even Gene Krupa. That’s why he could fit in with Ellington. When he quit Coltrane, he joined Ellington right away and went to Europe with him, and he played with Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines."

Liebman, who had seen the Coltrane band many times as a teenager in New York City, had to learn not only to relax but to also adapt to the many sides of Elvin’s approach. "Although he could be very intense, he took his time getting there if he got there at all. He was a real storyteller. You might come up and be ready to burn the building by the first chorus, but that doesn’t mean he was. He would just keep a very mellow or middle level of intensity of volume, and if you opened up, you’d have to earn it."

Lovano, who first sat in with Elvin as a 21-year-old in Cleveland, says, "He was a total natural player and reacted to every gesture you made. If you played a certain note and moved your horn or your body a certain way, he would accent with you. He had an amazing awareness of every second that was happening, not only in the music you were playing but in who was playing and what was going on. And that’s why on every record that you hear him on, no matter who he’s playing with, there’s a beautiful communication, a joyous feeling.

"That’s why you could play such extended solos with him. Because there was a constant dialogue. There was never a repeat. He never went back; it was always moving forward. He made all the colors that happened in the harmonies come through. And that’s why you could play with Elvin whether it was a duet setting or a trio without piano or other chordal instruments. He could make the changes happen no matter what was going on."

Lovano says he wasn’t necessarily intimidated on that first meeting with Elvin back in 1974 — he had grown up learning saxophone from his father, Tony "Big T" Lovano. "I learned how to play sitting in with that generation. My dad was born in 1925, Elvin was born in 1927. I knew where they were coming from." They started with the standard "Yesterdays," and Lovano remembers Elvin getting up from behind the drums just before the music started. "He got right up close to my face and said, ‘Don’t mess me up now.’ " Lovano laughs at the memory. "Because he knew my father and he knew who I was, but he didn’t know how I played really."

And what did Lovano take away from the experience? "When you play with someone like that that you admire and learned how to play from your whole life, you just stand taller. As an improviser, you’re on edge all the time, you’re trying to create music with people. And that’s what Elvin was about, he was about stretching out and really exploring the music. So you come away with a different kind of confidence. All of a sudden, you’ve been somewhere."

Lovano touches on another common theme: Elvin’s generosity of spirit. There are plenty of stories about cantankerous bandleaders. Charles Mingus comes easily to mind; so does Buddy Rich (who by Lovano’s account Elvin loved), and Benny Goodman was apparently no picnic. But you never hear a discouraging word about Elvin as bandleader or man. (There is the famous story from his early, wild years, when he borrowed Coltrane’s car and wrecked it. When he apologized, so the story goes, Coltrane responded: "I can always get another car, but I can’t get another Elvin Jones.") He came from a generation when it was customary to let other players sit in. Lovano, who went on to make his 1998 album Trio Fascination with Elvin and bassist Dave Holland, says his experience sitting in with Elvin wasn’t all that unusual. "Elvin liked to play with folks, and he wanted to hear people all the time. So if you had a mind to approach him, you could." Lovano adds, "He was one of the most generous, honest, beautiful people you could meet."

"The main thing with Elvin was his joy of life," Liebman says, "the love he gave to the world through his instrument. And of course playing with him, you were the first one to receive it."